By Richard Palmer
A race between the Lehigh Valley’s Black Diamond Express and a “Cole Eight” touring car occurred on November 7, 1915 between Buffalo and Geneva gained nationwide publicity. The car, with a 70-horsepower, eight-cylinder engine, manufactured in Indianapolis, Ind., was driven by A. E. Higgins of Buffalo from that city to Buffalo to Geneva, a distance of 107 miles, in an hour and 55 minutes, beating the train by 14 minutes.
The railroad was 102 miles long in that distance. An average of 55.8 miles per hour for the entire trip was attained by the car including two stops and one delay necessitated by a detour.
The main highway, portions of today’s Routes 5 and 20, had been cleared for this event. The car built in Buffalo, shattered every known stock pleasure car highway speed record for the distance of 100 miles or more.
The race has been announced several days in advance. The engineer of the Black Diamond knew that his train had been pitted against the automobile and pressed his locomotive to its utmost. But from the actual start of the race, there was never a moment when the train could have been considered as a contender for the honors of the day. The car and the express train left Buffalo on even terms, passing the city limits neck and neck.
Higgins stepped on the accelerator at the starting line, and from then on, the eight-cylinder car never once gave the train a chance to catch up to it.
About 40 miles out a tire blew, which was quickly changed. “We had Howk wire wheels on the car, and made the change in just two minutes after the car stopped,” Higgins said. “We had a moving picture camera stationed along the road as well as at the station at Geneva, where the express was photographed,” he said.
But even with this stop the express train could not begin to catch up. Route 5 and the Lehigh Valley railroad closely paralleled each other as far as Caledonia where the highest veers off to the southeast and joins Route 20 at Avon.
There, the car lost some time when it was held up by a switch engine, shunting some freight cars, lumbered on to the Erie crossing and stopped. Then, a short distance east, it was found necessary to make a six-mile detour to avoid a stretch of road that was under repair. With all these hindrances, however, the car still made good time, making the first 89 miles of the journey in exactly 35 minutes.
With the necessary six-mile detour, the car negotiated 107 miles in making the trip while the route taken by the express train between the two points. The Black Diamond, in point of actual distance covered, actually had a five-mile advantage on the Cole Eight.
Because of the two stops and the detour which prevented the motor car from making the best possible time, Higgins was determined to repeat the performance in the very near future. He was sure the trip could be made in an hour and 45 minutes. As far as could be determined this was not repeated.
But the Cole Eight was a national sensation. One owner drove his car up Lookout Mountain in Denver in high gear without reducing the water level of the radiator by more than a half inch. On another occasion, a Cole Eight beat the running time of a fast passenger train between Denver and Glenwood Springs, a distance of 320 miles, by two hours and 10 minutes.
