The best compromise is to embrace the existing reality: Allow the excursion trains to continue where they are working, but take up the tracks along the 80-mile stretch from Old Forge to Saranac Lake.

This would not be a removal but a transformation of transportation infrastructure.

In the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire, the Appalachian Mountain Club has eight huts, each about 6 to 9 miles apart. Modeled after the huts in the Alps, each can accommodate 30 to 96 people. They attract 39,000 overnight visitors annually. Most of that visitation is during the summer months. Some of the huts close in the winter.

"With hut-to-hut routes, you don't have to carry in a 60-pound backpack of gear," student Barrie Potter said. "You simply need a sleeping bag, some food and a map, pretty much."

The students did a survey of more than 200 people, asking them questions about potentially having huts in the Adirondacks. One question they asked was what modes of travel would be preferable for traveling between huts. They found that hiking (93.4 percent) was the most popular, followed by paddling (64.7) and skiing (49.7).

The students suggested a couple of hut-to-hut routes. One went from Big Moose to Tupper Lake along the railroad corridor. The other was in the central Adirondacks near the Essex Chain of Lakes.

The Big Moose-to-Tupper Lake trip would be 45 miles. It would be a six-day and five-night trip for those who went from one end to the other. It would also offer a shorter loop option of three days and two nights, starting and ending in Tupper Lake.

Here's another article with an interesting bit of data in it:
Adirondack Daily Enterprise: Huts in the Adirondacks? Paul Smith’s College students think they would work (January 11, 2014)
The article describes how a group of college students devoted their semester-long senior project to investigating the feasibility of building "huts" in the Adirondacks. The students were supervised by a Professor at Paul Smith College and, as far as I know, neither the rail-to-trail nor railway preservation sides assisted with this particular research.... so the students' findings are probably unbiased.

. . .The project sounds like it was well-done and well thought-out; my kudos to the students for doing it!

My takeaways from their research are that (1) it would take lightly-equipped hikers (those not carrying 60 lb backpacks) six-days and five nights to travel between Big Moose to Tupper Lake and (2) a trail between Big Moose and Tupper Lake needs to have huts built along it if the trail is to be as heavily used as similar trails in the northeast.

My favorite is from the guy who says locomotives are not internal combustion, but use fossil fuels. . .that may apply to steam power, but diesels?

Unless you've got an internal-combustion locomotive burning biodiesel or cow-produced methane somewhere, diesel locomotives burn fossil fuels. Petroleum is a "fossil fuel."

they claim that we have paid snowmobile people who are also rail enthusiasts to argue against the trail, and the claim that the rail enthusiasts and snowmobilers combined are just not snowmobilers.

In all seriousness, how do they think that a not-for-profit has money to pay people off to push their opinion, especially when they are claiming that ARPS has no money. I'm starting to think that most of these people just love confrontation and drama too much to pay any attention to the facts.