Morning Read: Freight train into Adk High Peaks sparks debate
A plan to reopen a historic freight line that extends from North Creek to the old Tahawus mine on the eastern slopes of the High Peaks is sparking more controversy and debate.
The Glens Falls Post Star is reporting that more environmental activists are considering trying to block the project.
“We believe Protect has raised some important issues of ownership, compatibility, environmental impact and legal precedent with regard to the plan to reopen the spur all of the way to Tahawus,” John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council…
The group has already drawn opposition from the group Protect the Adirondacks, and sparked questions from state Environment officials.
Meanwhile, local officials in Essex County voted this week unanimously to support the project, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
“I think it is crazy that the environmentalists are out there wanting to tear the tracks up on that line that is so important to the economic recovery in that area,” said Moriah town Supervisor Tom Scozzafava.
According to Scozzafava, his community lost about 7 miles of rail years ago “because the town at that time did not have enough foresight to see the importance that that railroad may have played in our economic recovery.”
Trains have emerged as a new flashpoint in the debate over the Adirondack Park’s future, with active scrums now underway over this freight line, and over the future of a tourism train operated in the Tri-Lakes region.
Tags: adirondacks, economy, transportation
Trains are better than trucks….fewer runs per day, and far, far less air pollution and noise.
The problem is that it appears the train company ( which isn’t named after the county that has spent million$ to fund it ) appears to not be telling the truth about their proposed operation in their permit application. That doesn’t bode well.
Its the environmentalist’s job to question (oppose) these things. In our adversarial system we always get scrums. Its not a bad thing.
From what I have learned about this proposal so far, there are a number of big “ifs” yet to be explained. However, this rail restoration project appears to be an appropriate one. The “ifs” in my view are as follows. If there really is a market for the tailings (and perhaps some rare earth elements), and if the company can restore to rails without significant government financing, then I am in favor of this project.
The objections by Protect! echo the objections 70 years ago by its predecessor organization, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. Somehow, this rail line has existed for 70 years without splitting the Forest Preserve in two; and I doubt it could set any dangerous precedents for future rail or road expansion.
Are there other areas that have “rare earth elements” that could be tapped in this region?
These elements are very important for the development of alternative energy. Right now China has basically a monopoly on these materials and they are threatening to hoard it all for themselves (and then sell it to us a ridiculously high prices).
Shutting off access to things like this is basically a “green jobs” killer and a thumbs up to fossil fuel based energy.
Why don’t these “environmental” groups here want to support alternative energy production and promote ways to remove these other materials with a lower environmental impact than the alternative (trucks)?
Could it be that they don’t want to hear train whistles when they are hiking or paddling in the area???
The motives of these groups have very little to do with environmental protection beyond their own recreational playground.
I like trains, subways and street cars. I grew up with all three. When it comes to transportation, there is no sweeter sound than hearing a train whistle late at night before falling asleep. Sure beats listening to logging trucks and tandems putting on the breaks and downshifting as they come into town.
This rail line has existed since the 1940s. It was in daily use servicing the mine in Newcomb until the late 1980s. It has lain dormant for the last 30 years. In the meantime the mine tailings are being trucked out over Rt. 28N which also runs right through the forest preserve. Along comes someone that wants to put the line back into productive use and now Protect The Adirondacks not only wants to stop the project but wants the rails torn out. Why now? I don’t get it.
I’m with just about everybody else on this one: More trains. Better than using trucks. Don’t like rails to trails either. Trails next to rails is a great idea, though.
Will there be less trucks with more trains? Or will there simply be more trains and more trucks as more stuff gets mined?
i’m for continued train use..and removing tracks(which are incredibly expensive)to create a trail..?..short-sighted and moronic waste of money!
My understanding is that the railroad applied for use of the tracks only for freight but that they have some sort of contract with NL for a passenger platform to be built if they get the right to use the line. Is this true?
I have no objection to a rail line being used but I want everyone to be clear about what the agreement is up front.
If the North Country truley wants more tourists and their dollars then one should be able to get on a train in NYC and wind up in Placid, Saranac Lake, and like-wise from Montreal, Toronto, (transfers of course)
If that rail also transported materials and products, whats the problem.
Gotta crack the egg to make an omlette.
Two Cents, I am surprised that they can’t make a flight from NYC to Lake Clear work? I guess it is just too easy to drive.
knuck, I guess they consider that human freight. I have said it before and I will say it again.
This is what the Adirondacks needs:
http://www.durangotrain.com/
Paul,
I’m guessing the plane size/runway would be an issue, and i think a train ticket price would be closer to the “magic number”.
I’m also guessing a flight from NYC does work, for those who OWN a plane!
A commuter flight from NYC to Chicago about 200.00? because of the volume. Would the traffic volume to Lake Clear compare to keep the price affordable for “weekenders”?
Driving enables one to bring the dog, the kids, and a bunch of “stuff”
Flying makes time vs. distance sense, and one might be willing to trade the car for the plane if “affordable” to the “masses”
Right now it is a willing trade for some, but not enough to fill every hotel, restaurant, and then it’s questionable if the “locals” want that type of invasion, from what i read here.
Flying in is an elite choice, wich is both the attraction and the deterant, presently.
Plenty of trains and railway tracks through the alps. Does Bern have the same problems getting skiers, hikers, vacationers, (never mind goods and supplies) from say Italy, as the Adirondacks has getting the same from a similar radias?
seems like they cracked the nut, can’t we?
Like I said the Council does not want noisy trains delivering too many people too close to their second homes.
This sets a bad precedent. If you do this soon you will have a spiders web of trains crisscrossing the wilderness.
Paul, noisy trucks are no more welcome than noisy trains (just ask the folks near Titus) and I would guess that the roads the trucks are on pass closer to people’s houses than the tracks do, in general.
With others, I think Protect and the Council are shooting themselves in the foot here, though I can kind of see their point– the line *was* created under a war-time emergency, and should reasonably have been removed when the war was over, a mere sixty-seven years ago. Still, the line should stay at least until the mine tailings have been removed.
i lived and worked construction on a barrier beach. During the winter months nobody was around and the oceanfront was the highway for truck loads of freight to get on and off the island as the bay was frozen and the ferry freight was a no go. I thrived on the isolation the season provided. When July hit, Manhattan came to the beach by the 10,000’s signaling the time for me to skidaddle.
We would build a second home for Manhattanites, and by july fourth construction work would be halted for the season, afterall that’s what the beach was really for, to lay and relax in the sun, if you were so lucky to do so.
During the summer, essential services, like National Grid, and more important–GARBAGE- was still hauled off the island accross the sand, not accross the bay.
The very same people whose house we just built, or built in years prior, convienently forgot how their materials got there, as if their home sprang from the sand by watering the ground with a garden hose.
They would call authorities,(FEDS),Town Municipalities controlling the building permits and the oversand permits and cause such a hoopla that their tanning was so rudely disrupted by the odd sight of trucks traveling down the beach, THEIR BEACH!!!
These are not year round residents, and i might add they are not people unaccustomed to traffic- having just come from Manhattan for the weekend.
well the moral, or the point is “i got mine, screw you”
People can be selfish and rude and very proprietary, as long as they already got “theirs” and they could give a rats you know what about others.
I came up to the Adirondacks during the summer first to get away from that, and later in life, full time. well wouldn’t you know, wherever you go-the sky is blue and the grass is green…
I second what Paul said about the Durango-Silverton train…
Have you guys been to Durango-Silverton? They have several thousand feet of elevation and you can look out the window and see something besides trees. And when you get to Silverton there isn’t much there; unless you count one of the worlds best extreme ski areas, a town operated ski area, bars and restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, and a real downtown; but there is still a lot more there than there is in Tahawus. And Silverton is hardly more than a ghost town compared to Durango. Durango is a thriving little city with a college, art galleries by the score, great restaurants, a few breweries, and progressive-minded people who do things like pass dark sky laws.