an application to remove the paper barrier that had kept the railroad from interchanging with the Rochester & Southern at Genesee Junction. With fierce opposition from CSX, the Surface Transportation Board granted the LA&L trackage rights across the Genesee Junction Yard, trackage rights into the R&S and its yard at Brooks Avenue, and haulage rights on the R&S to Silver Springs, New York. This gave the LA&L access to three Class I railroads: CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Canadian Pacific Railway. 1998 was a busy year for the LAL. A number of infrastructure rehabilitation projects resulted in the line from Lakeville to Genesee Jct becoming a 25MPH railroad – not the 5-10MPH that had been. The B&H also saw improvements on the northern end of the line, including the reactivation of ten miles of previously unused rail between Cohocton and Wayland, NY. New track was also built to serve a new road de-icer processing facility. Also in this year, the LA&L gained a controlling interest in the Ontario Central Railroad. Due to the Conrail split, the ONCT finally received competitive connections to CSX, NS, CP Rail, and NYSW by way of the Finger Lakes Railway. During 1999, the bridge on Pole Bridge Road was upgraded to handle 286,000 pound railroad cars. Avon Yard was also rebuilt into its current configuration. The Lakeville shop was expanded to accommodate three coupled road engines with additional floor space in a separate bay to facilitate locomotive repair. Two of the ALCO C-424m locomotives purchased in 1995 were repaired and reactivated, emerging as numbers 423 and 424. In 2001, the LA&L began operations on the former Erie-Lackawanna mainline between Hornell, New York, and Corry, Pennsylvania, as the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad. The railroad initially provided rail service between Olean and Jamestown, New York, but eventually extended to more of the line as out-of-service sections were reactivated. In October of that year, the Cohocton Valley Rail Corp. was renamed as the Bath & Hammondsport Rail Corp. Subsidiary WNYP leased additional trackage from Norfolk Southern in 2005 extending from Meadville, PA to Oil City, PA. In 2007, the STB granted an exemption to Finger Lakes Railway allowing them to acquire the Ontario Central from LAL. With the completion of the transaction, ONCT RS-36 418 was permanently transferred from LAL. From May through September, the LAL was busy upgrading the majority of its 30-mile mainline from 105