Several rail bikes arrived for tune-ups, to be ready for rental out of Thendara, N.Y., station, near Old Forge, N.Y. In one corner, a welder worked on a water tank for one of the railroad’s six main locomotives. In a cut of cars stood cafe car No. 800, a former Canadian National car that is undergoing an extensive rehabilitation.
The railroad is readying for a full schedule of trains, including excursions from Utica to Thendara twice a week in the summer, and four days a week in the fall, says Al Haywood, board secretary, who also doubles as a conductor and engineer. Other trips include taking passengers and their canoes or bicycles from Thendara to Big Moose, and specialty trains, such as the Polar Express, which drew about 15,000 passengers last year, Haywood says.
The rail bikes were popular the past two seasons, and Haywood says that the scenic railroad will run them again this year, out of Thendara and possibly elsewhere. Because there is only one track, bikes and trains have to be carefully coordinated.
In the long term, the board is looking to run more longer distance trains along the line from Utica, Haywood says. That inevitably means talking about the controversy surrounding the tracks that run from Tupper Lake to Lake Placid, N.Y., at the northern end of the line. New York state has attempted to tear out the 34 miles of state-owned track to create a rail trail, and it was the railroad’s successful lawsuit that halted that process. A judge said the rail trail didn’t fit the state’s definition of a travel corridor, and cited other concerns as well.
The state has been working to meet the judge’s objections, and may be submitting a revised rail-trail plan this summer. In its planning process, the scenic railroad’s board has been meeting to discuss the possibilities for service if the segment is removed, and also if it remains as part of the railroad.
“We have meetings regularly over ‘what if we can go to here,’ and ‘what if we can go to here,” Haywood says. “We’ve got to be ready when that day comes, for what’s going to be needed internally… It’s all pretty theoretical, because we don’t know when and we don’t know how far we’ll be able to go.”
Adirondack Scenic should get the rail line designated as a National Historic site or some other type of historic importance. Rails to Trails groups will stop at nothing to take over rail lines and the states go along with them because the states get federal monies to create trails. We have paved trails here in Michigan running between cities that seem to be a total waste of money considering how much use they get. The maintenance cost will far outweigh the benefits in the long run.
I’m glad that the Adirondack Scenic is looking forward to another season running trains out of Utica. Not mentioned in the article above is that most of the trains, including the popular Polar Express, never actually use the state-owned Adirondack Rail Corridor. Yes, two trains a week venture up 30 miles of that corridor with more in the fall. There are also this year all of fourteen runs another ten miles to Big Moose.
There is thus an open question whether the railroad could possibly operate profitable/sustainable passenger service for the full 140-mile trip to Lake Placid as they have so fervently hoped for many years. A trip of that length is no longer “tourism”, but truly “transportation” where potential patrons would have other choices for getting to Lake Placid (or Tupper Lake or Saranac Lake) to partake in some other activity than a six-hour ride in a train – after having to get themselves to Utica to board that train.
Wake up Trains readers! Support the great excursion trains that the Adirondack Scenic already runs; and realize that none of the officialy-stated plans of the Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates (ARTA) have ever proposed ending what are the now-current operations of the Adirondack Scenic. Yes, there have been postings online on Facebook and elsewhere that want to make it a trail to Remsen or even Utica, but those are not, and never have been, ARTA’s position on how the publicly-owned corridor should be used.