PC: Gardenville

[Jerry Jordak <jer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Buffalo listers in particular, this one's for you.)

I was looking through some maps and articles recently, and found that at 
one time, NYC (and PC) had a route that bypassed Buffalo to the 
southwest of the city that had a large yard at Gardenville. The line 
came off the NYC main at Bayview Tower and rejoined the main east of the 
city, crossing the PRR's line to Buffalo near Ebenezer.

 From what I can find on the web, the yard at Gardenville became surplus 
when Frontier Yard opened. The yard and line east of Ebenezer is gone, 
but still intact to the west. It appears the line to the east of 
Ebenezer was abandoned sometime in the PC era, according to my Steam 
Powered Video atlas.

So here comes the dumb question: considering that getting trains through 
Buffalo today can be so slow, with the congestion at CP Draw, etc., why 
was this line ever abandoned, when it could have been used as a route to 
avoid the congestion of downtown Buffalo. I'm guessing that back in the 
PC era, getting through town couldn't have been very speedy with the 
intersecting traffic at all of the diamonds and junctions downtown, and 
this would have been a good bypass of the city. (Perhaps CSX wishes the 
line was still there today...?)

Thanks,
-JWJ