I received a mailing a few weeks ago from the Rails to Trails Conservancy. The front of the envelope, under a pair of pictures, had the legend "Save an old railroad line... Make a new trail!" I don't see the logic here; how is making a trail "saving" a railroad line? Needless to say I won't be making any contributions. What a misguided fundraising approach-

I'd also like to know how they got my name and address; I suspect some publication I subscribe to sold them their subscriber list. (I use to register for college using just my first initial and spelling out my middle name -sometimes with an odd capitalization or spelling- just to see who the school shared student information with.)

Keeping an eye on the opposition:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... l?nav=5041

One of the funny things about the opposition is how it keeps trying to move the goalposts. They started out spouting about the economic benefits, and then when the numbers showed them wrong, they start talking about general community benefits (which still need to be paid for).

One thing that's coming up is how these people (and in some cases on the Catskill Mountain, too) keep saying "Local residents should decide, and not be influenced by people from New Jersey or Pennsylvania or West Virginia." Maybe--but if you are interested in tourism at all, you damned better be interested in what outsiders think and say because they are your potential tourists and customers!

Can you imagine a major league sports franchise that only cared about the local fans? Can you imagine how such a business operation would shortchange itself if it didn't prize the out-of-town fans as much as the locals?

How did my country turn so dumb, and how do such dumb people get so much influence?

Just looks like more spin to me. Remember, the principles in ARTA do not care if the trail gets built or any economic benefit from either option. They simply want the rails gone to further isolate the communities they live in. I believe this has become an extreme example of "NIMBY".

I think they are grasping at straws though. The people that have to make the decisions are not that stupid and are on to their BS and lies.

Here we go again--see pages 8 and 9:

http://www.nysnowmobiler.com/Custom_NYS ... ocialshare

It's not just in New York:

http://www.pa-tec.org/index.html

From the Daily Freeman of Kingston, N.Y., on the subject of the Catskill Mountain Railroad, which is also under siege from trail promoters:

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/opinion/201 ... trail-plan

A following comment by a person using the name, "In The Middle:"



And we get told we make "personal attacks" on trail supporters?

There is some very interesting information in the NYSSA newsletter at


http://www.nysnowmobiler.com/Custom_NYS ... ocialshare

but it is not directly the business concerning ARTA's putative sabotage.

It concerns two things: First, the affidavit filed by Jim Rolf in the "Protect the Adirondacks" case, with its description for the need to 'groom' trails that are going to be used by snowmobilers, and second, the amount of grants made to provide this grooming service.

Or, to put it a mite differently, how much rebuilding of the Adirondack RR could be done for the $1,309,600 that the snowmobilers arranged to get for their trail grooming recently.

I'm surprised no one here has made more of a point of this, including its cost.

Nice to have more than one pair of eyes on things! Missed that!

And yes, this is another example of the double standard we have to work under. Note that this is not a one-time cost, but a regular, continuing maintenance item.

How much could the Adirondack Scenic do with an additional $1 million or so on a regular basis for their maintenance budget? Assuming this was in addition to the current maintenance reimbursement they get now, how many miles of track could they rehabilitate per year with that additional funding? At least two per year, maybe more? I think Catskill Mountain does a mile for about $100,000; if Adirondack Scenic could manage that, we'd be looking at 10 miles of line opened per year. All the way to Lake Placid in six years. . .

We're red-headed stepchildren. We don't get no respect. . .or money.

More and more I think my parents and church brought me up wrong. Shouldn't have emphasized honesty so much, should have included the skills of lying, cheating, and stealing, provided you could use them to a good purpose. . .

But is that for one trail, or the entire state? We can't do an honest cost-benefit analysis until we know this. $1.3 million for either two miles of track or two miles of trail as a recurring maintenance cost looks downright pathetic on a cost-benefit scope; if $1.3 million covers 500 miles of snowmobile trail, well..........

Well, we would have trains running to Beaver River instead of just the snowmobiles;)

Most snowmobile clubs handle grooming on their own through local fundraising and volunteers. The reality of the situation in the Adirondacks is that there are a lot of trails that need maintaining and less people to do it. Despite what some of us want to believe, snowmobiling is big business in New York. That being said, I highly doubt that the 1.3 million will go to just this area of the Adirondacks and will likely be distributed statewide.

As a snowmobile owner, it disappoints me that the NYSSA has aligned it's self with ARTA. It should be working on plans to better maintain the trails that already exist instead of backing a group with hidden motives.

Maybe this thread should be renamed. I doubt we will be able to further discuss on the original topic of sabotage. It is unlikely at this point we will hear any further info on the incident. It is still very much relevant to discuss the ongoing battle between the rail and anti-rail communities however, which is what this discussion has turned into.

The 'sabotage' connection with NYSSA was the article described, about how the wood decking that is put in to allow snowmobiling on a bridge deck was damaged. Somewhat sarcastic reference made to ARTA there.

The snowmobiling emphasis is on what's good for snowmobiling -- what's strange about that? They don't want rails if they can have the trail without them, but they don't want a trail 'optimized' for traffic other than snowmobiling, either (which is a bigpiece of ARTS's emphasis). What is interesting is the understanding by NYSSA that the potential ARTA epople's sabotage extends to the snowmobiling community as well as the railroad. That was a stupid thing for the trail-only supporters to have done...

There is a breakdown of the grooming grant amounts in the NYSSA newsletter, for those who were concerned with what it was for. I'm sure more detailed information could be provided with a civil request to NYSSA.

Interesting that they want the rails ripped out, but to make a bridge "safe" for snowmobiles they have to cover it with decking... using what is very likely the Railroad's push cart.

Thought this lot of statistics, including registration trends, might be of interest here:

http://nysparks.com/recreation/snowmobi ... Report.pdf

Registration data on pages 12-13.

The registration trend is particularly interesting; snowmobile registrations, at least as of now, peaked in 2002-2003, at 172,164 units. After that, registrations declined steadily until 2006-2007, moving up and down around 132,000 units, then a dramatic drop to 90,433 in 2011-2012, followed by a rebound 116,725 for 2012-2013. This does not seem to have much correlation to economic conditions (the decline started several years before the big bust in the economy in 2007-2008, and was actually stable after that), but another poster who's been communicating with me privately, and who is also a snowmobile enthusiast, says many of these "sleds" are parked due to inadequate snowfall in recent years (and he himself has been busy with his own business and placing much of his funding in it, not being able to afford the snowmobile in his garage for the last few years). Ironically, he has been able to take quite a number of train rides!

The point of this is, is snowmobile use declining? Is this trail a good investment if snowmobile use is declining? Are the ARTA people pushing for the trail aware of this, and if so, why are they continuing this questionable project, made even more questionable by what may be at best a static business?

In the long term, it may bode ill for the snowmobile industry, as people have less disposable income to enjoy on "toys". A parallel lies in the pleasure boating industry, which has seen declines in new sales and reduced numbers. Figuring a person could drop roughly $2 to $5K per season (including the machine, maintenance, taxes, transportation, lodging, ad nauseum).

Makes a $25 dollar ticket on line X look positively cheap!

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Finally got around to posting pics from a hike I took last year (2012). For anyone interested in what this railroad looks like between Big Moose and Beaver River click here: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThumbs.aspx?id=98045

The walk was no picnic and the next time I visit Beaver River it will hopefully be by train. The track is in amazing condition and it is clear that only tie replacement is necessary to get passenger trains operating in this section again.