{"id":5194,"date":"2011-12-12T05:28:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T10:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=5194"},"modified":"2011-12-12T10:44:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T15:44:59","slug":"morning-read-a-new-future-for-industrial-railroads-in-the-adirondacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/12\/12\/morning-read-a-new-future-for-industrial-railroads-in-the-adirondacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: A new future for industrial railroads in the Adirondacks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 This from the Albany Times-Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0site.<\/p>\n

The tailings, now being hauled by truck, are used in aggregates to make paving materials for highway departments, [company president Ed Ellis] said.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0mine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, as the Watertown Daily Times<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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<\/a> suggested that the Newton Falls route might be used in future to ship granite.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 Is it xciting to see trains hauling ore again in the Adirondacks?\u00a0 Or do you see the idea of re-industrializing parts of the Park as a concern?\u00a0 Comments welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last couple of years, most of the debate over rail service in the Adirondacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[22,10,4802],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5195,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194\/revisions\/5195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}