Morning Read: A new future for industrial railroads in the Adirondacks?
The last couple of years, most of the debate over rail service in the Adirondacks has surrounded tourist trains — near Old Forge, North Creek and on the Saranac Lake-Lake Placid-Tupper Lake run.
But there’s a new push on to revive trains to haul industrial cargoes, including a route that would carve deep into the southern region of the Adirondack High Peaks. This from the Albany Times-Union.
Iowa Pacific has acquired 30 miles of track connecting the existing rail line to a former titanium mine at Tahawus. It plans to rehabilitate the track so that it can begin hauling tailings left over from mining operations from the site.
The tailings, now being hauled by truck, are used in aggregates to make paving materials for highway departments, [company president Ed Ellis] said.
Ellis declined to say what the company paid for the line, because of a confidentiality agreement with the seller, NL Industries, which still owns the 1,200-acre mine.
Meanwhile, as the Watertown Daily Times reported, northern New York’s big $103 million grant package includes nearly $10 million dollars to refurbish the “46.25 miles of rail line to serve Newton Falls Fine Paper, Benson Mine and Slack Chemical.”
According to the grant announcement, the rehabilitated rail line will offer “the most efficient, safe, reliable and environmentally acceptable transportation of materials in a cost effective manner.”
The Benson Mine used to be one of the biggest iron ore producers in North America, but in a report published last month, the Times suggested that the Newton Falls route might be used in future to ship granite.
In that county, revitalization of the rail line would benefit Benson Mines, which has millions of tons of granite left over from iron production near Newton Falls. The granite is too expensive to ship long distances by truck, but rail would make it marketable.
For example, the company once had an opportunity to sell 200,000 tons of rock for the Onondaga Lake remediation but lost out because of transportation costs.
So what do you think? Is it xciting to see trains hauling ore again in the Adirondacks? Or do you see the idea of re-industrializing parts of the Park as a concern? Comments welcome below.
Tags: adirondacks, economy, transportation
Would there be restrictions on what could be hauled on that line in the future?
Right now other rail lines in the North Country are carrying a wide variety of very toxic dangerous chemicals, would that be allowed in the Park?
I don’t see a problem with any of these ideas and they could provide a few jobs.
The role of railroads as part of the economic development of this area is often overlooked, particularly by those who would like to rip them up and turn them into hiking trails. Lack of infrastructure is often cited as holding back economic growth in this area. Railroads are infrastructure, have minimal impact on the environment (especially compared to highways), and are very fuel efficient. I cannot say if the two railroads in the Adirondack Park will attract any new businesses, but it is very clear that businesses requiring railroad service would not consider locating in our area if the railroads were torn up.
It seems to me that if there is something worth hauling out the lines would be re-furbished by the businesses that want to haul the freight?
In the past when the state or the feds wanted to encourage RR building they gave away land instead of money. Here in this state we give away money and buy land! Quite a turn around. No wonder we are in dire straights.
Sad that all we have going for us are tailings piles.
Paul,
Do you also think that private industry should build and maintain the highways on which they ship their materials? How about asking air freight companies to build the airports and fund the air traffic control system. Why is all of that transportation infrastructure the business of government but if it is for railroads it is called “subsidy”?
knuck, there could be more should we start some Mt. top removal mining and see what we can find?
After last springs rains and tropical storms it seems like the mountain tops are removing themselves.
Brew craftbeers using a teeny-tiny fraction of the 10 TRILLION gal/yr that flow outta the five watersheds of the Adirondacks load it on the trains and ‘export’to NY NE & CANADA and ‘import’ $$$. And, add beer tour trains on all the routes to ‘discover’ the now developing craft brewing movement via the ‘Adirondack Rail Beer Trail’.
Off topic but something that might be of interest to In Box readers:
The Mont Luzerne project, a 2,400 housing unit development in Lake Luzerne, passed one of the last or maybe the last zoning review. This project is immediately on the border of the ADK Park.
Maybe a compare and contrast with other large development projects within the Park is in order?
http://poststar.com/news/local/mont-luzerne-project-clears-zoning-hurdle/article_3a1fd8d0-2540-11e1-abc1-0019bb2963f4.html
Perhaps, but there are no “large development” projects that have been done in the park to compare.
One comparison that you could make is the amount of time for approval. Although many of the delays with the planned ACR project were caused by the developer.
Why limit growth to beer? Why not legalize marijuana, then grow it in the Adirondacks and export it?
There is no reason why shipping containers on flat cars couldn’t be used to take goods from the south up to Tupper Lake, Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. One diesel-electric locomotive at 2000hp can haul 40 cars along that line. One tractor-trailer is 450-500hp. One train run could take 36 transports off the road for long haul shipping. Only local shunter truck would be required taking the container from the station/yard to the local shipper. That’s less wear and tear on the roads, less trucks on the road, less driver fatigue.
How about shipping cement and other loads. All possible. And cheaper by rail.
It is also safer to ship hazardous chemicals by rail than road. Put a tank car of calcium chloride on the rails, other than the chance of a grade-crossing incident, there is very little interaction with hazards to cause a leak. Put the same load on the road, first would take two trucks to haul the same amount as one tank car. Second, the whole trek would be at risk as it’s on a road, interacting with 1000’s of people on the roads, anyone of them, or the driver of the transport, could cause an accident.
The problem with a lot of these methods is people don’t like to look future-forward 5-10-15 years, they look at now. Rail is safer and better. Better for the environment, better from a cost point-of-view, and a better use of resources.
Leslie, private industry is going to pay for it all one way or the other.
Hooray for the Railroad!! What an important part of our infrastructure that was torn apart.
Phil, beside the fact we have no customers for those forty rail cars you speak of the consumer goods transportation by rail is marginal. Because consumer goods are bulky and light and generally shipped via company truck through a company distribution system (Walmart Price Chopper Hannaford Mobil Sysco Quants etc) rail service is not used for these items any where. Add in the fact that most shipping comes out of Albany and this would mean an extra 200 miles for freight or passengers to use the Adirondack line it is clearly not more efficient. And please tell me you don’t want chemicals being shipped through the center of the Adirondacks it’s a silly idea with no customers even it was a good idea.
Leslie Ann King, private business do build the roads and airports and maintain them Americas corporate tax is the highest in the world . You see government has no money to build these things without taking it from somebody else. Those tax dollars are used to build roads and Airports and maintain them when you add in our gas tax, sales tax, use tax and registrations we more than pay for it. Unfortunately 100 million has been diverted to this railroad so our bridges and roads that everyone uses are not being maintained properly. A railroad I might add that according to their permit is suppose to be paying for it’s own maintenance.
And let’s put the waste transfer stream on rails from almost all of the villages in the Park and get all that inefficient truck traffic off the highways. Better safety and more efficient and less carbon in the atmosphere.
Since there is only four villages on this rail line it would all have to be trucked to a central location any way. It would be shorter more fuel efficient and cheaper to drive it to Glen Falls,Plattsburgh,Utica,Watertown, Malone then to create the infrastructure to carry garbage through the center of the Adirondacks. More silly ideas based on wishful thinking and intellectual dishonesty.
McCulley says: “Americas corporate tax is the highest in the world.”
Well, sorry, no.
America’s corporate tax RATE is ONE OF the highest in the world. But two-thirds of all U.S. corporations paid NO federal income taxes AT ALL between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress. It’s all them deductions, tax credits and other stuff (the stuff that “conservatives” are dead set against when it goes to ordinary folks).
The study by the Government Accountability Office released Tuesday said that 1.2 million U.S. companies,or 66.7 percent of them, paid NO income tax.
McCulley says: “government has no money to build these things without taking it from somebody else.”
You could also say that government has no money to fight it’s wars without taking it from somebody else, but somehow “conservatives” never do say that.
Taxation is the cost of civilization. Get over it.
McCulley says: “Since there is only four villages on this rail line it would all have to be trucked to a central location any way.”
Well, no, it would have to be trucked to four different locations, spread out over 100 miles. And since the largest population centers are all but on the line, the bulk of the material would need very little trucking indeed. How would Vermontville be better off hauling its garbage to Plattsburgh than to Saranac Lake? How would Raquette Lake be better off hauling its garbage to Utica than to Old Forge?
Talk about wishful thinking and intellectual dishonesty!
“…conservatives” never do say that.”
Err, I take it back. Ron Paul says that.
I pretty much disagree with everything else Ron Paul says, but he has the middle east wars about right.