Erie Railroad: Map, Passenger Trains, Logo, History
Last revised: September 20, 2026
By: Adam Burns
The Erie Railroad was the fourth way to Chicago, a sometimes forgotten competitor in the hotly contested market from New York to the Windy City. Its network was much smaller than the Pennsylvania, the New York Central, or the Baltimore & Ohio. It boasted a high-and-wide, double-tracked main line, a routing that would have been ideal for today’s intermodal business, and a right-of-way whose generous clearances were a leftover of six-foot gauge.
The company began in the industry’s earliest days and was, for a time, a dominant eastern carrier. As the twentieth century progressed, laden with debt and multiple reorganizations, it sought a merger partner and joined the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western as Erie Lackawanna on October 17, 1960.
Erie Railroad F3A #802 and other power layover at the engine terminal in Hammond, Indiana, on August 24, 1958. Photographer unknown. American-Rails.com collection.
On this page: At a glance · New York & Erie · Dunkirk, 1851 · Bankruptcy and the Erie War · Standard gauge and Chicago · Underwood · System map (1930) · 1938 and the war · Passenger trains · Erie Lackawanna · What remains
At a glance
The Erie Railroad logo. Author’s work.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Railroad | Erie Railroad. Mark ERIE. Slogan Serving The Heart Of Industrial America |
| Headquarters | New York City until 1931; Cleveland, Ohio (Midland Building) thereafter |
| States | New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois |
| Genesis | New York & Erie Rail Road, chartered April 24, 1832 |
| First trains | Piermont–Goshen, September 23, 1841 |
| Lake Erie | Piermont–Dunkirk opened May 14, 1851. 447 miles under one ownership |
| Dates | September 23, 1841–October 16, 1960. Erie Lackawanna October 17, 1960 |
| Gauge | 6 ft from the charter. Third rail Jersey City–Buffalo by late 1878. Outside broad-gauge rail up June 1880 |
| Route-miles | 2,736.67 (1930). About 2,341 (1950). Chicago–New York main 998 miles |
| Principal lines | Jersey City–Hornell–Marion–Chicago; Hornell–Buffalo; Marion–Dayton–Cincinnati; coal branches in northern Pennsylvania |
| Last steam | March 17, 1954. K-1 Pacific #2530, Jersey City from Spring Valley, N.Y. |
| Diesels, 1960 | 695. Freight cars 20,372. Passenger cars 519 |
| Successor | Erie Lackawanna |
| Rosters | Steam · Diesel |
Dates follow H. Roger Grant, Drury, and the 1850s/1880s hub pages. Information compiled September 19, 2026.
New York & Erie, and six-foot gauge
The classic Erie had a tumultuous corporate history that ran from the birth of the industry through the creation of Conrail in 1976. The company’s beginnings are thanks, in part, to the Erie Canal. Construction of that waterway began in 1817. It connected Albany on the Hudson with Buffalo, more than 360 miles, and opened October 26, 1825. Canals were regarded as the future of efficient transportation. They were also expensive, slower than a stagecoach, and frozen solid from roughly November through March. Railroads were already in development.
With the canal finished, New York’s Southern Tier—the block of counties along the Pennsylvania line from Delaware to Chautauqua—saw its economic fortunes eroding. Governor Enos Thompson Throop chartered the New York & Erie Rail Road on April 24, 1832, to connect Piermont on the Hudson with Dunkirk on Lake Erie. Railroading of that period was an odd, extremely selfish industry. Promoters and even state legislatures obsessed over the possibility that another might invade their territory. Interchange was frowned upon. The NY&E charter stipulated broad gauge, six feet, as a further step of interchange prevention, and the company was not allowed to lay rails outside its home state.
As the railroad pushed west it had no choice. The best grade through an otherwise rugged region ran through the northeastern tip of Pennsylvania, at Lackawaxen and Susquehanna, on the way to Binghamton. Construction began in 1836. Piermont to Goshen, about forty miles, opened September 23, 1841. The line continued west to Port Jervis, wound along the Delaware, and turned away at Deposit, New York, aiming for Binghamton.
In the process it built one of the great feats of American civil engineering, the Starrucca Viaduct at Lanesboro, Pennsylvania. Julius W. Adams and James P. Kirkwood designed a stone-arch structure spanning Starrucca Creek: 1,040 feet long, two tracks, opened 1848. It is a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. It still carries trains.
May 14, 1851
The NY&E opened to Binghamton in 1847, 207 miles from Piermont, and finished the 447-mile main in the spring of 1851. H. Roger Grant, in Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938–1992, has the first train of dignitaries over the whole system on April 22. The public opening to Dunkirk is May 14, 1851, with President Millard Fillmore and Daniel Webster in the party. The Erie was the jewel of New York: the only railroad then to boast a route of that length under common ownership.
A year later it acquired two small lines, the Paterson & Hudson River and the Paterson & Ramapo, to reach Jersey City via Suffern. At Jersey City the Erie built Pavonia Terminal on the Hudson, with ferry service into downtown Manhattan. Pavonia lasted until late 1958, when the railroad moved into the Lackawanna’s nearby and much larger Hoboken Terminal.
Erie’s train #7, the westbound Pacific Express (Jersey City–Chicago), makes its afternoon stop in Warren, Ohio, during the summer of 1949. William Rinn photo.
In some ways the opening of the original route proved the zenith. Further growth stalled. Competitors racing toward the Midwest—the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pennsylvania, and what later became the New York Central—passed it by. The original endpoints were of little value. Piermont did not develop into a market of any size. Dunkirk did not have a deep-water port. The company reached Buffalo in 1853, and nearby Rochester, by branches from the main stem. Chicago was still thirty years off.
Four bankruptcies, and the Erie War
In 1859 the company entered the first of four bankruptcies, emerging as the Erie Railway on June 25, 1861. The 1860s also witnessed a prolonged fight for control. In the so-called Erie War of 1867–68, Cornelius Vanderbilt of the New York Central fought Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and James Fisk, Jr., for stakes in the railroad. The settlement was announced July 2, 1868. Gould became president that October. During four years he did what he could to improve a shabby property and continue expansion west. He was fired in 1872. He had acquired control of the Atlantic & Great Western for a time; that Ohio road eventually joined the Erie system. The control fight has its own page. This one is the plant.
The road was again in receivership in the 1870s. It emerged as the New York, Lake Erie & Western in 1878. Hugh J. Jewett, president from 1874 through 1884, oversaw the conversion from six-foot to standard gauge. By then self-interest had waned. Any railroad hoping to enjoy a prolonged future had to interchange with its neighbors, competitors or otherwise. A third rail for standard-gauge cars ran Jersey City to Buffalo by late 1878. The outside broad-gauge rail came up in June 1880. The Atlantic & Great Western, Erie’s Ohio connection, converted the same month. Six-foot as a trunk-line idea was over. The generous clearances remained.
Ohio, then Chicago
The A&GW, after various leases and a reorganization as the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio, was under Erie control by 1883. That gave the road new markets throughout Ohio, including Akron, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. The last great expansion came the same year, when it acquired the Chicago & Atlantic Railway. The C&A had opened a 250-mile route from Marion, Ohio, to Hammond, Indiana. Trackage rights over the Chicago & Western Indiana provided access into Chicago and, later, Dearborn Station. Grant notes that the C&A was arguably the best-engineered route across Indiana, a fact later recognized throughout the industry: grade-separated in many locations, often yards apart, high and wide.
In 1884 new president John King (through 1894) oversaw the final hints of expansion by completing coal branches into northern and central Pennsylvania. That, for the most part, completed a network of 2,166 miles from Jersey City to Chicago, including all branches.
The panic of 1893 produced the third bankruptcy. The company was reorganized as the Erie Railroad. By then it was acquiring an increasing level of debt, further burdened by high interest rates. Those issues plagued the road throughout the twentieth century: limited borrowing power, and slighting names like the “Weary Erie,” with the statement that it ran from Nowhere-In-Particular to Nowhere-At-All. Things looked up after Frederick D. Underwood became president in 1900.
A former Erie PA-2, #863, works suburban service at Port Jervis, New York on November 11, 1960 during the very early Erie Lackawanna era. Richard Steinbrenner photo.
Underwood, the Van Sweringens, and a fast freight road
Underwood spent massively on infrastructure, including complete double-tracking of the Chicago main. The Indiana line was of particular interest. He purchased new locomotives, launched time freights to Chicago, avoided bankruptcy through innovative financing, and installed automatic block signals. He held the chair for twenty-five years. E. H. Harriman sat on the board. George H. Drury, in Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, puts the New York–Chicago route forty miles longer than the Central’s and ninety longer than the Pennsylvania’s, with no major grades except a couple of hills in western New York—Gulf Summit between Deposit and Susquehanna among them. Passenger trains on that route never numbered more than three each way, and they took four to eight hours longer than the Central and the Pennsy. Freight was another matter. John W. Barriger III said in the 1920s that no other railroad into Chicago had as easy grades as the Erie route.
During the 1920s the Van Sweringen brothers acquired the Erie. They saw the Chicago route as a great addition to a growing empire that also included the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Denver & Rio Grande Western, and the Pere Marquette, among others. They had likely intended to merge their eastern properties into one system, which would have rivaled the other eastern trunks. Both brothers died in the 1930s, so it is hard to tell how the Northeast map would have looked had they lived to carry the plan out.
In 1927 Underwood retired. The Van Sweringens appointed John J. Bernet, who had just finished a thorough upgrading of the Nickel Plate, to turn Erie into a fast freight road of the same kind. He found the company spending fifty percent more on locomotive maintenance than other roads, weeded out the oldest 2-8-0s, and ordered Berkshires. That story is the steam roster.
System map (1930)
An official 1930 system map of the Erie Railroad. Author’s collection.
January 18, 1938
The Depression began a long road of decline. A fourth bankruptcy was filed January 18, 1938. The company emerged December 22, 1941, still the Erie Railroad. Robert E. Woodruff became president in 1939 and took the road through the war. Wartime traffic and the profits it brought enabled the company to pay down much of its long-term debt. It also bought diesels and retired maintenance-intensive steam. The Erie had recognized the diesel early: Alco-GE-Ingersoll-Rand boxcabs in the 1920s, then a hard push through the 1940s and 1950s. Last steam was K-1 Pacific 2530 on March 17, 1954, a commuter run into Jersey City from Spring Valley. The locomotives are the roster pages.
Serving The Heart Of Industrial America was a good company with a competitive main line, high and wide, devoid of clearance impediments thanks to the broad-gauge heritage. The industry’s leading railroads recognized that status, despite the financial woes. As the 1950s progressed, recognition was of little consolation. The road worked to offset traffic losses by encouraging industrial development along the property and launched trailer-on-flatcar service in July 1954. The late-era Erie operated a little over 2,300 route-miles. The Chicago–New York main was 998 miles.
A pair of Erie’s new E8As, led by #823, lead a special fan trip celebrating the railroad’s centennial at Middletown, New York, in the spring of 1951. Marvin Cohen photo.
Freight was anthracite and general merchandise, perishables and expedited movements. The few feeder branches proved both a blessing and a curse. The lack of on-line traffic hurt. After the war the same thin branches were an advantage: superfluous secondary corridors helped bring down many Northeastern and New England roads. As freight evaporated, thousands of miles of that trackage became redundant. The Lehigh Valley, the Reading, the Boston & Maine, and the New Haven all went bankrupt. Realizing the wartime boom had been a mirage, the Erie began informal talks with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western in 1954.
A former Erie S2, #522, and an F3A are seen here at Hammond, Indiana during the early Erie-Lackawanna era on March 31, 1964. Roger Puta photo.
Passenger trains
Passenger service was respectable and could not compete on time. A schedule of around twenty-four hours New York–Chicago stood against the sixteen-hour flies of the Central and the Pennsylvania. The flagship was the Erie Limited, Jersey City with Buffalo and Chicago: Pullman parlor-buffets, deluxe coaches, dining service, sleepers. The Lake Cities connected Jersey City with Cleveland, Buffalo, and Chicago. The Pacific Express and Atlantic Express were the Jersey City–Chicago pair. The Midlander covered the same route. The Southern Tier Express ran Buffalo–Hornell–Jersey City. The Mountain Express was Jersey City–Hornell.
October 17, 1960
The Lackawanna had been a finely managed property and, until the Depression, earned handsome profits. To cut losses the two launched joint operations. On October 13, 1956, the Erie began using Hoboken for commuters and finished closing Pavonia on December 12, 1958. From 1957 they shared track between Binghamton and Gibson, New York, on the Erie main. On September 10, 1956, studies opened on a three-way merger of Erie, DL&W, and the Delaware & Hudson. On April 13, 1959, the D&H dropped out. The other two continued.
The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the union on September 13, 1960. The Erie-Lackawanna Railroad began operations on October 17, 1960, with 3,031 miles. What happened next—Von Willer and Shoemaker, William White, Dereco, Hurricane Agnes, Chessie’s labor failure, Conrail on April 1, 1976, and the Santa Fe report of May 1975 on the high-and-wide Chicago main—is the Erie Lackawanna page.
What remains
East of Ohio, much of the map still works. Norfolk Southern’s Southern Tier uses the former Erie Binghamton–Hornell and on toward Buffalo, including Starrucca. The Central New York Railroad, operated with the New York, Susquehanna & Western, runs Binghamton–Port Jervis on that same NS former Erie. Western New York & Pennsylvania took the Chicago main west from Hornell as far as it still exists in New York and western Pennsylvania. NJ Transit’s Hoboken Division is the old suburban plant: Main Line, Bergen County, Pascack Valley, and the Port Jervis line under contract with Metro-North. The Greenwood Lake is folded into Montclair-Boonton. West of Marion, Ohio, the high-and-wide is gone. Conrail mothballed that corridor in September 1977. Short-lived attempts named Erie Western and Chicago & Indiana failed by the end of 1979. Sterling, Kouts, and the Indiana double track are local memory and farm ground. That is the corridor Barriger described in the 1920s, and the one Conrail did not keep.
Related reading on American-Rails.com
- Erie steam roster · Erie diesel roster · Erie Lackawanna · EL diesel
- Delaware, Lackawanna & Western · The Erie War · Pavonia Terminal · Starrucca Viaduct
- Lake Cities · Hoboken Terminal · Triplex · E8 833 / 835
- Delaware & Hudson · Conrail · New York, Susquehanna & Western · NJ Transit
- Ashtabula · Angola · Camelbacks · Berkshire type
Sources
- Grant, H. Roger. Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938–1992. Stanford University Press, 1994. April 22, 1851, dignitaries’ train; C&A across Indiana; merger talks and October 17, 1960
- Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition. Kalmbach, 2015. Pages 172–176: Underwood 1901, Bernet 1927, last steam March 17, 1954, map and grades
- Schafer, Mike. More Classic American Railroads. Andover Junction / MBI. NYLE&W 1878; late-era plant
- Westing, Frederick, and Alvin F. Staufer. Erie Power. Alvin F. Staufer, 1970
- Stagner, Lloyd E. American Steam Finale, 1954–1970. South Platte Press, 2001. Last steam March 17, 1954, K-1 2530, Jersey City
- Mott, Edward Harold. Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of Erie. 1899, and later reprints. Nineteenth-century corporate skeleton
- American-Rails.com, Erie War (July 2, 1868, settlement; Gould October 1868); 1850s (Dunkirk May 14, 1851); 1880s (gauge, June 1880); Erie Lackawanna; Pavonia Terminal (last train December 12, 1958)
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