Salamanca NY the greatest railroad town you never heard of - Classic Trains Magazine

First let me clarify that I'm not necessarily saying that Salamanca is the greatest RR town ever. I'm making the point that of all of the towns and cities covered in nearly all of the Railroad publications, Salamanca has never been featured on its own merits. Salamanca is the only city in the U.S. located nearly entirely on an Indian Reservation, and one of the smallest cities in the United States with a population that never exceeded 10,000 people, yet three class 1 RR's had stations here, the B&O[BR&P], Erie, and Pennsy, and two had fairly large classification yards here. There are three brick stations still remaining here, and two Railroads still come through with freight every day. At one time the Erie was dispatching trains to 4 divisions of the RR here, and the BR&P had 3 divisions of trains coming and going. There were two turntables the Erie had a 120' TT to handle their Berkshires, and the BR&P had a 90' TT which was adequate for their smaller steamers, but they also had a wye for their Mallets. Actually, up until 1945 when the turntable was expanded, the Erie would get trackage rights onto the BR&P Salamanca branch to wye their Berks.  Here are a few photos to give you an idea of what was here. First, the Erie yard circa 1940:

Next, the B&O[BR&P] yard in 1958:

These yards were about a mile apart connected by the BR&P Salamanca branch.

There were 4 stations here. This is the BR&P East Salamanca station now used by the Buffalo and Pittsburgh RR:

The BR&P also had a downtown station across from the Erie yard on Main St. This is now the Salamanca Rail Museum:

The Erie station with a dispatchers office, division offices, passenger facilities, and the Railway Express Agency office:

And finally, the Pennsy station on the south side of town:

The Pennsy followed the Allegheny River on the south side from Olean NY to Oil City Pa on the Salamanca branch. This branch was abandoned in 1963 when the Kinzua Dam was opened and flooded the PRR right of way.

Salamanca was home to thousands of Railroaders up through the 1960's Four generations of my family were B&O men. My Father was the last B&O Agent at East Salamanca. There was a rather friendly rivalry between the B&O and Erie men here, you were either from an Erie family or a B&O family. Both Railroads had shop bands, baseball, basketball, and bowling teams, the BR&P YMCA even had a bowling alley in the basement.  In 1923, Salamanca had a horrific fire that destroyed half of the business district around Main St. The city fire dept was one of the first buildings to be engulfed by flames rendering the department useless. The BR&P and Erie fire departments were the first on the scene, and were credited for halting the destruction thus saving many stores, homes and businesses.

 I personally am not a writer, so there is little chance of me being able to write an article on the city, but I would assist a writer who might be up to the task.

-Stan