Bay View, NY – New York Railroad Archive

Detail of a 1901 topographic map showing the routes of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (New York Central system), Nickel Plate Railroad and Chautauqua Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Athol Springs and Bay View, NY. Author’s illustration.

Bay View, NY is a hamlet in Erie County, NY. It was a station on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (New York Central Railroad) and the Chautauqua Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In addition to the passenger stations, the BV Tower interlocking signal station was an important railroad landmark in Bay View.

Map showing the locations of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway station in Bay View, NY. Author’s illustration from a 1909 map from Historic Map Works.

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway

The Buffalo and State Line Railroad completed its line through Bay View in February 1852. The line was later operated by the Buffalo and Erie Railroad (1857 – 1869), Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (1869 – 1877), New York Central and Hudson River Railroad (1877 – 1914), and New York Central Railroad (1914 – 1968).

The Lake Shore station was at the intersection of the railroad and Bay View Road.

BV Tower

In 1923, the New York Central Railroad built a concrete and brick interlocking signal station just to the west of Bay View Road in Bay View, NY, replacing the original wooden signal station dating back to 1898. Bay View tower was shut down in the mid-1960s and stood abandoned for 30 years until Conrail demolished it in 1995.

A steam train passing the New York Central’s BV Tower in Bay View, NY on May 31, 1947. “Interlocking tower at Bay View, NY,” New York Central System Historical Society.

The former New York Central BV Tower in Bay View, NY in 1992. Aaron Heverin Collection, Western New York Railway Historical Society.

Timetables

A timetable on the Pittsburgh Division of the Buffalo, New York and Pittsburgh Railroad effective November 23, 1884. Silver Creek (NY) Local. February 6, 1885.

A timetable effective June 2, 1889 of trains running in Western New York on the New York, Saint Louis and Chicago Railroad, commonly referred to as the “Nickel Plate Railroad.” The Chautauqua News, Sherman, NY, 6 August 1890, p. 5, NYS Historic Newspapers.

A timetable of trains on the Pennsylvania Railroad Chautauqua Branch effective November 29, 1903. Travelers Official Guide of the Railway and Steam Navigation Lines, February 1904. Found on Google Books.

Learn More

“Coming by the Bay”. Western New York Railway Historical Society.