KINGSTON, New York — The Catskill Mountain Railroad will use three grants from the New York State Department of Transportation to build a new engine house and connecting track, a new terminal at Basin Road, and an upgrade to reduce diesel locomotive emissions, the railroad has announced.
The grants, totaling $4.485 million, were among those awarded under the state’s Passenger and Freight Rail Assistance Program [see “New York to fund more than $110 million in rail, port improvements,” Trains News Wire, March 13, 2024].
The railroad received $667,000 for the Basin Road project, which will see it renovate 1.67 miles of track from its current terminal in Stony Hollow to connect with the Ashokan Rail Trai;, and will build an event facility for both the trail and railroad with restrooms and parking. The engine house project received a $1.5 million grant, while the diesel upgrade received $2.3 million in funding. The projects will help the railroad address requirements that were part of the 5-year operating permit granted last year by the Ulster County Legislature.
“Having worked with the NYSDOT grant programs over the past three years to replace the highway crossing at Route 209 and Washington Avenue,” said Harry Jameson, chairman of the railroad, “we will continue to use this funding opportunity to complete the next phase of our expansion plans and reduce our locomotive emissions.”
Railroad president Ernie Hunt said the extension to Basin Road “will combine the CMRR and the Ashokan Rail Trail to be a regional attraction for Ulster County and allow the City of Kingston to be directly connected to the trail via the CMRR.” He also thanked the state DOT for its “strong endorsement” of the railroad’s commitment to sustainability.
Please understand that there is a whole generation out there who believe that a railroad is nothing but a trail that hasn’t been finished yet.
If memory serves, the City of Kingston kicked them out of town several years ago. I don’t get it, there are hundreds of towns that would bend over backwards for a tourist rail operation, and this area treats them like the plague.
But what’s wrong with the alco diesel locomotives on this railroad they can’t be polluting
Nice to see the state helping the CMRR after all the cruel interference imposed earlier by Ulster County in forcing them to allow the line along the Ashokan Reservoir to be “Rail Trailed” without rail and in taking away their operations at Phoenicia–while leaving some of their best equipment (a a steam engine) trapped there. Yes railbikes use the Phoenicia to Mt. Tremper section, but it is the CMRR that created the contemporary operation there and should not have lost it. But again I applaud these projects funded by NYDOT!