Ransomville is a hamlet in the town of Porter in Niagara County. It was a station on the Hojack Line operated by the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad and later the New York Central Railroad. 

A posting by Nancy Bartlow in the Facebook “Ransomville History and Memories” group provides this information:

Railroad in Ransomville — Today you will not see evidence of a rail system in town. In 1876, the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg came through as tracks were laid. The company refused to build a station because actually the Town of Porter refused to pay bankruptcy debts of the rail company. But the rail company eventually built a depot on Curtiss property. The profile pic on this page is one of the steam engines stopped at the depot. Each town on the line from N F heading to Rochester and points beyond had to maintain their section of track. In Ransomville some of the grain mills paid to have sidings for their business. The train carried mail, stores stocked with groceries brought in by train but the biggest business was in fruit season when thousands of bushels were shipped daily. There were passenger trains where students from town would ride the train to NF to high school in the ’20’s. By 1916 New York Central took over the line. NYC Flyers would come through town. In later years. About 1960’s the trains stopped running, eventually the depot remained for many years and became in very poor condition. There were several folks who had thoughts of how to maintain this piece of history but in the minds of historians it should have been remained where it was and restored for historical purposes but unfortunately it became in such bad condition it was demolished. Today the depot would have been located on north side of Rt 93 about where the Legion cannon is and actually about the driveway back to the Cold Storage. The depot was the “hub” of Ransomville.

The passenger station was on the south side of the tracks just east of what is now Youngstown Lockport Road/Rt 93. Bolands Beef and Brew currently stands where the station used to be.

History

The Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad (RW&O) completed construction of the line from Niagara Falls to Oswego in 1875. The RW&O operated the line until March 1891 when the company was leased to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. The line was operated by the New York Central (1891 – 1968), the Penn Central Railroad (1968 – 1976) and Conrail (1976 on). The line was redundant with others operated by Conrail and by the late 1970s the entire line between Oswego and Niagara Falls had been abandoned or, in a few cases, sold to smaller railroads to operate small sections.

Photographs

Maps

Timetables

Learn More

• Facebook. “Ransomville History and Memories“
• Wikipedia. “Ransomville, NY“