User:Allamericanbear/International Railway 2

The International Railway Company (IRC) was a transportation company formed by its parent company International Traction Company in a 1902 merger between several Buffalo-area interurban and street railways. The city railways that merged were the West Side Street Railway, the Crosstown Street Railway and the Buffalo Traction Company. The interurban railways that merged included the Buffalo & Niagara Electric Street Railway, and its subsidiary the Buffalo, Lockport & Olcott Beach Railway; the Buffalo, Depew & Lancaster Railway; the Hamburg Railway; the Buffalo, Gardenville & Ebenezer Railway; the Buffalo, Hamburg & Aurora Railway; and the Niagara Falls Park & River Railway. Later, the IRC acquired the Niagara Gorge Railroad (NGRR) as a subsidiary, sold in 1924 to the Niagara Falls Power Company. The NGRR also leased the Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Railroad.

Over a number of years, the IRC was recognized with a number of different divisions; the Buffalo division,

International Railway Company (IRC)
By far, the largest of the divisions, the Buffalo division handled the streetcar network in Buffalo, and the interurban rail lines to the suburbs east of Buffalo.

Routes

 *  For further reading, please read routes of City of Buffalo streetcars.

At the start of the IRC operating streetcar services from Buffalo, the company primarily operated on a hub and spoke styled system, in which the majority of cars originated in Downtown Buffalo, and radiated out of the city center to their destinations. Some of the routes even originated as belt lines, in which the route operated outbound using one major street, and inbound on another major street.

Rolling stock

 * For further reading, please see Peter Witt streetcar and Nearside streetcar

At the beginnings of the IRC, the company inherited a number of different streetcars from past streetcar services. In 1911, the IRC began replacing many of these streetcars (some of them made by the previous companies) with Peter Witt streetcars and later with Nearside streetcars.

Fleet roster (incomplete)

 * This section is incomplete. You can help by adding more information with proper citations.


 * To avoid an exhaustive table, only major equipment listings are shown.

Abbreviations:
 * P. A. Y. E. - Pay as you enter

International Bus Company (IBC)
Started in 1923, the International Railway Company began new routes with bus services, over some areas that were not able to be easily set up for rail service. The routes were originally lettered, compared to numbered routes on the streetcar system.

The first route, Delaware Avenue (A), began with double-decker bus service from Downtown Buffalo, heading north on Delaware, into the Village of Kenmore. Later, this route was numbered route 25, and continues to this day as the Delaware Avenue bus.

The second route, Bailey Avenue (B), began at the corner of Broadway and Bailey Avenues on the east side of Buffalo, connecting with the 19-Bailey streetcar line, with the bus line running north on Bailey Avenue to near Winspear Avenue. A short period later, service was extended further northbound to Main Street, allowing passengers to connect to the Main streetcar line, and interurban lines at the city line.

Routes
In 1923, the IRC created the International Bus Company (IBC), with the inauguration of bus service between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York. The route slowly began replacing previously offered interurban service via Main Street and a ROW (right-of-way) between Main and Lasalle streets and the City of Tonawanda. The bus service began operating over Main Street, West Utica Street, Delaware Avenue into the town and city of Tonawanda, then through the city of North Tonawanda, where is arrived at River Road and followed it through Buffalo Avenue to downtown Niagara Falls. Later, in September of the same year, a second route was opened on Bailey Avenue (route B), between Broadway and Winspear Avenue.

In early November, 1924, the IBC opened service using double-decker buses on Delaware Avenue (route A), between the Terrace and Albright Knox Art Gallery.

In January, 1925, the IBC opened service on its third bus route, Delavan Avenue (route D). The route operated from Niagara Street to Bailey Avenue.

On August 28, 1928, concurrent with the opening of the new Virgil Loop at Kenmore and Virgil Streets, Delaware (route A) buses were extended to the city of Tonawanda, replacing interurban rail service.

In January, 1929, Bailey Avenue (route B) service was extended from Bailey, along Kensington to Hanley Road. In June, and express service route was opened between Downtown Buffalo and the recently opened New York Central Terminal in the east side of Buffalo (route D).

A number of other lettered routes existed, but under operation of other transit companies:


 * Buffalo Transit, Inc. was the primary carrier of service outside of the city of Buffalo, much of the service was a continuation of service from abandoned routes of the IRC. Bus service on Buffalo Transit remained separate from service in the Buffalo urban area up until August 11, 1961, when the Niagara Frontier Transportation System purchased the Buffalo Transit Company for $1.1 million.

By the mid-1930's, when the IBC was amalgamated with the IRC, bus routes were eventually assigned numbers, instead of lettered routes. Delaware Avenue service was assigned route 25, Delevan Avenue service was assigned route 26, Bailey Avenue service (merged with the Bailey Avenue streetcar service that operated south of Broadway) was route 19, and Central Terminal service was assigned route 17.

Bus fleet
Of particular note: In the early 1940's, the IRC began numbering their coaches according to the number of passengers that were able to be seated in each coach. For instance, a 5000 series coach would seat 50 passengers, while a 3700 series coach seated 37 passengers. Previous to the implementation of this numbering scheme, buses were assigned a numerical designation, in order of receipt of the vehicle.