(Adirondack) trains make strange bedfellows
Tonight at North Elba’s town meeting, two long-time adversaries will appear together to advocate for the same cause: the dismantling of the tourist train between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake.
Snowmobile enthusiast and activist Jim McCulley will appear. He’s the guy who pushed to open a section of the Jackrabbit ski trail to motorized recreation.
Also on the agenda to speak is Tony Goodwin, skier and trail builder and chief steward of the Jackrabbit.
North Elba is considering whether to build a parallel trail to the railroad for bicycles and boot traffic, but McCulley and Goodwin want that plan scrapped.
“Our position is that the grant money would go much farther if they could just wait until the tracks were gone,” Goodwin writes in an email.
Tonight’s meeting is the latest salvo in a long-running debate over the future of tourism trains in the Adirondacks. Supporters say they offer a unique draw for tourists visiting the region.
Opponents say the corridor, owned by the state Department of Transportation, would be much more sustainable and popular as a multiuse trail.
So far, the DOT has shown little willingness to reconsider the use of the rail line. The state has continued to underwrite much of the tourist train’s operations.
But the North Elba town board has expressed skepticism about the train in the past and tonight’s meeting could offer some new sense for where this discussion is going.
So what do you think? Does the train have a future? Or would you rather be bicycling or snowmobiling along that trail?
Not sure this is such a great idea. Gas prices are going to continue to rise over the next decade, and rail infrastructure will become more valuable again. Hard to put back in once you’ve removed it.
Let’s not put all our recreation/tourism eggs in one basket — there’s plenty of ski and snowmobile trails, and while another would likely be great, I don’t agree that it should be at the expense of the Adk Scenic Railroad.
I agree with oa. The problem with the train is that it only goes from Placid to Saranac. If it continues to Tupper and then to Old Forge as originally planned it would be a much bigger draw than making a bike path which will not only be expensive to maintain will be a mess to manage. Especially if you put motorized traffic on it. Most of the use will be in the winter anyway when the train is not running. They could put something along side for snowmobiles without near the effort.
I’m a strong supporter of rail for the purpose of inter- (or even intra-) city transit. But tourist trains in our area are a giant waste of money.
Take the Upper Hudson Railroad money pit that Warren County has sunk millions into. The closest terminal to even a modest size population center is North Creek, which is 45 minutes away from Lake George village (which does have a lot of people in the summer time). Why would you spend gas money to drive an hour to North Creek and then spend another $15 or $20 to see the leaves in a train, when you can just continue your automobile ride? If one of the terminals were in a population center like Lake George in the summer, Queensbury, Glens Falls or Saratoga, then it might have a chance of actually working.
I live in Glens Falls. And while I’ve often heard people say in the fall, “I’m going up north this weekend to do some leaf peeping” and sometimes I’ve heard people say they were going to take the gondola at Gore, I’ve never heard anyone say they were going to take the train.
Build a bike trail. This is an outdoor tourism economy. People would rather actually be outside during the short part of the year where the weather’s nice.
I’m happy to see Tony and Jim putting their differences aside and uniting on this cause. We need a safe bike-commute route between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid – Route 86 hasn’t been safe in a very long time. The tourist train doesn’t go fast enough and isn’t cheap enough for commuter use.
See also: http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/524403/Route-86-is-busier-than-I-87-per-lane-mile.html?nav=5005
How much would it cost to build a bicycle/foot trail alongside the tracks vs tearing the tracks up? If it is less to tear the tracks up is the loss of tourism related to the train greater than the difference? I don’t live in either community but I have ridden the train and I think it adds to the community. I’d rather see a walk/bike option added than in place of the train. As for ski/snowmobile use, aren’t they already using the right of way for that? The trains don’t run in winter do they?
Its kind of a moot point. If they wait till the tracks are taken out, it will be 10 years or maybe never. Better build the bike trail now when it is needed.
PLEASE don’t take away the train! It would be a much better idea to build a bike trail alongside the tracks. Why have just one when it is possible to have both? We really enjoy having the train run through our backyard and we like to go out onto the back porch and wave to the passengers on the train. As for the snowmobilers, we see plenty of those go by in the winter along the tracks. They seem to do just fine with the tracks still there. So waht is the problem? We have something (the train) that is unique to our nearby area. WHY would we want to get rid of that?
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. If the Scenic Railroad people could get their hands on a _steam locomotive_, then they’d really have something. With a diesel engine, not so much.
But train tracks are very carefully engineered to be as flat and straight as humanly possible: hardly the kind of route that makes for interesting hiking, biking or cross-country skiing. It’s only interesting to snow machine riders because they’re going so fast.
It’s a shame to take the tracks up because once they’re gone, that part of our history will be gone forever. Can’t anyone lay their hands on a steam engine?
I wish we had a train in Potsdam… There are no working sidings or connections in Potsdam any more, and of course, no passenger service, but we do have a freight line. It’s kinda scary to watch what they routinely haul through our villages…if they ever have a big crash we’ll be goners. The rail folks are kind enough to spray herbicides along the right-of-way each year…right next to peoples yards and homes.
So we have all of the negatives, and none of the positives…when do these things come up for review??
I am for removing the tracks and converting to a recreation trail based on the following things I have heard regarding the current rails:
1. The railroad corridor would be rail-banked, meaning it could be used as a railroad if needed again in the future (e.g. if $10/gallon gasoline becomes a reality).
2.The rails would have to be replaced anyway for the tracks to be used commercially.
3. The salvage value of the metal rails could be used to pay for removing the tracks/ties and regrading the railbed.
If one or more of these statements is not true then I may not be so supportive of the trail idea. I am in agreement that the tourist train is not that exciting and it costs too much per ride. Not to mention the taxpayer subsidy via DOT.
One thing that I find interesting is that this trail is always billed as a snowmobile and ski trail. I don’t know many skiers who want to ride on a heavily used snowmobile corridor. This should be billed as a snowmobile only trail in the winter with bikers and pedestrians in the summer. There is plenty of skiing in the area already and this trail is too flat to appeal to most skiers. Also, its just no that scenic (sorry railroad folks).
The new fleet MPG requirements of 34 mpg mean that at $10 per gallon the round trip from Utica to Lake Placid would be $150.60. Which means it will still be far cheaper to drive a family of four by car then to take the train. Right now the cost from Utica to Old Forge is $36.00 with diesel increase with fuel cost for cars all the way to Lake Placid $175.00 per passenger? It will never make economic sense to ride this railroad.
Mcculley, please!
You’re making assumptions that nothing will change US transportation policy from massive gas-guzzling highway subsidies that were put into place at the height of the Texas oil boom in the 50s. (Those policies are already changing, by the way, if slowly.) As gas becomes prohibitively expensive, you change from diesel to electrified rail. Increase service as demand rises. Ski trains, etc… Like they did back in the day: http://www.adirondackbranch.net/eSki.html
Not hard. And we’ve done it before.
oa when you have a population of less than 25,000 people on a route,you think they are going to spend money on this train. When they need money for areas with millions of people, your not thinking very clearly. Also since you can buy numerous 40mpg 4 door sedans now it seems to be your not understanding changing transportation. We now have electric cars that go 100 miles soon it will be 200 miles. Trains went out of favor for a reason you forget this was asked to be abandon in 1949 long before decent cars and roads were in the Adirondacks. Stop thinking with you love of trains and try reality.
As Jim’s “partner in reality” on this issue, I feel I must respond as well. Nature has it right. 1) This corridor will be “railbanked” so that rail use could be restored in the future. 2) To make any truly commercial rail use use of the corridor, most rails and many, many ties would need to be replaced, so tearing them up would likely be the first step anyway. 3) Yes, the salvage value will pay for the removal, and simple removal will create the first goal – i.e. a longer snowmobile season for Tuper Lake and other communities that depends on that season. We’ll work on the summer, non-motorized use over time.
OA: Snow trains worked when roads were barely plowed and it was a relatively short “straight” shot from the Capital District to the skiing. From Albany, it’s a loooong way around to Whiteface or even Big Tupper. As for electrifying to save on diesel fuel in the oft-cited $10/gallon era; there is no move at all to electrify even the heavily-used Water Level Route from Albany to Buffalo, so a dead-end branch line isn’t ever going to get that sort of capital investment. If fuel does end up costing that much, buses will still be the most efficient means of moving people to Lake Placid. Even Switzerland, with a dense netwoek of electrified railways, still relies on buses to service the smaller resort communities. And people still drive to those resorts despite $7-9/gallon gas – depending on the country in which they buy that gas.
Tony, sounds like you and I are talking about the same thing: a future with alternatives to the current uneconomical auto-only system. If Nature is right (and thanks for the research) and the byway is railbanked, then fine. That means the rail infrastructure is intact. That was my original point. We’re going to need it. Rail is cheaper to maintain than roadways. We’re going to choose not to maintain a lot of roadways. Simple economics will make a lot of these choices for us. I’m agnostic on the tourist rail. But why not have a double-wide route?