DL&W Oswego Line — Baldwinsville to Oswego

NY · Baldwinsville → Oswego

The Lackawanna's road to Lake Ontario, finally gone quiet.

Heads up: CSX still owns the line. This was a discontinuance, not an abandonment, so it could come back into service. Trains still run south of the Budweiser plant. Get permission before riding.

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western ran a line from Scranton, Pennsylvania, north through Syracuse and Baldwinsville to the port of Oswego on Lake Ontario. It hauled coal, cement and grain to and from the docks, and its trains reached the Oswego waterfront through a short tunnel.

When the steam plant in Oswego switched from coal to oil, the railroad hooked the line up to a leftover piece of the old "Hojack" line west of town and built a tank farm to feed it. Niagara Mohawk owned the track from Fulton north, and Conrail upgraded it for the oil trains. When the plant switched to natural gas, the oil trains stopped and the line north of Fulton went dead.

The line became CSX's Baldwinsville Subdivision in 1999. In late 2025 CSX told the federal government that no local freight had moved between north of Baldwinsville and Fulton in two years, and it stopped service on those 11 miles in January 2026. Now the line ends just past the Budweiser brewery in Baldwinsville, and the rails north of it sit in the grass.

⚠️ Before you go: every railroad on this map is private property. A line that looks abandoned may still be owned by a railroad, used to store rail cars, or put back into service at any time — sometimes with no warning. Before going near any track, make sure it's truly abandoned (no recent use, rails not polished, no signals or cars stored on it) and that you're allowed to be there. Never assume a track is dead.

📷 Photos & stories from riders

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