Extending southeast from Rochester to Geneva and Canandaigua with a trackage length of 78½ miles, its right-of-way exceeded that of the contemporaneous and nearby Auburn and Syracuse Railroad Company.

Initially, some ninety percent of the line's business was the haulage of passengers, and local merchants had to persuade the company, in 1841, to schedule one freight run a week.

'"[2] Henry Bicker Gibson,[3] a wealthy Canandaigua banker, provided the impetus and the direction, serving as a founder, an investor, and the president of the corporation.

Gentlemen: We shall be able to pass the whole distance, between Auburn and Rochester, without having any grade to exceed twenty-eight feet ascent or descent, per mile, and that without any very deep cuttings on the summits, or high embankments in the valleys.

The work throughout, will be of a plain and easy character, without any heavy rock excavation, or expensive river walling, and with as little perishable structure as perhaps any Road of the same extent in the United States.

The superstructure of bridges over the Erie and Seneca canals, the Seneca and Genesee rivers, and some others of minor importance, (the cost of the whole amounting to $19,190) in fact, constituting the only perishable part of the road; and allowing that this will require an expenditure equal to ten per cent per annum, on its cost, to renew and keep it in repair, will amount to $1,919 -- a mere nominal sum for repairs, on so great a work.

This permanency in the character of the work, will unquestionably be a consideration of great importance, with those who wish to have their money invested in stocks that will yield them an annual return of profits instead of having it consumed in continual repairs.

The character of the masonry, I have estimated to be of plain, rough, hammer dressed stone work, laid in quick lime mortar.

This is indicated by the fact, that the travel on the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, (which forms another link in this same chain) already requires the second track, to do the business of carrying passengers only; and the fact, that the Tonawanda Railroad, (from Rochester to Batavia) with its present accommodations, having only a single track, is inadequate to the business, although trains of cars run day and night.

The greatest objection to roads of this character, is the large amount of perishable materials used in their construction, as all the different kinds of timber that can be procured in sufficient size and quantities for rails, are not of a durable nature; and from their exposed situation near the surface of the ground they must decay very rapidly.

The sills may be of any timber of the country; being bedded in the earth, and remaining moist and free from the action of the atmosphere they will last for a great length of time.

There was, prior to 1848, no legal obligation to report accidents; company records show only a single snakehead incident, occurring in June 1848.

Because of pressure from local hotels, the only connection between the two railroads was a hack[note 1] trip, not an entirely pleasant experience for weary travelers, particularly in winter.

Not until the state legislature intervened was this resolved; the Tonawanda blinked first and extended its line to the Auburn terminal, abandoning its old station on Buffalo Street.

In 1992, a Cobblestone Railroad Pumphouse constructed about 1845 and located at the hamlet of Fishers in Ontario County, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.