Lowville and Beaver River Railroad: History, Roster & What Happens Next

Last revised: August 20, 2026

The Lowville and Beaver River Railroad (reporting mark LBR) was a 10.57-mile paper-mill short line in Lewis County, New York: Lowville to Beaver Falls to Croghan, with an interchange at Lowville against the former New York Central (later GVT’s Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern). James P. Lewis backed the company in 1903 to reach his Beaver Falls mills. Trains entered service on January 13, 1906 and continued unabated for just over a century until the last mill closed on January 24, 2007. Following nearly 20 years of dormancy, the Surface Transportation Board finally authorized abandonment in 2025 and Lewis County subsequently bought the corridor that November as part of a larger rails-to-trails package.

Lowville and Beaver River Railroad GE 44-tonner 1950 at the Lowville New York shop July 30 1994 Doug Kroll photo

Lowville & Beaver River GE 44-tonner #1950 at the Lowville shop, July 30, 1994, three years into Genesee Valley Transportation ownership. Doug Kroll photo.

At a Glance

Item	Detail
Reporting mark	LBR
Chartered	September 17, 1903
Opened	January 13, 1906
Route	Lowville–New Bremen–Beaver Falls–Croghan, N.Y. (Beaver River valley)
Length	10.57 miles (STB: milepost 0.0 Lowville to 10.57 Croghan)
Interchange	Lowville, with Utica & Black River / NYC, later Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern (MHWA / GVT)
Reason built	J.P. Lewis paper mills at Beaver Falls, plus agriculture and general freight
GVT ownership	Acquired 1991 (GVT’s own dating; some summaries use 1993)
Last freight	Paper mill at Beaver Falls closed January 24, 2007; STB 2025 filing: no local or overhead traffic in at least 15 years
Abandonment	STB Docket AB 180X; exemption notice January 14, 2025; effective February 13, 2025 unless stayed
Ownership after 2025	Lewis County purchase announced November 5, 2025 (L&BR plus the Lowville–Carthage MHWA segment; ~25 miles combined in county statements)
Current status (Aug. 2026)	Out of service. County trail master plan in public process. Excursion-train use has been proposed; no decision, no operating tourist railroad

The Interchange at Lowville - Before The L&BR

The Utica & Black River Railroad reached Lowville in 1868 and Carthage in 1871. That north–south line later folded into the growing New York Central’s Black River country network—the iron that connected this corner of the Tug Hill / western Adirondack foothills with Utica and the Water Level Route. A branch from Lowville east to Croghan was talked about as early as 1880 but was not constructed at that time. Paper, not passenger geography, finally paid for it.

The L&BR was never a main line operation. It was essentially a mill spur that happened to be 10 miles long, with a notable civil-engineering signature: an approximately 1,100-foot Warren through-truss swing bridge over the Black River near Lowville. Stations and industry clustered at Lowville, Beaver Falls (midpoint, the mill town), and Croghan (the east end, lumber and a later museum depot).

Rail service in this region began declining relatively early; south of Lowville, the old NYC toward Lyons Falls was abandoned in 1964. What remained for interchange in the GVT years was MHWA’s Lowville–Carthage industrial track—itself abandoned in the same 2025 STB round as the L&BR and bundled into the county purchase.

J.P. Lewis and the 1906 Opening

Paper is why the railroad exists. James P. Lewis of Beaver Falls put money behind a short line to his mills. The Lowville & Beaver River Railroad Company was incorporated September 17, 1903, and opened for business January 13, 1906. Traffic was mill inbound and outbound—pulp, chemicals, finished paper—plus farm products, lumber, and whatever less-than-carload freight a Lewis County town could generate.

Beaver Falls was the operating heart. Croghan was the eastern terminal. Lowville was where cars changed hands with the Central. A June 1930 public timetable (image below) still showed a working passenger and mixed-train short line, not a museum piece.

Lowville and Beaver River Railroad public timetable June 1930

L&BR public timetable, June 1930. American-Rails.com collection.

Passenger service ended in January 1947 with dieselization. Freight continued: mills, local agriculture, and a block plant at Croghan among the customers noted in later locomotive histories. In January 1960 the J.P. Lewis Company began buying L&BR stock and completed the purchase that August—the mill owning the railroad that served it, a common short-line pattern.

GVT Years (1991–2025)

Genesee Valley Transportation of Batavia, N.Y., dates its Lowville & Beaver River acquisition to 1991, the same year it formed the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern. GVT already had a foothold with the Depew, Lancaster & Western (1989). The L&BR was an Adirondack add-on: a mill branch feeding MHWA at Lowville, not a standalone system.

GVT did not revive paper traffic that was already dying. It did keep the corporate shell, the reporting mark, and the property intact long after the last customer. From 2010 to 2012 Lewis County and GVT talked a sale: L&BR to the county for about $425,000 as a possible museum/scenic railroad for the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York (Croghan depot), and the Lowville–Carthage MHWA track donated or sold for $1 as a trail. Legislators dropped the deal on April 30, 2012.

Separate from GVT, Cape Vincent’s River Marine Inc. (Ronald J. Trottier) acquired the Lowville railway yard and, later, the former Carthage depot, and talked tourist trains and railbikes on the Carthage–Lowville side. A locomotive was even spotted into Lowville in 2020 for a proposed scenic operation. None of that became a scheduled railroad.

Motive Power and the Year-Number Tradition

The L&BR numbered locomotives for the year they arrived. Alco 4-6-0 #1912 (the first new Alco, 1912) and 2-8-0 #1923 are the steam examples everyone cites; GE 44-tonners #1947, #1950, and #1951 continued the habit. Crews also shortened them in speech: 1912 as “12,” 1923 as “23.”

Steam survivor #1923 is the unit that left Lewis County. Alco-Cooke built it in October 1920 (serial 62623) as #8 for Cuba’s Compañía Azucarera Central Reforma. The sugar-plantation sale did not go through. In March 1923 the Lowville & Beaver River bought the engine; Alco converted it from oil to coal before delivery. It handled freight and passenger trains until passenger service ended in January 1947, then freight into May 1947 when GE 44-tonner #1947 arrived. #1912 went to scrap. #1923 sat as protection power, steamed about four months in 1954 while the diesel was in the shop, and last ran in January 1957 when cold killed the 44-tonner. F. Nelson Blount bought it in 1964 for $2,000. It is at Steamtown National Historic Site, Scranton, Pa.

An earlier 4-4-0 numbered #10 appears on compiled steam lists; builder detail is thin enough to leave off a specifications table. The Shay displayed at Croghan is Railway Historical Society of Northern New York property, not an L&BR roster engine.

Diesel roster (as operated)

The three GE 44-tonners on the previous version of this page match standard short-line compilations (Edward A. Lewis; John Komanesky / TheDieselShop; Don’s Depot). Notes below fold in later dispositions where they are documented.

Model	Road no.	Builder	Serial	Date	Notes
GE 44-ton	1947	GE	28345	4/1947	Acquired new; dieselized the railroad. Rebuilt 1954. Reported still at Lowville into 2025, with volunteer operation noted on the property; also associated with RHSNNY in roster notes
GE 44-ton	1950	GE	30461	6/1950	Nee NC&StL #101, later L&N #3101; to L&BR. Photographed at the Lowville shop 1994 (lead photo). Later reported to Belfast & Moosehead Lake
GE 44-ton	1951	GE	30847	10/1950 (some lists 12/1950)	Built as Skaneateles Short Line #6; later New York State Electric & Gas #6; to L&BR as #6, renumbered 1951 in 1993

Steam (selected)

Type	Road no.	Builder	Notes
4-6-0	1912	Alco (1912)	First new Alco; year-number scheme begins here. Scrapped after 1947 dieselization
2-8-0	1923	Alco-Cooke #62623, 10/1920; to L&BR 3/1923	Built as Cuban plantation #8 (oil); converted to coal. Last steam 1/1957. Steamtown NHS

2025–2026: Abandonment, County Purchase, Trail vs. Trains

January 14, 2025: The Lowville & Beaver River Railroad Company filed a verified notice of exemption to abandon the 10.57-mile line (STB Docket AB 180X). A companion filing covered MHWA’s West Carthage–Lowville segment (AB 768X). The L&BR case had sat in abeyance since January 22, 2024, while the Board required after-the-fact acquisition authority and an updated environmental/historic report. The Board then denied petitions to reject the notice. The exemption was set to take effect February 13, 2025, absent a stay. LBRR certified no local or overhead freight in at least 15 years.
November 5, 2025: Lewis County announced it had completed purchase of the former railroad property for its long-term trails initiative. County Manager Tim Hunt called it the start of planning, not construction. Alta Planning + Design (selected in 2023; later county materials also cite Creighton Manning on the master-plan meetings) is to produce a master plan with public input, environmental and structural work, and cost estimates. Updates: lewiscountyny.gov/railtrailinitiative.
August 19, 2026: First public master-plan meeting, Lowville Fire Department. WWNY reported the county bought about 25 miles last November—Lowville–Croghan northeast and Lowville–Carthage northwest. Hunt told the station uses are undecided: walking, bicycles, hiking, motorized, snowmobiles, and that “the historic rail group would like to run a passenger train from Lowville to Croghan, potentially. So there’s a lot of competing ideas, all of which are on the table. There’s been no decisions made.”

The Railway Historical Society of Northern New York still anchors the Croghan depot museum (Shay, speeder, snowplow, and related equipment on the grounds). That collection is independent of whether the county keeps, rails-to-trails, or rails-with-trails the running line.