***This is one of the caches available on the Wayne County Bicentennial trail! Your job is to go find it and open it and record your name on the log paper inside. You can also trade items that are in the geocache with items of your own if you want. Then put it back in place for the next visitor! You are looking for a small magnetic container. YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEAVE THE ROADWAY, please be respectful of posted private property nearby. If you're participating in the Bicentennial Passport program, please punch the correct area on the passport for this geocache and leave the punch in the cache container. You can get a paper passport at the public libraries in Wayne County.*** The program goes from May 1st to November 1st.
Visit www.WayneCounty200.com for more information!
The Wayne County Historic Sites project was designed to document locations of interest to historians, genealogists, and those interested in local history.
Assigned site #06-021 is the Rochester, Syracuse, and Eastern Railroad Power Substation.
At the beginning of the 1900s, the electric railroad was making its way through Wayne County. The first trolley line was the Rochester and Sodus Bay Railroad connecting Rochester to Webster and Williamson, with substations at Ontario and Sodus. The towns in the southern part of Wayne County were linked by the Rochester, Syracuse, and Eastern Electric trolley, which began construction in Newark in 1904 and was built both eastward and westward from that point. The first section, between Newark and Palmyra, opened in 1906. Completed in sections, the entire route from Rochester to Syracuse opened on July 29. 1908.
Trolley service differed from railroad service as cars were operated by electricity rather than steam, eliminating the need for each train to have a source of water and coal - electric trolleys were powered by overhead wires, so power was constant and never-ending.
Power by electricity was instantaneous and powerful, so the trolleys could stop and go quickly. This was a big difference between trolleys and trains, and one of the main reasons that trolleys were so popular - trains need a distance to slow down and speed up, but trolleys can stop very quickly allowing passengers to "flag down" the trolley for pickup and dropoff.
Power for the trolleys was made at a large power generating station in Lyons, NY. The power, rated at 33,000 volts AC, was fed into larger power lines that ran to smaller powerhouses along the line. The trolley cars used DC power, so the AC power was transformed into 600 volts DC at these powerhouses and then fed into the overhead lines. Due to the nature of DC power over distance, a small power station was needed every ten miles to transform the AC to DC.
Built in 1905 by the RS&E to convert the AC current to DC current, the Beebe Rd (see links for more information about the Beebe family/syndicate) substation was one of eight substations between Rochester and Syracuse. In 1923 this particular substation was upgraded with the installation of Westinghouse automatic switch gear. It was the only substation to receive the upgrade.
However, the high cost of construction and maintenance, combined with the ever-growing popularity of the automobile soon took its toll on the profitability of electric trolley lines. From 1914-1930, various lines were consolidated and by 1931 the company was out of money, and the line was sold and dismantled. The overhead lines were kept "hot" to prevent thieving of the copper, but by the summer of 1932, the work of dismantling the lines was complete and in 1935 the last assets were distributed.
Thus ended the trolley line, unable to compete with the allure of the automobile.
Links of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_Syracuse_and_Eastern_Rapid_Railroad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beebe_Syndicate
https://www.fltimes.com/lifestyle/local_history/bicentennial-minute-rochester-syracuse-and-eastern-trolley/article_6b67e0fd-f14d-5dea-a854-be40017e8145.html
https://www.portbyronhistorical.org/2018/06/the-rochester-syracuse-and-eastern-otherwise-known-as-the-trolley.html
https://perinton.org/wp-content/uploads/D-C-Egypt-trolley-stop.pdf