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Most people have no idea that Rochester, NY used to have a subway. From 1927 until 1956, red and cream
colored trolley cars and four-car commuter trains rushed thru tunnels beneath downtown Rochester and above
ground from the General Motors plant all the way to Elmwood Avenue and Rowlands. Known to most
simply as the “Subway,” it was built to ease interurban traffic from the streets of Rochester.
It also served as an interchange for the five railroads that entered the city and as a link to
interurban lines serving the east and west.
The impressive reach of the subway was possible because it utilized the bed of the old Erie Canal.
When the subway opened in 1928, it was celebrated as a rebirth for the old canal and aqueduct as a new
“instrument of transportation and commerce.”
This poster is a comprehensive look at the Rochester Rapid Transit & Industrial Railway (The Subway) with all
of it's stations and connections to streetcar lines and the regional railroads of the day. This map is based on
various railroad, streetcar, and subway maps including the
Electric Railroader's Association map by Vitaly Uzoff and Chas. Yingling.
and took us several months to compile.
For a closer look at this map
rollover the image to the left.
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