The First Building: Railway Express Agency Terminal Building

Beyond the Post Office, not quite visible from where you’re standing, is the Railway Express Agency Terminal Building. This was the local home of the American Railway Express Agency -- a national express delivery service.  This structure, which we usually call the Railway Express Building, was actually built in 1917. In fact, one of the reasons the Central Terminal was built here was to take advantage of the Curtiss Street structure and its operations. Some have called this building the FedEx or UPS of its day (ironic, since UPS was a growing competitor at the time!). At the time, “express” items were loaded onto passenger, not freight, trains.

During a World War I coal shortage, President Woodrow Wilson nationalized the railroads. By 1918, the new United States Railroad Administration controlled all major railroad companies, but not the express delivery railroad companies. Later that year, the USRA forcibly merged the four major and three smaller express companies into American Railway Express Company.

In 1920, private owners regained control of the railroads and express companies, but the industries had been forever changed. In 1929, New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad joined 67 other railroads in acquiring American Railway Express. The newly renamed Railway Express Agency thrived during the post-World War II boom, but decades of decline in rail shipments would lead to the REA’s collapse in 1975.

The Railway Express Building is 60 feet wide, 860 feet long, and two stories in height. A covered four-track train shed is located on the building's south side. The Railway Express Building is owned by the City of Buffalo, which also owns the Post Office Building and the surrounding 16.5 acres.

Photo courtesy of Geoff Gerstung.