About Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad
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Founded in Akron, Ohio, in June 1907 as the Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railway, the AC&Y began with a modest line to Mogadore. Its grand name promised Canton and Youngstown; its rails ultimately reached neither. Classic corporate overreach? Maybe. Still, the road built a serious freight business.
In 1920, the company acquired and leased portions of the Northern Ohio Railway route west from Akron toward Delphos, transforming itself from a local connector into a 171-mile Ohio carrier. It moved the practical stuff that kept the Rubber City humming: rubber goods, coal, chemicals, lumber, minerals, and more.
The Railway and Northern Ohio were merged into the Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railroad in 1944. Its general offices were in downtown Akron’s AC&Y Building at 12 East Exchange Street, a fittingly sturdy home base for a railroad with a much longer name than map footprint.
Norfolk & Western acquired control on October 16, 1964, but AC&Y continued as a separate operation for years. It was merged into Norfolk & Western on January 2, 1982, ending its independent corporate run. Parts of its former route later continued under the revived Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway.
Our Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad collection celebrates Ohio freight grit, Akron industrial swagger, and the wonderfully audacious railroad that put two cities on the letterhead without ever laying track to either one.