This is a great story about how preservationisits and rail buffs can save entire roads. From the Albany Times UnionStruggling to stay on tracksSmall, independent railroad runs on love By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writerFirst published: Sunday, July 31, 2005GREENWICH -- The train engine starts with a flick of a switch. The ignition is smooth, the rumble as deep and throaty as you'd expect from a 125-ton locomotive.A few minutes later, the Batten Kill Railroad locomotive is on the move, cruising through woodsy Washington County at a heart-stopping pace of 10 mph. There will be no speed records broken on this run.It's a hot Tuesday morning, but employees Bill Taber and Jim Peters have an easy day in store. They're taking the locomotive from the company's office in Greenwich to the Cargill Animal Nutrition feed warehouse in Salem. They'll pick up four empty grain cars and haul them to Eagle Bridge, where the line connects with the Springfield Terminal Railroad interchange.It's an easy trip but hardly a smooth one. The 35 miles of Batten Kill track were first put down more than a century ago. The route is safe, of course, but ties are old and cracked, and grass grows in the middle. It's a bumpy, creaking ride.A day's ride on these tracks could well be an analogy for the short and rocky history of this railroad. Since it was created in August 1981, Batten Kill has suffered from the worst the freight business has to offer -- strikes, business closings, landslides, bad weather.In 24 years of operation, the company has never made a profit. Its continuing existence seems to defy logic.Yet here it is, the orange, yellow and green, Schenectady-built 1950 American Locomotive Co. engine No. 605, heading down the track.The company's continued life, it seems, relies on an incalculable value of goodwill -- the romance of the rails. Workers here are willing to work for far less than what they might make working for a major rail company. And neighbors volunteer to help fix track or paint one of the two engines (one is owned by a nonprofit organization that also owns the tracks; the railroad owns the other).But the bills at Batten Kill are piling up. After a quarter-century, the load faced by this hauling company is not something that can be pulled by diesel power alone.Says Ron Crowd, Batten Kill's owner: "We're in survival mode.''Batten Kill is one of 28 small short-haul freight lines in New York, and one of about 300 around the country. In the United States, 42 percent of the nation's freight is carried by rail. And with fuel costs rising, more and more people are shipping that way -- 2004 set a record, and 2005 will likely break it, according to the Association of American Railroads.The number of small rail companies actually has risen in the past 25 years, thanks to deregulation that allowed larger rail companies to dump track sections that weren't profitable. Small mom-and-pop-style railroads stepped in to fill into the gap."They're really critical to many areas of the state,'' said Norman Schneider, executive director of Railroads of New York, a trade association that represents freight railroads Struggling to stay on tracks First published: Sunday, July 31, 2005(Page 2 of 4)"It's an essential transportation service,'' he said. "But unlike the recent success the larger freight railroads have had, the smaller ones still are struggling to make ends meet.''Batten Kill serves four businesses: Carolina Eastern-Vail Inc., a Salem-based fertilizer company; Timber Products Corp., a Michigan company that buys locally cut logs; Hollingsworth & Vose Co., a specialty paper maker based in East Walpole, Mass., with facilities in Greenwich and Easton; and Cargill."We get probably 40 percent of our ingredients on rail,'' said Jason Moore, Cargill plant manager. "They provide great service.''On a recent run, Batten Kill's service arrived at Cargill at 10:30 a.m. The engine is a 55-year-old American Locomotive Co. classic, its 12 massive cylinders driving enough power to pull 75 cars. It's the sort of train that rail aficionados travel hundreds of miles to see in operation.Linking the cars is a two-man job, with Taber controlling the locomotive and Peters standing on the ground 50 yards away. They used a two-way radio to direct how far to back up."Two,'' says Peters, referring to car lengths."Two,'' confirms Taber, head out the window. He pulls a lever."One.''"One.''There's not a lot of chit-chat in this business.Batten Kill is run out of an old railroad building in Greenwich. Inside is a borrowed computer, a finicky photocopy machine and a digital answering machine with 31 messages that Taber has saved ("I don't have any clerical help. They tend to accumulate,'' he said.)Next door is a shop filled with giant tools and the second of the two locomotives. The staff of three -- another 18 people work part-time when needed -- is in the process of machining the wheels, a regular chore.Other regular chores include replacing rotting ties, adding fill to eroded sections of track, cutting protruding branches and overgrown weeds (the railroad couldn't afford herbicide this year), splicing in replacement track and fixing a vandalized platform on a 40-foot-high bridge.It's hot work. There are ticks. Once, Taber spent the morning pulling weeds from the base of a bridge, only to realize he had been yanking on poison ivy. "I had bandages on my arms for a month,'' he says.Fortunately, Taber, 47, enjoys the chores more than the train deliveries, which take place two to three times a week."I like mechanical things,'' he says. "I get frustrated if I get stuck on the train. I'd rather be working on the track, fixing something.''Taber came here in 1984 as a volunteer for a tourist train that no longer runs. He signed on as a staffer a year later, and is now operations manager. After 20 years riding the rails, he's still unable to put into words his love of trains. Struggling to stay on tracks First published: Sunday, July 31, 2005(Page 3 of 4)"If I'm out and about, and I know there's a train coming, I'll go take a look,'' he says. "I just enjoy seeing a train go by. What can I tell you?''It was love of trains that created Batten Kill. For that you can thank Ron Crowd, now 55, who used to draft plans for highway bridges for the state Department of Transportation. In 1979, Crowd formed a corporation to bid on one of 13 train lines in the state at risk of being abandoned. Two years later, he took over a line that the Delaware & Hudson Railway Co. had abandoned.Crowd, the unpaid president of the company and a lifelong train fan, is an African-American in a business with few minorities. He met his second wife at a train lecture (he was the speaker), and for their first date they went to the Selkirk rail yard. Today, his house is filled with model trains and other memorabilia, and he and his wife like nothing better than picnicking near an active train line.In 1981, Crowd took out an $861,000 loan from the New York State Urban Development Corp., bought some buildings and the two locomotives, and went to work. The state agreed to invest $1.5 million in Batten Kill track. He later created a nonprofit company -- called the Northeastern New York Railroad Preservation Group -- that now owns the tracks and one of the locomotives."I thought it would be a good business to get into,'' Crowd says.He was in for a surprise.About the time Crowd signed the final papers, Hudson Pulp and Paper -- the railroad's biggest customer -- announced it was going out of business. A few years later, two back-to-back railroad strikes cost the company an estimated $400,000 in lost shipping.In 1992, the company resurrected a passenger line for tourists, using three antique cars donated by Metro North. The company had 20,000 customers the first year.But money for advertising was scarce and, according to Crowd, Washington County wasn't doing much to promote tourism. Customers were not coming back. In 2003, when only 3,000 riders showed up, the passenger trips were discontinued.Still, Crowd loved the work."I felt a sense of freedom and power when I was running a train,'' he says. "That's what I miss the most.''He misses it because Crowd's body has had as much bad luck as his railroad. Today, Crowd must use a power wheelchair to get around. Crowd had polio as a child, and an attack of post-polio syndrome in 2000 caused him to lose most of his muscle strength over the last few years. He can no longer climb into his beloved locomotives.He also suffers from diabetes, which has led to kidney failure, requiring dialysis four days a week. His wife takes care of the railroad's books so Crowd can save his strength. Struggling to stay on tracks First published: Sunday, July 31, 2005(4)And the company's bad luck continues. Last year, the company offered what could have been a lucrative plan for the railroad to haul PCB-contaminated sand from the Hudson River dredging project. The plan was rejected by General Electric and the federal Environmental Protection Agency."They said the railroad wasn't capable of handling the 100-ton cars,'' recalls Crowd, noting that such weights are pulled routinely on the line.Due to a cash shortfall during Agway's closing, the company fell behind more than $100,000 in payroll taxes. Crowd said he is working with the IRS and expects to resolve the issue.But there is hope. The company, which typically brings in about $300,000 in annual revenues, is shipping more now than two months ago and is working on a few potential shipping deals. Things are looking better, Crowd says."I'm going to sound like a terrible businessman,'' Crowd says. "But my goal was not strictly in making a profit. It was to keep the railroad going.''The trip from Cargill down to Eagle Bridge takes more than two hours. Along the way, Taber points out repair projects he had done over the past few years, and repair projects waiting to be completed. The train, now five cars long, crosses numerous bridges -- hundred-year-old iron spans, or trestles so narrow that all you can see from the locomotive window is the Hoosic River, 40 feet below.The train passes old houses and tiny villages where farmers drive tractors down the main street. At road crossings, most without gates, Peters blows the horn -- long, long, short, long. Some people wave as the train goes by. It could have been a journey taken 50 years ago."They're nice people all around this railroad,'' said Taber, watching the world go by. "People care about us. I know people in every town who say, `If you ever need help, let me know.'''He pauses to tell Peters to slow down for a rough stretch."This railroad,'' he says, "works on friendship.''Alan Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.