The Owasco River Railroad was built in Auburn, NY sometime in the
middle 1800's to service many mills along the Owasco River (a.k.a. Owasco
Outlet) to haul grain, flour, scrap iron, coal, finished iron products,
leather shoes, equipment grease, and farm equipment. The Lehigh Valley Railroad bought the line in 1856. The LVRR kept the ORRR name until the diesel era when the last steamer left the line.
Not much is really known about the ORRR. The road was mainly an industrial
line and all of the offices were located in the Lehigh Valley Railroad's
Fraght/Passenger Station. The ORRR ran along the streets of Auburn and
much of its line was built on wooden trestles built up along and up the
middle of the Owasco Outlet. In some places the bridges were 100 yards
or longer. The ORRR ran with a single 3-truck Shay Locomotive. This
proved more useful after trying out several smaller locomotives which could
not make the extremely tight curves and 10.2% grade up Osborne Street
to Zeric Products, Bowen Products, and several other mills along the
small 1/2 mile yard on the hill just off Mill Street. The railroad
tracks were removed sometime around the early or late 1960's.
