Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad: The Bessemer Road

Last revised: September 15, 2026

The Bessemer & Lake Erie, The Bessemer Road. It was a conveyor: iron ore south from Lake Erie at Conneaut, Ohio, coal north from the Pittsburgh district. The first trains ran in October 1869 on a Mercer County coal road. Andrew Carnegie bought the map in 1897 so his mills would not live on the Pennsylvania’s rates. United States Steel took Carnegie in 1901 and ran the Bessemer next to Minnesota’s Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range for a century. Canadian National closed on Great Lakes Transportation on May 10, 2004. The name is still on paper. Reporting mark BLE. The trains are CN’s Bessemer Subdivision.

Bessemer and Lake Erie SD9 839 SD18 857 and SD38AC 868 at North Bessemer Pennsylvania September 4 1979

From right to left; Bessemer & Lake Erie SD9 #839, SD18 #857, and SD38AC #868 at North Bessemer, Pennsylvania on September 4, 1979. Warren Calloway photo.

On this page: At a glance · Bear Creek and the Shenango · Carnegie’s lake road · Ore south, coal north · The main and the branches · Steam · Diesels · Transtar, Great Lakes, CN · What remains

At a glance

The Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad logo. Author’s work.

Item	Detail
Headquarters	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (historic)
States	Pennsylvania and Ohio (Conneaut Harbor)
Genesis	Bear Creek Railroad, chartered March 20, 1865
First trains	Shenango–Pardoe, October 1869
Carnegie company	Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie, 1897
Bessemer & Lake Erie name	1900, 999-year lease of the PB&LE
U.S. Steel	1901, with Carnegie Steel
Dates of operation	October 1869–present (CN paper subsidiary from May 10, 2004)
Gauge	4 feet 8½ inches
Route-miles (1930)	204.7. Peak plant about 224 route-miles / 597 miles of track
Slogan / mark	The Bessemer Road / BLE
Traffic (WWII start)	About 47 percent ore, 29 percent coal, the rest merchandise
South end	North Bessemer interchange with the Union Railroad
North end	Conneaut Harbor, Ohio. Nickel Plate rights from Wallace Junction into Erie
Sister ore road	Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range, same U.S. Steel family from 1901
CN	Great Lakes Transportation closed May 10, 2004. Bessemer Subdivision
Rosters	Steam (post-1900) · All-time diesel

1930 mileages follow the live operating table. Peak plant is Bert Pennypacker, Classic Trains, Winter 2000. Traffic split is the same article at the start of World War II. Information compiled September 15, 2026.

Bear Creek and the Shenango

The road did not begin as Carnegie’s. The Bear Creek Railroad took a Pennsylvania charter on March 20, 1865 to haul coal from a Mercer Mining & Manufacturing pit near Pardoe, north of Pittsburgh, to the Atlantic & Great Western—later an Erie predecessor. On April 9, 1867 it restyled itself the Shenango & Allegheny, aiming at a northern connection at Shenango, near Greenville. Shenango to Pardoe opened in October 1869.

History of Mercer County (1888) traces the slow southward push: Harrisville in July 1872, Hilliards in January 1876. In the early 1880s branches opened to more Mercer and Butler County mines. A short extension north from Shenango in March 1882 put trains into Greenville. The main reached Butler in 1883. One last piece before reorganization: in 1888 the road came to Amasa Crossing near Osgood, north of Greenville, and met the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. On February 11 of that reorganization year the Shenango & Allegheny became the Pittsburgh, Shenango & Lake Erie. Under that name it pushed beyond Osgood to Conneaut, Ohio, on Lake Erie.

Carnegie’s lake road

Andrew Carnegie needed ore that did not travel on the Pennsylvania. On April 8, 1896 the Butler & Pittsburgh Railroad was incorporated to take iron from Butler into the mill district. It opened to East Pittsburgh on October 27, 1897. That same year Carnegie chartered the Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie to take control of the Pittsburgh, Shenango & Lake Erie. The two pieces—lake to Butler, Butler to the mills—were the modern map.

In 1900 the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad took its lasting name and a 999-year lease of the Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie, itself the merger of the PS&LE and the Butler & Pittsburgh. In 1901 J. P. Morgan’s United States Steel bought Carnegie Steel. The Bessemer went with the mills. So did the Union Railroad, the mill terminal. In 1906 the B&LE leased, then sold, North Bessemer to East Pittsburgh to the Union Railroad. From that day the Bessemer’s south end was the North Bessemer interchange. The Union Railroad as a company is that page. The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie ran a different Pittsburgh-to-lake job, Youngstown and the Monongahela, not Conneaut.

Ore south, coal north

U.S. Steel already owned the Missabe. From 1901 the two roads and a lake fleet were one conveyor. Gus Welty, in the September 1957 Trains (“Assembly-Line Railroading Complete With 9,035 Hoppers And A Hotshot”), put the sequence on the page: ore cleaned and graded on the Missabe, dumped at the Lake Superior docks, moved by Pittsburgh Steamship across Superior, past Sault Ste. Marie, down Huron, through the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, and into Lake Erie to Conneaut. Hulett unloaders there put the mineral into B&LE hoppers—jennies—in the waterfront yard. Trains took it south to the mills. Coal came back north to the lake. Limestone moved too. At the start of the Second World War the split was about 47 percent ore, 29 percent coal, the rest merchandise. The Huletts left the Great Lakes in 1992. The dock work at Conneaut stayed with the Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Company, the Class III that came to CN in the same 2004 purchase.

Bessemer and Lake Erie F7 725 leading a string of hoppers on the main line in Pennsylvania circa 1955

A classic set of Bessemer & Lake Erie F7s, led by #725, leads a string of hoppers along the main line in Pennsylvania, circa 1955. Paul Penney photo.

The main and the branches

Official 1969 system map of the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad

An official, 1969 system map of the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad. Author’s collection.

Pennypacker put peak size at 224 route-miles, Conneaut to Bessemer, and 597 miles of track. The 1930 table is tighter: 204.7 route-miles. The main, Erie district to East Pittsburgh in that table, was 160.9 miles; after 1906 the mill throat belonged to the Union Railroad. The Conneaut Branch, Albion to the harbor, 15.7 miles, was the lake door. Three branches left the main: Hilliards, Branchton to Hilliards, 10.4 miles; Meadville, Meadville Junction to Meadville via Conneaut Lake Park, 15.6 miles; Kaylor, Hooker to Kaylor, about 18 miles. A short Linesville Branch ran Linesville to Meadville Junction. Erie, Pennsylvania, was not B&LE iron. Rights over the Nickel Plate from Wallace Junction, just north of Girard, put B&LE cars into town. That connection split north of Albion at NA Tower and Conneaut Junction.

Passenger trains ran, but they were never the point. The last one came off in 1955. After that the railroad was ore, coal, and the mills.

Steam

Heavy ore and coal wanted long engines. Baldwin delivered 2-10-2s as Class D-1a, 501–520, in 1916, and Class D-2a, 521–525, in 1919—twenty-five Santa Fes. Then came the machines the Bessemer is remembered for: forty-seven 2-10-4 Texas types, Class H-1a through H-1g, numbers 601–647, Baldwin and Alco, 1929–1944. Pennypacker called them the tough Texans. Some went to the Missabe when diesels arrived. The rest were off by 1954. Two survive. H-1g #643, Baldwin 1944, is at the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugarcreek, Ohio; that rescue is its own page. 2-8-0 #154 is indoors at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The class table is the steam roster.

Diesels

The Bessemer dieselized for the same reason it bought Texans: traction on dense trains. A Westinghouse 65-tonner, #281, arrived in 1936 for Erie yard work. Baldwin sold a DS-4-4-1000, DRS-6-6-1500s, and AS616s. Then Electro-Motive took the railroad. F7s handled the main in the 1950s. SD7s followed; the railroad learned that six motors were the answer and stayed there—SD9s, SD18s, SD38s, SD38ACs, SD38-2s, and later rebuilt tunnel motors. Six Alco RSD-15s, 881–886, came over from the Missabe. Steam was gone in 1953. The all-time table is the diesel roster.

New Bessemer and Lake Erie SD7 453 circa 1952

A new Bessemer & Lake Erie SD7, #453, seen here circa 1952. Paul Penney photo.

Bessemer and Lake Erie RSD15 886 at the engine terminal in Albion Pennsylvania August 1971

Bessemer & Lake Erie RSD15 #886 lays over at the engine terminal in Albion, Pennsylvania in August, 1971. These six-units, #881-886, were all transferred from sister road DM&IR. Richard Wallin photo.

Postcard of Bessemer and Lake Erie SD18 853 in Bicentennial livery circa 1976

A postcard of Bessemer & Lake Erie SD18 #853 wearing the road’s special Bicentennial livery circa 1976.

Transtar, Great Lakes, CN

In December 1988 U.S. Steel, then USX, moved its railroads into a subsidiary, Transtar, Inc. In 2001 the Bessemer and several sister short lines left the steel company entirely, sold to Great Lakes Transportation, LLC, a Blackstone vehicle. GLT held the Bessemer, the Missabe, the Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Company, and Great Lakes Fleet. Canadian National announced the purchase on October 20, 2003, $380 million. The Surface Transportation Board approved it in April 2004. CN closed on May 10, 2004.

Bessemer and Lake Erie ore train with three SD40T-3s southbound at Ivywood Pennsylvania August 28 2007

Seen here rolling through Ivywood, Pennsylvania, a Bessemer & Lake Erie ore train with three SD40T-3’s up front heads southward on August 28, 2007. Wade Massie photo.

What remains

CN still runs the old main as the Bessemer Subdivision: Conneaut Harbor to North Bessemer, ore and coal and stone, the Union Railroad still taking cars into the Mon Valley. The Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company remains a paper subsidiary. Locomotives began appearing in CN paint with BLE sublettering in April 2015. The 2007 photograph at Ivywood is already the CN years, tunnel motors on an ore extra, the name still on the train.

Two steam engines are left. #643 is the Age of Steam page. #154 is in Dearborn. The Missabe, bought in the same 2004 closing, is still the Minnesota half of the old U.S. Steel conveyor. The lake boats went with that deal too. Carnegie’s point was never a passenger timetable. It was a private haul from a Lake Erie dock to a mill, on a railroad that did not have to ask the Pennsylvania for a rate. That haul is still running. The lettering on the cab is CN’s.

Sources

History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania. 1888. Shenango & Allegheny southward openings: Harrisville July 1872, Hilliards January 1876
Pennypacker, Bert. “Tough Texans of the Bessemer.” Classic Trains, Winter 2000. Peak 224 route-miles / 597 track-miles; World War II traffic split; 2-10-4 fleet
Welty, Gus. “Assembly-Line Railroading Complete With 9,035 Hoppers And A Hotshot.” Trains, September 1957. Missabe–lake–Conneaut–B&LE ore conveyor; Huletts; hopper fleet
American-Rails.com, Union Railroad. Butler & Pittsburgh into East Pittsburgh October 27, 1897; B&LE 1900 lease; North Bessemer–East Pittsburgh to the Union Railroad 1906
American-Rails.com, B&LE steam and B&LE diesel rosters. D-1a 1916 / D-2a 1919; H-1 1929–1944 Baldwin and Alco; dieselization 1953; RSD-15s ex-DM&IR
American-Rails.com, B&LE 2-10-4 #643. Baldwin 1944; Age of Steam, Sugarcreek, August 5, 2019
Canadian National. “CN closes transaction to acquire rail and marine holdings of Great Lakes Transportation LLC.” May 10, 2004. B&LE, DM&IR, Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock, Great Lakes Fleet; $380 million; announced October 20, 2003

Facebook X Pinterest Tumblr Reddit WhatsApp Messenger