T.G.'s Photography Blog

  P048-24 passes the old West Shore RR bridge abutment on the south side of the Rochester Subdivision.   Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited (P048-24), led by AMTK 95 and AMTK 118 rolls east past an old West Shore bridge abutment to the west of Bonta Bridge Road . This abutment is on the south side of the tracks. The abutment on the north is also still standing but is hidden by trees from the road. The West Shore RR tracks crossed the NYC on a northeast-to-southwest alignment.  Photograph taken on January 24, 2023, at Town of Brutus, New York.

Along Bonta Bridge Road, in Brutus, New York, are remnants of the old West Shore Railroad (WS). The WS tracks crossed over Bonta Bridge Road and the New York Central Railroad tracks which the WS paralleled in the area. Today, the ex-NYC tracks are part of CSX's Rochester Subdivision. The NYC and the WS competed directly with each other between the New York City area and Buffalo, New York. When the WS fell on hard financial times it was taken over by the NYC, eventually making much of the WS' route unneeded. Bonta Bridge Road bridge abutment According to an old map of the WS that I found, on the east-west segment of the two railroads' routes across New York, the WS ran just to the south of the NYC from the Schenectady, New York, and Albany, New York areas to Syracuse, New York. At Syracuse, the WS tracks crossed over and ran to the north of the NYC tracks, before crossing back over to the south side of the NYC tracks at Brutus, New York. Looking north, the eastern abutment s...