After the Genesee Valley Canal closed in 1878, the Genesee Valley Canal Railroad bought it for $100 a mile and began laying track on the canal towpath. When the line opened at Scottsville on January 6, 1883, it was being leased to the Buffalo, New York, and Philadelphia Railroad. The line was later operated by the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad before becoming the Rochester Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1900. From 1890 to 1932, three passenger trains a day stopped at Scottsville, and on some days as many as 300 area residents commuted to Rochester, while others used small shelters at sidings to travel short distances to shop, attend school, or visit friends. As buses and automobiles grew more popular, rail passenger use declined, and passenger service at Scottsville ended in 1941. In later years, the Rochester Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad was used mainly to haul coal to Rochester's power plants. Freight service at the Scottsville station ended by 1959 as trucks replaced trains. The Rochester Branch was abandoned in 1963 from Livingston County south, though tracks through Scottsville and Monroe County remained until the early 1970s. A short branch line extended to Garbutt in 1907, where inventions in patent plaster, gypsum building blocks, and wallboard had revived gypsum mining, and railroad cars carried gypsum and gypsum products from Garbutt to the Scottsville station for shipment across the country until the Great Depression of the 1930s.