What is this branch line coming off the Corning secondary

In following the Corning secondary on Virtual Earth (Bing Maps) just south of Lyons where the wye diverges there are bridge abutments which appear to have supported a line which joined the secondary at the wye. In following the line it seems to lead south by southeast then north by northeast and looks like it might have rejoined the main at Clyde,NY .....

Am I correct...if so what is this branch?

Thanks.....

Thats the Westshore..

The New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway..
originally built to compete with the New York Central, but was quickly taken over by it..

Not much left across Central and Western NY today except for the stretch still in use between Fairport and Chili..

looking at the historic topo maps:

1902:
http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=NY

1953:
http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=NY

it didnt join the Corning Secondary (NYC Fall Brook like) at the wye, but instead passed over it on a bridge..
the Westshore connected with the NYC mainline at many places, but was basically a separate line between New York City and Buffalo..it just happened to very close to the NYC mainline through most of Western NY..


Scot

If you pan a little further west you'll find what I always presumed was the West Shore depot, still in use by CSX for MOW crews. The line had track in place as late as 1994 or so from a point west of Clyde, through to where the two parallell one another east of Clyde. There are a lot of other scars of the West Shore still apparent even though most of the track between Albany and Buffalo is gone. At one time a lot of bits of it remained to serve various customers.

It's entirely possible there was West Shore interchange to the Fall Brook, I forget the exact dates of construction but the Fall Brook was independent as late as 1900 or so, which I'm pretty sure gets you past the opening of the West Shore itself while under PRR control.

(Don't forget the PRR built the West Shore at a time when they were feuding with the NYC, leading to the NYC's aborted line across PA that a lot of the roadbed from became the original Pennsylvania Turnpike, check Wikipedia for more details).

Thanks for the info guys as well as some of the history. I've had the opportunity to railfan the segment between Fairport and Chili but as noted it is difficult to even find traces of the earlier abandoned segments.

I forgot how much I like topo maps....despite Virtual Earth and all they fail to convey land characteristics like marshes and the like.

Again, many thanks.

Come to think of it, it probably looks like it rejoins the mainline by Clyde because that segment did connect there until about 1990, and east of that was pulled out several decades before.