http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... 39427.html



More at the link.

Despicable. This is clearly deliberate. I know locals wanted to make the railroad a bike trail,(Why don't they take a look at the WMSR/GAP in Maryland for a hint?), but going to the lengths of breaking the law just to ATTEMPT get their way? The hammer of justice will be upon some locals soon.

For unlikely possibility anyone here is unfamiliar with this railroad, it is a former New York Central line running over 100 miles between Utica and Lake Placid in New York; the latter city has twice been the site of winter Olympic games, once in the 1930s, and again in the 1980s. The line was revived for connecting service to Lake Placid for those later games, though the job was apparently done "quick and dirty."

This railroad, like the Catskill Mountain, operates in two sections over a government owned right-of-way (owned by the state of New York). There is an officially "out of service" segment in the middle, but this out-of-service segment is used to ferry equipment between the two operations, and is thus passable by trains, although not considered in good enough condition for revenue service. The road has been working gradually to reopen its entire length, and there has even been a new station built at Tupper Lake in anticipation of revived service.

However, like Catskill Mountain, it also faces trail pressures from the snowmobile crowd in the Adirondacks, some of whom spew the same arguments that the railroad's progress is too slow, that the snowmobile crowd and hikers will bring in more money (this is with something like 1,000 miles of snowmobile trail in New York), etc. In contrast to the Catskill Mountain trail people, who seem to be mostly former hippie-environmentalist types, the trail people in the Adirondacks seem to be largely their opposite number, conservative Tea Party types, at least based on the comments on the trail group's Facebook page (go figure!) They are even more adamant about wanting their trail than the Catskill group, and have claimed that a combined trail and railroad are impossible on a single track line (tell that to the people who have such trails in San Clemente, Ca., Madison, Wis., and at another trail in Tennessee).

In any event, this act of sabotage doesn't look or sound like something a bunch of drunken teenagers would do, nor is it an act of metal thievery. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Lake Placid is only 110 highway miles from Montreal, site of the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Back in 2003, then NY State Governor Pataki proposed a joint Montreal/Lake Placid bid for a future Olympics.... here's a USA Today article about it, from February 13, 2003 (ten years ago).

This is not the first time something like this has happened in the Lake Placid area. Several years ago a crossing signal box was destroyed with axes at the same time 10 gallons of water were discovered in the crankcase of the C424 that was stationed in Lake Placid over the winter. Snowmobile tracks were found around both scenes. I won't infer much more, but I will say that someone out there dislikes the railroad enough to resort to these childish acts and probably supports the movement to remove the tracks.

Were the wires that were messed with in the locomotive, power car, or passenger car.

Consumer-grade security cameras are very good these days and pretty inexpensive.

Whooee!! That is an understatement!! Lots of people, or at least some noisy people, want the railroad to go away. From the trail folk's Facebook page:

From Jim McCulley, whom I also understand may be the administrator of the Facebook page:

"If the train never ran again we would lose nothing. In fact we as taxpayers would gain from not paying for it's continued operation. If your concerned about tax money you should support the removal of the train."

From Tyler Carelli a rail supporter (and volunteer at Catskill Mountain):

"You people need to STOP, I am a member of another scenic railroad who is being attacked by people such as yourselves. Hear me out here, I have nothing against rail trails, I've used the ones in my area, but why rip up a line with plans to be reactivated ? It's ridiculous!"

McCully's response:

"Tyler, grow up there is no "plan" to re-activate this line without 45 million in taxpayer dollars. And I find it immoral that people like you are willing to spend 45 million on a rr that has failed 4 times. Especially when there are 7,000 bridges in NY that are deemed insufficient and over 500 that are so bad they may collapse. Yet you and others want to spend money so a handful of people can play train. It's completely unethical and a disgrace to the people that have to earn this money than have it taken away to give to the rr. Especially as they drive to work over bridges that are unsafe because the money was spent on a recreational railroad."

Further down the thread, in another response by a user named Antony Suzanne to other comments by Carelli:

"Tyler is a flatlander and doesn't understand that snowmobilers have money and spend it. He wants his personal train to ride. I lived many many years and only saw the train ONCE! Let me guess, you're a liberal too? Global warming fanatic?"

What have I said in the past about the respect we get?

From a fellow named Jim Rolf; funny, he's talking about the segment on which the railroad ferries its equipment:

"The ties are deteriorated so bad that they are not used. Can't you downstaters actually comprehend that???"

David Whitbeck, talking to Carelli again (who's a young guy, maybe a little hot-headed):

"dude, I don't need to take a breath, I'm quite capable of deealing with idiots like you! And North Elba wasn't the only town to ask that the rails be removed. Have you bothered to do any research on the issue. It appears not! And who said snowmobiles would be the only use of the corridor. Hikers, bikers, horseback riding and other other sorts of users would be able to access the corridor. And by your snowmobile comment I guess you've never ridden a snowmobile & have no clue what riding on the tracks is like. Have you ever been around when a snowmobile meets a frog switch? I doubt it! Do you even know what a frog switch is?"

And I thought Carelli was hot-headed--Whitbeck again:

"and the next time you tell me to calm down, I'll reach thru this computer & show you how calm I am!"

Adirondack Rail Trail (might actually be McCulley):

"Well we want a trail. We do not need a train it will not provide the benefit for the cost. You worry about your area and we will worry about ours."

From Eric Snyder:

" f-t-t......... no one wants you or the train here."

And all that was just one thread.

Another thread, started by Mark Davies:

"Keep the tracks to old forge if the train is SO important to businesses there. But RIP them up the rest of the way to Lake Placid. Here in Tupper Lake, the tracks are of NO use, they are a nuisance. Without the tracks in place, Tupper Lake would be the heart of snowmobile country. And bicycles and atv's.

"Just for a minute image how much all those miles of grade "A" steel in the rails is worth when its melted down. Or the RR ties, thousands and thousands of them for landscaping and retaining walls, etc. Rip Up The Tracks"

I had a response that the rails weren't worth that much, that they would come nowhere near paying for the trail. To do the job right you have to scrape at least the ballast off and regrade to eliminate "shadows" from the ties; that, and possibly paving, can bring the cost of trail conversion close to $1 million per mile.

McCulley to me:

"Wow ignorance is bliss in the rr world."

Funny, considering my contacts and information on the Greenbriar Division trail conversion. . .

Jason Pedu:

"Who cares if the rails are worth something or not. The ties are so rotted they can't be used for landscaping. The train itself is worth less than the worthless rails. Waste!"

Me, here: "We don't get no respect, no respect at all!"--even when the railroad had about half the mileage in revenue service, and the rest for equipment moves. In that respect, it's better than the Catskill Mountain, which has a couple of collapsed bridges and some washouts to deal with.

Letter to the Adirondack Enterprise, linked from the trail page:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... map=%5B%5D

Like some other sites, readers comment on parallel developments, in this case the Saratoga & North Creek (which the trail people also want to get); commentary by a Tanya Tobias, in reference to a minor derailment on that line:

"Has not made an on-time payment to Warren County since July 2012, started three brushfires in rural areas along the line, derailed when somebody left the switch open and destroyed a piece of their own equipment, discontinued stopping at the stations along the line, basically ensuring no towns impacted by restoring operations will ever benefit from it....now this -
http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2013 ... viewmode=2.

"Maybe Warren County should reconsider their big plans and high hopes for this freight train to the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Rail Trail - Keep up all of your hard work or you may have to deal with all of this!"

From a fellow going by the name of Thomas Paine:

"Mr. Mcculley,

"My hat is off to you and your organization for a gallant yet futile effort to get a recreational trail in place of the active railroad line. Many local citizens have made their opinion known in the local papers and on this face book page. The fatal flaw in all of the effort is that it only falls on “local” ears. This issue will not be decided in the small Adirondack town that you and your group stir up with these lofty ideas. No sir, this issue will be decided in the power broker halls of Albany and Washington D.C. Marching up and down the rail line from town to town stomping your feet and raising you voices does get some local coverage in the news papers “inside” the blue line.

"Your organization faces a formidable foe. The railroads, they are well organized, well funded and well connected in the power halls of Albany and Washington D.C. They have lobbyists sitting in offices have lunch daily with the decision makers and elected officials.

"It is time for ARTA [Adirondack Rail Trail Association] to step up to the plate and swing fast balls. Let’s see how many of the rec trail followers will go to Albany and have a rally on the capitol steps. See if you can get Andy Cuomo away from his presidential planning committee long enough to listen to a small voter block from the 'Dacks.'

"If you doubt these facts look to the east. The same battle played out in North Creek. The trail lobby lost. [Reference to Saratoga & North Creek]

"Your foe is well connected, well funded and waiting in the wings.

"Thomas"

Well connected, well funded, waiting in the wings with lobbyists? Us? Really?

A short thread and photo:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

Wonder what this crowd would say about the incident on the Durbin & Greenbriar Valley?

Linked from the trail page:

http://www.americantrails.org/resources ... lsave.html

The trail page itself:

https://www.facebook.com/theadirondackrailtrail

A personal note--and perhaps an error on my part--was trying to show that both a trail and a railroad were possible. That McCulley fellow told another poster (who brought up the Western Maryland Scenic) that NO TRAIL HAD EVER BEEN BUILT NEXT TO AN ACTIVE RAILROAD UNLESS IT WAS A DOUBLE-TRACKED LINE WITH ONE TRACK REMOVED (he made that point much as you see it here, all in capitals).

I proceeded to tell him that was not so, there were several examples where people did this, including San Clemente, Ca., Madison, Wis., and another line in Tennessee along a former segment of the Tennessee Central. Was providing photos and all. Well, that clown started deleting my posts, then one of his own supporters commented that he didn't need censorship, then McCulley deleted the whole thread and on top of that, filed a blocking complaint against me at Facebook (over two weeks now, blocking not yet lifted).

Just to let you know what the Adirondack people are dealing with.

If these posts make your blood boil, take a moment to email

NYSTravelCorridor@dot.ny.gov

and tell them not to let snowmobilers destroy the land.

I also post on a California high speed rail site. That place, while it's primarily about the new system in California, also includes people who are interested in connecting services (such as local transit) and in heritage operations, including steam. Here are some comments about this incident and the background of the Adirondack Scenic by a fellow who posts under the name of "Adirondacker 12800" who apparently lives in Saratoga Springs:

"You’d have to get a lawyer steeped in the laws surrounding the Park. Large swaths of the land the railroad goes through are “forever wild”. there can’t be anything in them more elaborate than unimproved hiking trails and even those are frowned on. The railroad is exempt from the forever wild restrictions because it is an existing use. One that predates the Park. Take out the railroad and you can’t put in a snowmobile trail because the land is in the forever wild portions of the park. It is a snowmobile trail now – trains don’t run in the winter and they use it once the snow is deep enough.

"And you would have to get someone steeped in FRA regulations. Out of service track is track that doesn’t have any trains running on it. Exempt track is track that is in such bad shape they can’t run passenger trains over it, freight can. Even if it is twice a year, once in the spring to bring things up to Saranac Lake and once in the fall to bring them back down to Utica.

"They should have killed off the Saratoga and North Creek [sarcasm]. They are bringing skiers to North Creek during the winter. Sweet deal, buy a moderately expensive ticket for the train and they give you moderately expensive lift tickets. The fare is almost a wash. But the skiers save 120 miles or so on winding back roads in the middle of winter…. I’m sure someone will get figures from the SNCRR and show them to the people who make decisions.

"… for what it’s worth people around here aren’t happy that the SNCRR is doing so well. Especially the ones who bought cheap real estate down by the tracks. But they dislike snowmobilers even more. The train comes through infrequently and stays on it’s tracks. The snowmobilers are all over the place at all hours of the day and night. Yes, some of them think it’s great fun to go out in the dead of night and rev their engines out on the trails. Or rev their engines off the trails."

A piece of advice my father once gave me; "When you start arguing with the crazy man yelling in the street corner, passers by will soon not be able to tell which one of you is the crazy man."

The problem is that, in cases like these (and, say, people who protest every day outside the White House), certain flashes and glimpses of their positions and insights sound perfectly sensible. You have to sit and talk with, or listen to, them for a bit of an extended period to reveal their "craziness." Today's "sound bite journalism" and "shortened attention spans" act to protect the "crazies" from revealing the extent of their "insanity."

The best you can do at this point is to highlight and expose, wherever possible, the duplicity and closed-mindedness of such a group, and their apparent unwillingness to consider contrary viewpoints. (Yes, I am aware I just condemned the entire present American political system with that last sentence.....)

ARTAs directors, have gotten very good at changing the subject and not actually answering any questions. They keep playing the taxpayer sympathy card because it is the only one they have. They never tell you that it is a flat out lie that the state supports the railroad financially. And they will never tell you that their plan for trail maintenance calls for state money and grants. These people should be in jail.

*edited to remove my childish comment*

Before the above personal attack is removed (as it rightfully should be).....



All that does is make them eminently qualified for politics.