Route notes
The B&LE connects with the Norfolk Southern Railway at Wallace Junction, near Girard, Pennsylvania, and at the Shenango Yard in Greenville, Pennsylvania. The Union Railroad connects at the B&LE's southern terminus at Penn Hills' North Bessemer Yard. CSX (formerly the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad) connects at Shenango Yard (the Pennsylvania Railroad may have connected here, too), and the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad connects at Calvin Yard in Butler, Pennsylvania. The B&LE formerly interchanged at Osgood, Pennsylvania with the New York Central System, later Penn Central Railroad and then Conrail, until the latter abandoned the line in 1988.
The Bessemer and Lake Erie accessed the City of Erie using trackage rights over the Nickel Plate Road established in 1891 by the PS&LE.[3] There the railroad maintained a small terminal facility for both passenger and freight operations, with its own passenger station a block north of Union Station.
The main rail yard and locomotive and car shops are in Greenville, Pennsylvania. Although the B&LE acquired some early diesel-electric switching locomotives painted black with yellow trim, in 1950 the company adopted a locomotive color scheme of bright orange and black which is still in use. Because the B&LE's primary traffic is iron ore, it adopted rust-colored hoppers so the ore wouldn't produce noticeable stains on its cars.
The B&LE also saw passenger traffic, and maintained a spur line from its main line east to Conneaut Lake Park amusement park for dropping off and picking up excursionists visiting the park.
The B&LE main line divides around Greenville, between a waypoint north of the village of Osgood called 'KO' and another waypoint near the village of Kremis that used the telegraph call name 'KY', for the "Osgood-Kremis" cut-off ("K-O") that joined the original "Old Line" there. The latter still winds down along the Little Shenango and Shenango Rivers into downtown Greenville (where the B&LE shops are located), and then climbs back up to Kremis, en route to Fredonia and North Bessemer. The B&LE constructed the shortcut K-O Line in 1901–02 to bypass the steep, winding route through Greenville. From 'KO Junction', it runs south over a long (1724 ft) viaduct above the Little Shenango River, the original B&LE Old Line, the former NYC RR's JF&C Branch and the former Erie RR's Chicago—New York main line at Osgood. It then passes east of downtown Greenville at a relatively high elevation, and rejoins the original line at KY, near Kremis. The K-O Line cut-off shortened KO to KY run by 3.1 miles vs. the Old Line. Except for the Osgood Viaduct, this cut-off was double-tracked for many years but, since the arrival of CTC signaling in the 1950s, is now entirely single track.[4]
The B&LE operated a line from Queen Junction (near Butler, Pennsylvania) to Brady's Bend, Pennsylvania. It was known as the Western Allegheny Division, and was notable for being the last line that the B&LE's F-Units ran on. F-unit service on the line ended in 1992, and the last train, which was pulled by an EMD SD9 ran in November 1994. The line sat out of service until 2000, when it was abandoned. The tracks were removed in 2002, and today, the right of way is barely visible.
There was originally one tunnel on the B&LE mainline at Culmerville, but it was dug out or "daylighted" in 1922, converting it to an open cut through a hill.
As it approaches North Bessemer, the B&LE is also noticeable where it crosses the Allegheny River on the 2327 ft Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Bridge immediately east of and parallel to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
