Riceville was a station in the town of Ashford on Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway line connecting Buffalo and Ashford, NY. According to an 1879 history of Cattaraugus County, “Wm. Rice also settled on lot 49, where the saw-mill at East Ashford now is. He built a saw-mill on the creek about the time he came in. The settlement has long been known as Riceville, in honor of him.”

I can’t find any photos of the station, and a BR&P valuation map (a very detailed map maintained by the railroad), it was a combined passenger and freight station with no agent. It was located at a point where a spur branched off to service a sawmill on the north side of the tracks. My best guess from looking at the map is that the station was around here.

A letter from the railroad in the 1883/1884 Report of the New York State Railroad Commissioners, Vol 1., noted one of the problems building the railroad in the area around Riceville.

We have experienced the most difficult engineering problem in what is called the Buttermilk swamp, extending for about six miles between Ashford Junction and Springville. The clay soil has quicksand underlying it. The track was laid six months here, and we had four construction trains and two steam shovels at work the entire time, taking out the slides and bringing in gravel to build up the embankments which would disappear in a night.

There is a hamlet named Riceville in the town of Mayfield in Fulton County, NY.

History

The line between Buffalo and Ashford was built in 1883 by the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad and was later operated by the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, and the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. Passenger service on the line ended on 15 October 1955 when the B&O ended its Buffalo – Pittsburgh service. Freight service dwindled over the years and different sections of line were abandoned and removed over the years. As of 2024 only two short segments of the line were still in use – from Buffalo south to Orchard Park and from Ashford north to West Valley.

Riceville was a station on the BR&P as early as 1886 but an 1895 newspaper article described a petition by local residents to build a station building at Riceville. A station building was built and lasted until 1940 when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad received permission to remove the building. The railroad noted that no passengers had used the station since 1932 and no freight had been sent or received between 1938 and 1939.

Clippings

Timetables

Learn More

• Wikipedia. “Ashford, New York“