From the United States, the New York and Erie Rail Road's Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad and New York Central Railroad's Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad crossed over the bridge and reached into Ontario. Similarly, the Great Western Railway in Canada extended its network from Canada into New York. At the time of the bridge's opening, the three railroads were of different gauges: on the New York Central, on the Great Western, and on the Erie. Instead of accommodating three railways side-by-side on a single wide deck, the bridge saved space by overlapping the tracks over each other. This method used only four rails; one pair formed the track for one railway, and the other pair formed another. One rail from each pair would then form the final track. In the first year of the bridge's operation, an average of 30 trains trundled across it each day. Five years later, 45 trains passed over the structure daily.