The Annual Meeting of the Buffalo and Southwestern Company.
The regular annual election of the Buffalo and Southwestern Railway Co. was held yesterday. The election of thirteen directors took place in the morning with the following results:
James Adams, W. H. H. Newman, W. S. Bissel, L. S. Jenks, Henry Martin, Jno. F. Moulton, Geo. Beals, J. W. Tillinghast, George Talbot, Jas. N. Scratchard, O.P. Ramsdell, R. Kingman, H. G. Nolton
There was but little change in the Board from that of last year, Mssrs. Ramsdell, Nolton, and Scratchard being the only new members.
In the afternoon the newly-elected Board of Directors held a meeting. The following directors were elected:
President General Manager – John F. Moulton.
Vice-President – Henry Martin.
Secretary and Treasurer— A. S. McAllister.Mr. Moulton, as General Manager, submitted his annual report, showing the condition of the road and the work done during the past year. He stated that during the fiscal year the company had purchased two locomotives, two hundred coal cars, and forty boxcars, together with other necessities. He announced that the legal cases in which the company was interested were in a fair way of being settled to the benefit of the company. He closed with reference to the fact that at one time, owing to the ruinously low state of rates, the road was suffering as well as all others; but, later, by certain arrangements with rival routes, they were doing a flourishing business.
Then followed a long discussion as to the policy and prospects of the road in the future. As is well known, the Southwestern connects at Jamestown with the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, but owing to poor accommodation for transferring freight, and to the broad gauge of the latter, it has received but little assistance from this source. The Atlantic and Great Western Railroad has for some time past been in a sadly demoralized state, but its future now looks exceedingly promising. It is to be thoroughly reorganized, sold out, the receivership done away with, and its gauge narrowed to that of the Southwestern and Lake Shore, it was announced in the meeting that the general freight agent of the A. & G. W. had been in the city during the past week, the object of his visit being to talk over the perfecting of the connections of the two roads at Jamestown. He said the work of changing the gauge of his road would be finished within six months. This being effected, the Southwestern would be greatly benefited.
Mr. Moulton was authorized to negotiate with the A. & G. W. people as soon as its matters wore settled.
It was decided to increase the number of coal cars by at least four hundred new ones, as the coal traffic of the road is on the increase, and their present supply of cars is too small to do the business.
The work of laying the road with steel rails between this city and Gowanda, a distance of thirty miles, will be prosecuted in the spring. Ten miles have already been put down. Two hundred tons of steel rails are expected this week. The trestle at Gowanda, which has been the occasion of much trouble to the road, is to be filled in with earth. So the future of the Buffalo and Southwestern seems to look bright enough. Under the skillful management of Mr. Moulton it has developed greatly, and its connections at its southern terminus with the Alleghany Valley railroad, it having a ten years contract with that road, with the Philadelphia and Erie at Irvington, and its prospective conjunction with the A. & G. W. augurs its welfare in the years to come.
The Buffalo and Southwestern people do not propose to play second fiddle to the snow this winter, and are constructing a new snow plow, which is promised to be ahead of anything of the yet known in railroading in Buffalo.
The soft coal carried over the Buffalo and Southwestern and Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia the past year is said to be 150,000 tons greater than last year, and the authorities of those roads believe that in the coming year it will be even larger
[Buffalo Express.
I have no idea what the article is talking about when it talks about the Buffalo and Southwestern having a connection “with the Philadelphia and Erie at Irvington.” The Philadelphia and Erie did not operate anywhere close to the Buffalo and Southwestern and they certainly didn’t have an connection.
Source: Jamestown [NY] Daily Journal, 10 December 1879, p. 4, NYS Historic Newspapers.