[1] The railroad primarily served the grain elevators in present-day 'Silo City'[4] and adjacent area of Buffalo, including that of General Mills.

The site was advantageous due to its location on the Buffalo River and the eastern coast of Lake Erie.

[5] Before the re-dredging of the Welland Canal in the 1950s, access to Lake Ontario and points further east were limited to large ships coming from in the Midwestern United States.

As a consequence Buffalo hosted at one time the world's largest cereal packaging plants,[2] and offloaded, milled, and shipped grain across the eastern United States.

[2] In addition, the railroad owned a fleet of over 1,700 40-foot boxcars for transporting flour.