Saved by a community. Built for the future.
What began as a local effort to preserve nearly 12 miles of railroad became a connected family of four short lines serving industries and communities across New York and Pennsylvania.
The railroad survived because people decided it mattered.
The Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad began with a simple conviction: dependable local rail service was too important to lose. Community members, business leaders, railroaders, and customers came together to preserve a line that larger systems were prepared to abandon.
Over the decades, that local railroad grew through customer relationships, disciplined investment, and a willingness to rebuild infrastructure others had left behind. Today, the LA&L family serves industries and communities across New York and Pennsylvania while remaining grounded in the same long-term approach.
A working railroad corridor more than a century before the company existed.
The corridor traces its roots to the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad, organized in 1851 to connect Rochester with the Genesee Valley. Trains reached Avon in 1853, establishing a route that would serve the region for generations.
The line later became part of the Erie Railroad and Erie Lackawanna systems. In 1882, a branch opened from Conesus Lake Junction to Lakeville—forming the southern section that would eventually become the heart of LA&L operations.
The corridor before LA&L
In 1964, a community bought its railroad back.
When Erie Lackawanna moved to abandon the line between Avon and Livonia, local business leaders understood what was at stake. Losing the railroad would mean losing a transportation asset that had supported area farms, businesses, and communities for generations.
Chester Haak, Oscar Smith, Harry Moran, Peter Barry, and other supporters organized a public stock campaign. Shares sold for $10, allowing residents, rail supporters, and local businesses to take part in preserving the line.
The Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad was incorporated in May 1964. State and federal approvals followed, and a community-led rescue became a working short line railroad with a future of its own.
April 7, 1965
The railroad began with equal parts practicality and imagination.
The first LA&L freight train operated on April 7, 1965. With the line having sat largely unused, crews stopped at road crossings to clear the flangeways by hand before the locomotive could continue.
Passenger excursions followed one month later. Four opening-day trips carried approximately 400 people, drawing attention to the revived railroad and helping support the young operation.
Freight service and public excursions grew side by side, giving LA&L the visibility, revenue, and customer base it needed during its earliest years.
Freight kept the railroad relevant.
Local customers needed dependable rail access, even when traffic levels were too small to interest a large railroad.
Excursions helped finance the early years.
Steam and diesel passenger trips brought thousands of visitors to the line and helped support operations while freight volume developed.
Community support remained an operating asset.
Volunteers, shareholders, employees, customers, and rail enthusiasts all played roles in keeping the young railroad moving.
A rescued railroad becomes a sustainable freight business.
LA&L’s future was built one customer, one locomotive, and one infrastructure improvement at a time. Growing freight volumes supported new equipment, expanded yard capacity, stronger maintenance facilities, and renewed service to industrial locations along the line.
Industrial traffic changes the economics.
New sugar and syrup traffic in Lakeville created the carload base that helped move the railroad beyond its fragile startup period.
ALCO No. 20 establishes a lasting identity.
The RS-1 became the railroad’s first ALCO diesel and helped establish the black-and-yellow locomotive appearance associated with LA&L.
No. 72 adds capacity as freight grows.
The ALCO S-2 became a durable switching and road locomotive, serving the railroad for decades as traffic and operating requirements increased.
Lakeville yard creates room to organize growth.
A five-track classification yard gave crews the capacity to stage, sort, and serve a larger and more complex customer base.
Shops and transload capabilities deepen the operation.
A modern Lakeville engine house strengthened in-house mechanical capability, while agricultural transload service expanded the railroad’s logistics role.
The railroad grows beyond the line it was created to save.
In 1996, LA&L acquired Conrail’s Rochester South Cluster, extending the railroad north to Genesee Junction and nearly doubling its size. The expansion created a stronger connection to the Rochester freight market and launched a major program of track, bridge, yard, and facility improvements.
That same year, LA&L began operating the Bath & Hammondsport lines in Steuben County. The company’s experience rebuilding and growing one short line could now be applied to another regional railroad and the customers it served.
Expanded market access
Reaching Genesee Junction moved LA&L’s northern gateway closer to Rochester and created the foundation for broader interchange options.
Infrastructure rehabilitation
Neglected track, bridges, yards, and operating facilities required sustained capital investment to support modern freight service.
A second railroad operation
The B&H relationship demonstrated that LA&L’s customer-focused model could support other short line territories and communities.
National recognition
Railway Age named LA&L its 1997 Short Line Railroad of the Year during this defining period of growth and competitive-access advocacy.
Each expansion preserved service and added a new regional capability.
From the original LA&L line to the addition of B&H, WNYP, and Ontario Midland, each step expanded the railroad family’s reach, interchange options, and ability to support regional industry.
LA&L begins operating.
The company begins with the rescued Avon–Lakeville–Livonia branch and a mission to preserve local freight service.
The Barilla plant in Avon became a prominent example of rail infrastructure
supporting major regional industrial investment.
The network expanded to serve customers—not simply to collect mileage.
Growth across the LA&L family has always been connected to freight demand. Preserving rail corridors, improving interchange access, and modernizing track have allowed manufacturers, processors, distributors, and agricultural businesses to remain connected to the national rail network.
Customer growth supports continued railroad investment, and stronger rail infrastructure creates new opportunities for industry. That relationship has shaped the development of the system for decades.
People transformed preservation into long-term stewardship.
The original shareholders and organizers gave the railroad a second life. Generations of employees, customers, directors, public partners, and community supporters carried that work forward.
Eugene H. Blabey II devoted more than five decades to short line railroading and served as a director, president, and long-time chairman of LA&L. He helped shape the expansion into B&H, WNYP, and OMID and was inducted into the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association’s inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2021.
Today, the company remains family-owned, carrying forward a long-term perspective centered on stewardship, reinvestment, customer relationships, and preserving rail infrastructure for the next generation.
The scale changed. The operating philosophy did not.
The railroad family is far larger than the operation launched in 1965, yet its identity remains rooted in responsive local service, practical investment, and long-term relationships.
At the beginning
The railroad family today
Continue through the people, milestones, and railroads that shaped the company.
The full historical timeline includes additional dates, equipment, customer developments, awards, preservation efforts, and links to the four railroads that make up the LA&L family today.
History created the foundation. Reinvestment keeps it useful.
The LA&L railroad family continues to invest in safe operations, infrastructure, customer service, technology, transload capacity, and rail-served industrial development—preserving the same regional connections the community protected in 1964.