Buffalo Central Terminal - Memories and observations
Wylie and everyone: I decided to use the NRHS archives to dig up a little BCT info. Amtrak discontinued service to BCT with the October 28,1979 schedule change-the last train to stop at BCT was the WB Lake Shore Limited to Chicago at 4:10am on the 28th. On that date the suburban Depew station opened with temporary facilities that were made permanent when the new station building was opened in 1980. Central Terminal was an outmoded and expensive place for Amtrak to operate for the few trains that used it-one year sooner on Sunday October 29,1978 Amtrak began serving the Downtown BUF Exchange Street Station and the new extended service to Niagara Falls began. That service would lead to the thru Maple Leaf to Toronto in the Spring of 1981. The CP/TH&B/Conrail joint Budd car service to Toronto would then operate from Exchange Street Station in that late 79-early 81 period after BCT closed. That service ended when the Maple Leaf began thru service.
I made my first trip thru BCT on a WB Lake Shore Limited in August 1977. We were operating more than two hours late due to a dining car being bad ordered and then removed from our train consist in Utica,NY. We got to BUF the next morning-I saw it in daylight on a service stop there-I became very interested in BUF and WNY afterwards-I remember as we went W on that trip that I almost could not believe we were still in NY State! WNY in many ways is so different from Downstate NY-in everything from language accent to general attitude of the people. Another EB trip I made thru there in January 1979 I recall our train was hours late and we had just gone thru lake effect snow between BUF and just W of Erie,PA. At the stop I discovered the platform access ramps were perfect ice ramps-I recall sliding downhill after accidentally discovering this there. The ramps were built for service vehicles to access the platforms for baggage and other needs. I noticed from looking at BCT on Google Earth that it looks like that no live tracks today go into the platform areas-I also remember those tracks were well constructed with double block wood ties set in concrete and those N.Y.Central style steel "BUFFALO" signs.
I finally was able to stop and visit BCT for the first time in the Summer of 1979-I recall the neighborhood was a lower-middle class predominately Polish-American neighborhood-a little rough around the edges but stable. On trips I made in the 1979-1984 time period I learned more about Buffalo and WNY and the more about it I liked. I remember that every scheme that came along to use BCT in some way fell under until the recent preservation group made an effort to save it.
After some years I finally got to stop at BCT with a friend in June of 1998-I remember the sorry state of the building and the neighborhood had become predominately black. I remember that Conrail demolished the passageway connecting the main building with the platform concourse-to allow tall freight trains to use a rail line that parallels the main building.
I became interested again after joining the Urban Toronto forum and as an NRHS member I am all for rail preservation. On 9/13 of this year the NY Times did an article-in the General Discussion section posted by SeanTrans-about Buffalo's abandoned housing stock-I was appalled to find that the neighborhood pictured and written about was just W and S of Central Terminal-just S of Paderewski Drive and the Broadway Market. I did not realize that some parts of BUF had fallen that far! I remember those neighborhoods as a visitor back in '79 to '84 and what they were then-but I wondered how they would fall so far. It has to be an impediment to the BCT preservation effort that the neighborhood nearby had gotten so bad.
I also would like to suggest a pair of TRAINS magazine articles on BCT-in the September and October 1985 issues there is a BCT article- "The Building Beautiful in Buffalo - Beacon at Mile 435.9 (From NYC) - A Station too late and too far" By Garnet B.Cousins. The first part is a 14 page article on the history and building of BCT including maps of BUF and renderings of other rail terminals in Buffalo as well as proposed terminals that were never built. The second part was written about the station's opening in 1929 and the stock market crash that came months later - and the station's gradual decline until its closing in late 1979. It is a good and informative read!
That's some memories and observations that I have on BCT. May BCT be preserved-as I feel it should. LI MIKE
