Catskill Mountain Railroad (CMRR) Discussion - 2016

[scoostraw]

If they started on the Kingston end 10 years earlier, they could've probably be running trains to Ashokan reservoir.

Or even if they had been able to start 5 years sooner in Kingston. Or heck - even a couple more years may have gotten them to Boiceville the way they were going.

But unfortunately it was too late.

[scoostraw]

Was it a term of the lease that the entire ROW be kept free of vegetation on a continual basis for the duration?

I found it:

"The lease requires CMRR to maintain the entire railroad right-of-way free from brush, papers and trash from the Conrail main line to the Delaware County line."

[oibu]

Well, so they may not have technically always kept the entire line brush free. But it currently pretty much is.

They also got most of the line at least passable for equipment, and aside from any current/recent storm damage there is what, something like 12 of 28 miles has actually been in service. You can't really say they failed to have such-and-such miles in operation by the end of the lease, when there have been numerous major washouts and bridges lost SINCE the lease began. I don't know what the legal mumbo-jumbo may state, but at the end of the day it clearly wouldn't be reasonable to expect CMRR to have taken care of all of that AND restore an additional 12 or 16 miles of track to service. And as has already been stated, CMRR performed major bridge repairs in-house.

As far as why focus on Phoenicia end vs KIngston end with their early efforts, I think they got that totally right. DOn't forget that for the first 10 years or so at least, their daily bread and butter was the tube shuttle service. COuple that with the far greater tourism and scenery on that end of the RR, easy accessibility, parking, etc. and I think even as things shifted to a more tooursit-excursion based operation, that end of the railroad was what held things together. I don't think if they'd started in Kingston, that they would have built up a sustainable long-term business... it has done well, but part of that is novelty and part is special events I think. I also think the fact that lots of people knew about the RR after 20+ years of excursion service on the Phoenicia end played a big role in the success on the KIngston end- a new and different place to ride, 30-40 minutes closer to the City, 5 minutes off the Thruway, a place for local families in the KIngston area to take the kids for a train ride without it being an all-day event, etc. I think promotion-wise, the KIngston service was able to start with its sails already half--filled by the tailwind of the success on the Phoenicia end. BUt I think if they'd started up out of KIngston in say 1983 or 1985 with a short run to the bridge and back, they would have had a few moderately successful years before everyone had seen it/taken the kids/ said "ok seen that" and it would have turned out similarly to any number of operations that could only make a go of it for a few years before the lack of either a steady customer stream, a major scenic attraction, or a true tourism-saturated base of operations. A short ride, half of which is in back of the houses and factories of a has-been Hudson Valley town, without a major scenic appeal, and without a flatcar load or two of paying tubers every hour or two every weekend all summer long... I would have been surprised if that went on for more than 5 years. Not to mention that most of the woes have been on the KIngston end or with the City of KIngston itself!

[BandA]

I'm looking completely from outside and from the present, but the purpose of the county buying the ROW was to preserve it for railroad use, not as a trail. If people had proposed just building a trail back then I'm sure they wouldn't have bothered.

The last few comments have gone way too easy on the county. If I lived there I would really question how things are being run and why the people living in your county have allowed things to reach this point.

You're very close to the point of no return with the reservoir portion of the ROW. Does the county have to file with the FRA to remove that track or is it exempt because the RR is disconnected? Any possibility that the county will wait to extinguish the ROW until funding for the trail fully materializes? (That would make too much sense) Or hedge their bets by building the parts where the ROW is wide enough to support rail+trail first & kick the destruction down the road a few years? (Also make too much sense)

Are there any restrictions on any money originally donated to purchase the ROW that could prevent the county from selling off it's rights to the NY City water people?

And who is expected to be bidding on the rfp?

[pumpers]

I stumbled on this Youtube video of trains on the U&D in Kingston around 1900. Starting around 1;30 for a while. The narrator says "Ulster adn Delaware locomotive on West Shore tracks", but I think it is all U&D because the line quickly turns into single track with several very sharp bends. The first train I think is heading east through Kingston (I say east because near the end you I think can see the Hudson river in the distance down below). Who can identify the tunnels and grade crossings? Is it the West Shore main that the U&D train is waiting to cross near the beginning? Or something else I suspect. Later in the 2nd part by the water tower might be the O&W junction? Who knows? Jim S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQzXCoQRbas" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT: Web link corrected.
EDIT 2: Looking at maps, it indeed looks like the first train is going WEST on the U&D, crossing the West Shore, and then going under the Elmendorf St and Albany Ave bridges, with perhaps the Esopus Creek and valley in the distance.

[Train Detainer]

Jim -

The video is the U&D crossing the West Shore after the West Shore train passes, then Cornell, O'Neil and Downs Streets, then under Elmendorf and Albany Avenue. The current CMRR yard is mostly just to the left of the main track between Cornell and O'Neil. The second view is the original West Hurley, now underneath the Ashokan Reservoir.

[eehiv]

To all:

The CMRR finally reached its goal of the Glenford Dike with a work train on April 19, 2016, the day the settlement agreement was signed with the County. If it weren't for the $600,000 we spent in legal fees defending our lease for the last three years, we would have had passenger trains running regularly to this location by now.

http://photos.greatrails.net/s/?p=229930" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EH

[oibu]

Congrats to CMRR and what an accomplishment!

That said- it just makes the current state of affairs with the County all the more despicable...

I know it has ben an exhausting and expensive battle, but it just makes me angry when politicians get away with this sort of thing, engineering a legal or financial default as a means to and end for their own agenda.

Was there ever a formal resolution to the "can't ever be just a hiking trail, because without a railroad there is no longer a public/county-owned right of way" legal matter? Or is Hein just planning on ramrodding that down everyone's throat, to he$$ with the laws, too?

[airman00]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed but if the CMRR is classified as a real railroad by the FRA, then wouldn't the county have to file for formal abandonment of tracks with the FRA? And wouldn't that take a lot of time as the wheels of government move slow? How is the county able to circumnavigate the FRA to remove the tracks?

[cjvrr]

You don't need FRA or any other approval to remove track. However you do need it to abandon a track or right of way. I know it is semantics in the wording but in the experience I had with a railroad in NY that was out of service but not abandoned they removed the rail and no approval was needed from an outside agency.

[airman00]

Very sneaky. But if the track is considered "out of service" and then removed. Wouldn't that mean the track is railbanked? And if so, then it kinda defeats the county's trail purpose because then in the future the railroad could be restored.

[thebigham]

Please watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olt7AfNr9YE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To help save this historic rail line, please contact the Ulster County Legislatures directly and let them know you support maintaining a functioning tourist railroad from Kingston to Highmount:

http://ulstercountyny.gov/legislature" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cjvrr]

Very sneaky. But if the track is considered "out of service" and then removed. Wouldn't that mean the track is railbanked? And if so, then it kinda defeats the county's trail purpose because then in the future the railroad could be restored.

But if the county owns the property, the railroad is disconnected from the national railroad network and no freight customers exist nor is there any potential for a freight generator to exist due to zoning and environmental restrictions, who and for what reason would the railroad be restored?

An outright abandonment by the county of the railroad, in my opinion would not be very difficult for them to get for the same reasons outlined above. But I don't think they are heading in that direction. At least not yet. I am thinking they want to see if the disconnected sections outlined in the RFP will be picked up by an operator because they did finally see some economic benefit from the railroad toward the end of the current lease.

As I said in a much earlier response this is the reason tourist lines and other organizations need to own their railroad. If so, the county wouldn't have a leg to stand on for any of this.

[eehiv]

To all:

We believe the Catskill Mountain Branch was abandoned April 1, 1977 by statute after it was offered for sale by the Penn Central Estate. The STB/ICC has played no role in the railroad since that date. FRA/NYSDOT have been involved only on the safety aspects of the railroad, i.e., track and bridge inspections, and reviewing our procedures for crossing highways and reviewing our rule book.

The CMRR was founded as a Railroad Corporation under NY State Law, and therefore NY railroad law applies to the CMRR. NY RR Law does give a carrier eminent domain rights, but does not explicitly preserve easements. However, I have read several of the easements and they explicitly state they are for rail use only. None of them have been challenged during the CMRR's tenure, even in the OOS sections.

The County may rip up any tracks it wishes to after May 31, 2016 (subject to Legislative approval, per resolution 275 of 2014), but it still has to deal with many easements which need to be either bought out or renegotiated for trail use. They have already started work buying out or renegotiating easements in the section from Westbrook Lane to Cornell street that they plan to convert to a trail.

We do not believe railbanking will work in this circumstance because of the lack of federal jurisdiction. You would need to reinstitute freight service to resume STB jurisdiction then file for abandonment. We think that this is unlikely to work, but since this is the mechanism on the NYCDEP agreement that the County plans to use to preserve the ROW there, we assume they believe otherwise.

EH

[oibu]

Thanks for the clarifications/summary, Ernie.

Probably not physically/logistically possible, but I almost wonder what would happen if a few runs up to the Glendford Dike and reservoir/mountain views could be successfully operated and patronized before the end of the lease. I know that's almost certainly just a pipe dream to have tracks actually fit for passenger use and organize the trips, but if this must be the end that would be great send-off for CMRR, and might just be the fuel needed to really stoke the fire.

Still so frustrating to be "so close, yet so far" thanks to the County. Are there no legal eagles out there who could successfully make those officials nervous about the illegalities of some of their actions, or get a judge to realize that some of the shortcomings can be directly attributed to the county's shenanigans or offset by major accomplishments on other fronts not stipulated in the lease? Clearly you can't hold a lessee fully responsible for any and all failures to meet lease terms, when the owner has been conducting illegal actions and obstructing, willfully and with intent, the operations of the lessee necessary to achieve said terms.

The point made by CJV about ROW ownership is a good one, but a tricky one- had the county not preserved the ROW initially, 1976 probably would have been the end of the RR. Ideally in such situations, a lease-to-own arrangement, low-price property transfer, and tax exemptions would probably be the angle to strive for. All water under the bridge of course, and like I said without the County originally taking ownership there would almost certainly never have been a CMRR or any other current rail use of the branch anyway.