On May 12, 1864 a company named The Buffalo Extension of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway Company was chartered to build a railroad from Randolph to Buffalo, a distance of about 70 miles. This line would have given the Atlantic and Great Western Railway entrée into Buffalo independent of the Erie Railroad. In 1864/65 the A&GW began grading a route north from Randolph to Buffalo through Napoli, New Albion, and Otto as a route into Buffalo independent of the Erie connection at Salamanca. During the winter and spring of 1864-65 considerable work was done in grading and preparing for extensive work. The company appears to have been undercapitalized, with only $618,000 of the $2,000,000 authorized capital stock subscribed. The work was abandoned before any rail was laid.
An 1866 book entitled “Over the Atlantic and Great Western Railway” has the following information about the proposed line:
“Randolph, New York, 24th July, 1866
…The supplementary works, on which construction has been stopped, are:–
First – The Extension from Randolph, New York, to Buffalo, New York………67 miles.
…The work done on the Randolph extension is merely ten miles of grading; and the whole of the right of way has not been acquired. The remaining right of way will be readily acquired and the work presents only one engineering difficulty – that of the Creek of the Cattaraugus. Across the creek there must be 1500 feet of viaduct, stone piers rising 100 feet from the river-bed, to be surmounted with timber tressels, rising a further height of 220 feet. The height of the viaduct will therefore be 320 feet, the highest work of its kind in the United States.
The expense of the construction of the whole Extension from Randolph to Buffalo – inclusive of stations, right of way, etc., but exclusive of rolling stock – may be taken at 50,000 dols. a mile, or 3,350,000 00 dols.”
The driving force behind the Randolph-Buffalo extension was to give the A&GW access to Buffalo – with it’s Great Lakes port and manufacturing base – independent of the Erie. The 1866 report estimates that the A&GW could haul at least 1000 tons of coal a day to Buffalo over the Randolph extension. The coal would be for further shipment to Great Lakes ports during the summer (when the lakes were not frozen) and for local consumption in Buffalo. The report estimated that the largest mill in Buffalo alone used 150 tons of coal a day.
There was no love lost between the Erie and the A&GW, as illustrated in this passage from “Over the Atlantic and Great Western”:
“The Atlantic and Great Western Railway has enriched the Erie Railway;…For itself, it has done very little; its reward has been the poetic one of forming a link the broad-gauge chain from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Erie railway, having it under its thumb, has kept it there, running a line of steamships on the lakes, in opposition to it; and only according to it the crumbs of through traffic which, independently, it could not secure. … the Erie Railway must be brought to reason. … such an extension from Randolph to Buffalo is the very thing that Youngstown and the Mahoning District urgently require. So greed has often over-reached itself, and the just punishment of the Erie Railway would be a preference for the New York Central Railway by the Atlantic and Great Western as soon as the Randolph extension has been completed.”
An 1879 history of Cattaraugus County indicates that “satisfactory arrangements were made with the Erie Company and work was suspended.” The nature of those arrangements is not known, and it is somewhat surprising that the A&GW came to this agreement, especially in light of the ill-will toward the Erie.