The Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway (reporting mark BR&P)[1] was one of the more than ten thousand railroad companies founded in North America.

By the middle of the 19th century, American industry had found the means of both utilizing the bituminous coal of western Pennsylvania and transporting it economically from the mines to those who needed it.

The immediate consequence was the need for a railroad line to haul coal from the hills of Pennsylvania to the cities of Rochester and Buffalo as well as the smaller towns and villages.

The great need of the coal-transportation market attracted aggressive competitors, and the laissez-faire environment of the day encouraged tactics that included paper railroads, buying and selling of corporations as though they were used cars, and financial manipulation by syndicates of investors.

The board then hired a highly qualified manager in George E Merchant, who had excelled as a division superintendent for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul, and Pacific.

Among the issues he faced upon beginning work in the head office in Rochester were several pending lawsuits against the R&SL and disputes arising from the shady land acquisition practices of the company's forebear.

[note 11] In 1882, through its subsidiary, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad, it extended its trackage south from Salamanca to reach the coal fields of Pennsylvania.

[note 16] The vigorous expansion of the railroad, including land acquisition, the employment of literally thousands of laborers, and the purchase of locomotives and freight and passenger cars, placed upon the Rochester and Pittsburgh a burden that its revenue and capitalization could not sustain.

That October, it emerged in the form of a new company called the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, a name which accurately reflected the physical reality of its route structure.

By the time the Rochester and Pittsburgh had inherited the R&SL motive power, the original eleven had aged quickly, the RS&L having spent little on maintenance.

Sitting approximately one hundred meters south of the original building, it was introduced to the public in a modest ceremony featuring Surrogate Judge Selden S Brown and businessman David Salyerds.

[13] At the time, the BR&P averaged some fifty freight crews operating out of Bradford, with the Erie, Pennsylvania, and short lines contributing their share.

The financial backer of the newly founded Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad, the banking house of Adrian Iselin,[15] owned not only an interest in the rail line but coal mines[16] and coke processing facilities.

The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway thrived on the haulage of heavy freight, primarily Pennsylvania coal, but its passenger service was characterized as "second to none".

[note 26] In its report for the year ending 30 June 1915, the New York State Public Service Commission observed that the BR&P had operated 13,877 passenger runs.

On the downhill part of one run one day on the Buffalo Division from Beaver to Hoyts, the pusher engineer did not keep up with the train ahead and saw it pull away from him with his drawhead hanging from the last car.

Since the third engine, the pusher, was lighter than the BR&P Mallet, it could push against the caboose rather than needing to be placed ahead of it, making it much easier and faster to detach from the train.

The other end of the line (at the time) was in Salamanca, where the company built a smaller facility, including a two-stall enginehouse, a turntable, and the Ramsey Transfer mechanism needed for interchange with the Erie.

The mine branches in the Punxsutawney area imposed their own burden on the BR&P repair capabilities, and shops were built at Elk Run, just to the north.

However, the company needed a major facility at which the biggest repairs could be done; at the time (1880s), the most serious work on locomotives required sending the engines back to their builders in Dunkirk and Rome.

A worn valve might pass sufficient steam to enable the locomotive to go through a roundhouse wall or door, drive into a turntable pit, or amble down the rail line, all on its own.

In April 1930, sparks from a crane ignited the roof of the older roundhouse at DuBois; the fire put the building out of operation until autumn, and the eleven locomotives inside suffered considerable damage.

The newspaper accounts, more graphic than is customary today, gave a blood-chilling picture of what happens to a man crushed in the wreckage and exposed to a continuous blast of live steam.

In April 1908, an engineer disregarded signals at Rock Glen, leading to a high-speed head-on collision on a curve with another locomotive one mile (1.6 km) north of the station.

In a more poignant incident in June 1900, engineer William Kation died in a head-on collision between two passenger trains that occurred right in front of his own home, on what was to have been his very last run before retiring.

The fireman was injured but survived; the engineer, who had worked for the line for forty-five years, was close to retirement, and had a reputation as a meticulous and careful worker, was crushed, scalded, and dismembered when the locomotive overturned.

The crew sent to retrieve the engine simply tied a set of rails onto the locomotive's 57-inch (1,400 mm) drivers and then rolled it upright onto a temporary roadbed, using three cranes.

The ICC now regulated the railroads with a tight grip,[note 36] and its view was that the B&O proposal to buy the BR&P would serve shippers better than would the D&H plan to lease the company's lines.

Because there were still shareholders with a minority interest in the company, the BR&P continued to exist through to the CSX era because of outstanding unclaimed shares of the railroad.

After an exhaustive search revealed no living heirs, payment was made, CSX became the sole owner of BR&P, and the company was merged on 21 December 2013.