Hornell Erie Depot Museum

Hornell grew up around the New York and Erie Railroad, which arrived in 1850 and began public service on May 14, 1851 — President Millard Fillmore and Secretary of State Daniel Webster rode the inaugural train through town. As the junction of the Erie's two main branches and the dividing point of its Susquehanna and Western divisions, Hornell gained extensive sidetracks, engine houses and repair shops; an 1882 traveler's guide noted the spacious dining saloon at the station where meals were served at regular hours. For a century the town's steam shop handled repairs for the whole Erie system, and the train station stood as Hornell's most important address. Decline came after the 1960 Erie-Lackawanna merger and dieselization; passenger service ended entirely by 1970, and Hurricane Agnes flooding in 1972 destroyed the roadbed southeast of town. The station itself survived, was refurbished, and since the mid-2000s has housed the Hornell Erie Depot Museum, while the former Erie repair shops nearby live on as Alstom's main North American assembly site, building railway cars and locomotives — including Amtrak's second-generation Acela trains begun in 2020.