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The present day Bessemer & Lake Erie received its name in 1900 when it formally leased the PS&LE after the PS&LE merged with the B&P. In 1901 the Bessemer would become a sister road of the Duluth, Missabe, & Iron Range Railroad which was another ore hauler but located in Minnesota. This happened after Carnegie Steel interests was purchased by the United States Steel Corporation and had taken over the DM&IR a few years prior to 1901.
The Bessemer and Missabe worked together which together they acted as a conveyor belt handling taconite from Minnesota to Pittsburgh. It became a very successful, and highly efficient in its heyday. In December 1988 U.S. Steel sold its railroad interests to a subsidiary known as Transtar Inc. In 2001 the railroad was once sold again to Great Lakes Transportation LLC. On May 10, 2004 the railroad was purchased by the Canadian National Railroad. While the railroad is under CN control it is still considered a corporate entity. Most of the railroads original infrastructure is still utilized by the railroad today. In recent years the CN has been sending various B&LE diesel locomotives around the CN system leaving only a few units still running on the Bessemer Subdivision.
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Welcome to the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Archives! We are an archival website set out to provide the latest updates, operations, historical information, digitally preserve artifacts pertaining to the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad, and its predecessors through our website and Facebook page.
Have any videos, photos, or other artifacts you want to share? Send them to us through our Facebook page. The Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad is a class II railway (formerly a class I) owned and operated by Canadian National Railway, located in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and Northeast Ohio along the shore of Lake Erie. Its history dates all the way back to 1865 when the Bear Creek Railroad was chartered on March 20th. The promoters of the line envisioned the railroad as a coal hauler serving a mine owned by the Mercer Mining & Manufacturing Company and connecting with the nearby Atlantic & Great Western Railroad. A few years later the name changed to the Shenango & Allegheny Railroad on April 9, 1867 as it reflected better for their intentions of a northern connection in Shenango Pennsylvania. In October of 1869, the line was completed from Shenango to Pardoe, PA. During the late 1880s the S&A extended branch lines within the counties of Mercer and Butler to serve additional coal mines. A short extension was added in March of 1882 and extended north from Shenango to Greenville, PA bringing direct rail service to there. The main line was opened in 1883 beyond Pardoe to Butler and a final extension was added before the company was reorganized in 1888. It reached a location near Osgood known as Amasa Crossing located north of Greenville and a interchange with the Lakeshore & Michigan Southern Railroad was established there. On February 11, 1888 the S&A was renamed as the Pittsburgh Shenango & Lake Erie Railroad. The PS&LE extended the line beyond Osgood to Conneaut, Ohio along the shore of Lake Erie. The modern B&LE system form when the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie entered into the picture. He charted the Pittsburgh, Bessemer, & Lake Erie Railroad in 1897 with the ultimate goal to acquire the PS&LE. Carnegie's plan was the have the railroad haul products related to the steel production, most notably iron ore from Conneaut to his steel mills near Pittsburgh. However in order to provide a direct rail line into the Steel city, a new line was needed past Butler. The Butler & Pittsburgh Railroad company was incorporated on April 8th 1896 extending the line to Pittsburgh on October 27, 1897. |