Old & Weary wrote:I had a friend who paid attention to railroading around Batavia in the late forties and early fifties. He told me that Erie RS3s showed up on the line to Rochester on or about Nov 11, 1949 and were soon replaced by Baldwins through the rest of the Erie Years. (One was the subject of my first sort of successful action train picture.) Don't know when diesels appeared The Erie line from Avon to Corning. I recall a slide show at some function where the presenter showed slides of 2-10-0s in Sodus Point which he said he took "during the election in 1956" which would have been November. I believe Jim Shaughnessy has published some photos of steam at Southport later than this.
Pennsylvania Railroad's Elmira Branch by William Caloroso states steam ended on the Elmira Branch in September of 1956, which would would place it during the election cycle. Election day is indeed early November, but the election season preceded it by several months in that era. (The season is much longer now.) The book has some of Shaughnessy's photos in it.
With that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if PRR's Rochester Branch dieselized around 1956. As you state, the Erie began dieselizing its branches in the late '40s. They had a plan, with other divisions dropping steam around the same time as Rochester. It would probably be safe to assume that just as Erie had a systemwide policy for the conversion, the Pennsy would have had a systemwide plan of their own.
I'm guessing it's going to be a tight race between the B&O and PRR for the last regularly scheduled steam run on a Class 1 in the Rochester area.