Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad records

The origins of the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad lie date to 1851, when the City and its business community revived a dormant project to build a railway south from Rochester through Avon and Geneseo to Dansville. With the on-going consolidation of the existing east-west rail lines through Rochester (leading to the formation of the New York Central in 1853), and the concern of the city about possibly losing freight traffic to the nearly-completed New York and Erie across the Southern Tier, buiilding a railroad south to connect Rochester with the New York and Erie mainline seemed a necessity in maintaining Rochester's position as a center of trade. The company was chartered on June 7, 1851, and stock soon offered, but it sold poorly. To expedite the construction of the line, the City of Rochester invested $300,000 in the railway's stock, over half of the total cash investment. In doing so, the City hoped it would be able to control the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad, only to be disappointed when it was allowed to appoint just four of the twelve trustees.

With money now available for construction, work commenced on February 13. 1852 and the line was rapidly pushed southward. Due to the differing track gauges between the New York Central and the New York and Erie, the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad effectively had to choose to which line it would be subsidiary before construction could start. With the decision being to use the broad gauge of the New York and Erie, a lease agreement with the Erie was worked out and the first train to Rochester on the line left Avon in September of 1854. A new, 180-year lease was signed with the Erie in 1871, at the time of the reincorporation of the New York and Erie as the Erie Railroad, paying the stockholders a guaranteed 6 percent dividend on a capitalization of $555,200. The railroad continued operating under this lease agreement for decades, with the City of Rochester retaining its stock throughout. With the the Erie's 1885 acquisition of a right of way on the west bank of the Genesee River into downtown Rochester, the line finally gained a modern passenger station in 1887, located on Court Street. This building was demolished in 1941.

Following the financial reorganization of the Erie Railroad in 1940, the guaranteed dividend on the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad stock was lowered to 4 percent. Despite rumblings of Erie interest in outright purchase of the line in the late 1940s, the lease agreement and its guaranteed dividends would continue until 1976. In that year, the Erie Lackawanna Railroad (corporate successor to the Erie) declared bankruptcy and become one of the 7 major Eastern railway companies folded into ConRail. As part of the proceedings, the lease was cancelled and the court ordered the sale of the Rochester and Genesee Valley to ConRail. Four of the five directors' seats previously reserved for Rochesterians were turned over to ConRail. With these actions, the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad ceased to exist.