Conrail in the Canisteo valley.

BUOI rolls past the rocks at Browns Crossing as it heads down the valley.

BUOI rolls its 100 cars past a pair of semphores between Cameron and Rathbone. The one it is passing has dropped to approach, as the signal on track 1 points upward.

BUOI rolls east at Browns Crossing as the late afternoon sun glints off the power.

TV 303 rolls past the automatic at Carson, MP 325, and will be in Hornell shortly. Two hours to Buffalo.

TV 301 is about to split the signals just east of Adrian, and still has a dozen miles to go in the fall colors of the Canisteo valley.

TV 301 rolls along the Canisteo River in the full color of an upstate NY fall.

The hay is in and the trees are all going gold as TV 301 runs down the Canisteo valley.

A GP 40 leads OIEL west near Erwins.

In todays world of sterile rights of way-pole lines gone, new signals, etc, the Tier was a throwback. As a backwater of a large system, it did not get the attention of the ex Pennsy, or the NYC, and for most of Conrail's existence, except for the power and rolling stock, looked almost exactly like the EL. One such scene is near MP 320 in Adrian, where we see OIEL rolling along the poles-the wires were still active-and theres even a semaphore in the distance.

OIEL rolls along the frozen Canisteo River.

OIEL approaches the signal at MP 325, one of a variety of styles on the Erie, which seemed to be schizophrenic when it came to signal specs. There were these "traffic light" types, targets, and semaphores. The train is leaving the Canisteo valley behind, and will shortly be in Hornell, where it will go west on the ex Erie main to Olean and Jamestown. Still kicking myself for not chasing it there, instead of following the more mundane BUOI east.

OIEL rolls along the narrow right of way between the cliff, road, and river. The tight proximity of all these features made the Canisteo a photographic dream.

OIEL met BUOI at Canisteo, and I opted for following the eastbound, which we see here passing the old Erie station. Still think I should have stayed with OIEL. Getting it running west of Hornell was a real find.

BUOI rolls along the Canisteo near Rathbone, so close to the river that you could troll for trout.

Long for the Canisteo valley, which was not exactly Kansas. There was perhaps a mile or so of straight railroad near MP 320. We see TV 203 on it on a Saturday afternoon.

The Canisteo, most of the time, is shallow enough you can walk across it. The gorge, however, is almost 1000 feet deep in spots. We see TV 203 along the river, deep in the gorge.

The Southern Tier was full of semaphore signals, though they were concentrated in several places. One of those places was in the Canisteo valley, between MP 306 and 320, where there were a number of them on both tracks 1 and 2. TV 203 passes an eastbound signal as it heads west near Cameron Mills.

TV 203 throttles up as it passes the old Erie station at Canisteo, now an Agway store. In a few years, it will be a concrete pad. Shoot those stations while theyre still around!!

A telephoto view of TV 203 along the Canisteo River near Cameron.

A 135mm lens%accentuates the bends in railroad and river at Rattlesnake Curve.

Rattlesnake curve is one of the more scenic spots in a supremely scenic piece of railroad, a double S curve along the Canisteo near West Cameron. TV 203 rolls 170 stack platforms through the curve.

The focus for this day of railfanning was TV 203, which I and a couple of friends had picked up in Owego. We chased to Attica(about 165 miles), a little longer than usual-we typically turned back at Silver Springs, since chasing west of there was problematic due to back roads, a few inconveniently placed crossings, and a long 30 MPH speed limit and a No Turn On Red in Warsaw. We encountered several other trains along the way, among them this ELOI rolling 60 cars east past the semaphore on track 1 in Rathbone.

Empty coal train behind a pair of SD60s, the leader a former EMD demonstrator, passes the station at Addison

A 96 car XCL coal train rolls past the Erie station at Addison, one of several still standing at this date(it was still up in 2015). The empty space in the foreground has a story of its own. This was once an interchange point between the Erie and the B&O, later to be the Wellsville Addison & Galeton. The primary traffic here was leather, which came off the WAG going to the Triple Cities, which had numerous shoe plants run by Endicott Johnson. I knew a man who had grown up in Endicott in the 1950s who told me that Erie had switchers on three tricks at EJ during that period; that being the case, the interchange here must have been phenominal.

The XCL train is at CP Horn, waiting at the classic Erie traffic light type home signal. There is an NYK 6 approaching from River on track 1. He'll come down here to Horn and cross over to 2 before going east.

The XCL train waits east of CP Horn-ZY on the Erie-for ABBU to clear Cass St, then for NYK 6 with Susquehanna power to cross over from 1 to 2 and go east.

A 96 car XCL empty coal train rolls past the former Agway mill between Erwins and Addison. This part of the railroad has not seen a lot of upgrades, as can be seen by the pole line and jointed rail. Put an EL SDP45 here, it would be right at home.

The XCL train that has been waiting at CP Horn can roll west now that the eastbound it was waiting for, DHT 6, an eastbound NYK stack train with NYSW power, has cleared. The stack came down track 1 from River Jct, the fast track, and crorsed over to track 2 here. The XCL train will roll through Hornell anf go west on the Erie main at Cass St.

BUOI rolls through some of New Yorks most scenic terrain behind an old warrior.

The signal at Rathbone was easy to get-it was right next to the road, as were several in the Canisteo valley.

BUOI rolls toward its next stop at Gang Mills, and is about to knock down the automatic at MP 300 as it passes through this pastoral setting at the east end of the Canisteo valley.

BUOI rolls past an ex Erie semaphore just west of Rathbone.

THe MK switcher rolls past BUOIs power as it goes back into the plant, its work done.

BUOI rolls along the Canisteo River at Browns Crossing with 136 cars after making a pick up at Hornell.

A westbound CR dimensional train meets BUOI in the pastoral splendor of the Canisteo valley

DABU crosses from track 1 to track 2 at CP Horn to run the slow track to River, as TV 26 is working east.

DABU rolls past the automatic at Carson, leaving the Canisteo valley behind as it makes its way to Buffalo.

DABU rolls west at West Cameron. There were a pair of semaphores there, but not directly across from each other. I was out with some friends that day. They elected to set up by the eastbound signal for the shot. Typical for the time-always fans out on the Tier.

DABU with 49 auto racks passes the wildflowers that surround the old Erie station at Canisteo

A 91 car UND54A coal train for the NYSEG plant at Dresden NY on Seneca Lake rolls through Cameron in the Canisteo valley behind a trio of 6 axle units. It will run the Tier to CP Corning, east of Gang Mills yard, then take the Corning Secondary north to the plant.

Conrail changed the symbol on its train running the Lehigh Line several wimes over the years. For a while in the early 90s it was BUAL, originating at Frontier Yard in Buffalo, running the Tier to Waverly, down the connection to Sayre, then east on the ex LV to Allentown. Here it is rolling 69 cars into Gang Mills, seen from the overpass at the west end of the yard. Thats NY 417/US 15 in the distance, an expressway that connected with NY 17 at Gang Mills, and ended just south of the exit for Addison. Now it is part of I 99, running on the alignment of US 15 all the way to Williamsport.

Conrails stack business had grown rapidly since it started running trains for APL nine years earlier. This TV 207X was a reflection of that growth, an extra section of a train that normally ran via the West Shore. Today there were 146 stack platforms, a typical length for these trains.

TV 207X rolls west on the most scenic part of the Tier, the Canisteo River valley. It was a great place to chase, as the road was next to the tracks almost the whole length of the valley.

BUOI rolls east past CP CAM as the snow falls. We didnt let weather stop us as a rule, and I chased many days where I used several gallons of windshield wash to combat the salt. Today wasnt too bad, only about 4" snow.

OIBU rolls east with a surprise-a Cotton Belt SD45. The unit was actially dead in tow-note the air filter behind the cab is missing-but was still something out of the ordinary.

The runoff has iit the Canisteo and it is now full of the sediment that has carried down. Still a good shot, even without the reflection. BUOItoday has 98 cars.