Dunkirk was the original terminus of the New York and Erie Railroad. The terminus was relocated to Buffalo in 1852.
April of 1851 the New York & Erie Railroad was completed. The railroad was opened on May 14, when a train made half of the journey from the Hudson River to Dunkirk. Continuing the next day, the train arrived in Dunkirk with Charles Sherman, a Dunkirk resident, as engineer for the second half of the trip. The railroad was 445 ½ miles long, with wide gauge tracks 6’ in width. This was the longest railroad then in existence, and the first from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Many notables made the trip, including President Fillmore and his Cabinet, Daniel Webster, Seward, and Douglas, etc. There were festivities for three days, with crowds estimated at fifteen to twenty thousand gathered for the event. The entire railroad project had cost $23,500,000 and great predictions were made for the development of the country along its route. Passenger and freight service on a regular basis started May 19. Later in the year, the telegraphic system of dispatching trains was adopted. The train was in two sections with a total of a dozen cars.