Saratoga & North Creek Railway (ex-UHRR) - 2011

[greenwichlirr]

How far are the tracks cut back from the mine site? I know the yard and the wye are gone, but the actual distance of removed track is something I'm not clear on.

[NellieBly]

As far as I'm aware, the tracks still reach the mine. I had an inquiry several years ago (when I was still a railroad consultant) from a party in the Albany area about the feasibility of using the tailings from the Tahawas mine as railroad ballast and road aggregate. The mine extracted titanium (ilmenite and rutile), not lead, so there is no contamination issue.

That idea never went anywhere at the time, but Google Earth will show you a VERY large tailings pile at the mine.

So it's possible we may see freight (and even passenger?) service north of North Creek. That would be fun, and maybe somebody will want to mine titanium again.

[tahawus84]

There is still a 4 track yard there and the wye is also there. at the north end of the yard all the tracks combine into one and the rails are cut maybe a half mile or less from the mine. Dont know how they would be loading the railcars but maybe they can just use the yard thats there and truck the stuff up the hill and load it into the railcars
Also there is still a wooden snow plow and flat car up there

[greenwichlirr]

There is still a 4 track yard there and the wye is also there. at the north end of the yard all the tracks combine into one and the rails are cut maybe a half mile or less from the mine. Dont know how they would be loading the railcars but maybe they can just use the yard thats there and truck the stuff up the hill and load it into the railcars
Also there is still a wooden snow plow and flat car up there

Interesting....this goes against everything I was told last year about the track plans...and I had thought the old plow was cut up. Nice to be wrong on this one.

[tahawus84]

I posted some pics I took in August back on page 21 of this thread. It was still there then. The condition is not the greatest though after being out side for the past few years. The plow sits on the north leg of the wye and the flat car is at the north end of the yard. I think I have some photos of the yard as well I could post if anyones interested.

[ckwwestshore]

So, are there any active efforts going on to get permission to use the tracks up to the mine, and to get going with the mine again, or is it just a thought still?

[RussNelson]

My understanding is that the deal is on the verge of being signed.

[BR&P]

The tree huggers are saying "Not so fast!"

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/ ... 231287.PDF

[joshuahouse]

If the tracks are on an easement as the group claims this could be a long messy and incredibly dull series of filings. The idea of it being for a single purpose and any other use is a bit bizarre, and sounds more like a court case involving a state chartered corporation in the 1800s then anything to do with the modern realities.

[Benjamin Maggi]

What is the zipcode of the mine area in question. I was going to look it up in one of the online mapping programs.

[joshuahouse]

http://www.mindat.org/maps.php?id=144736 for the McIntyre Mine

[Otto Vondrak]

What is the zipcode of the mine area in question. I was going to look it up in one of the online mapping programs.

Tahawus, NY: http://g.co/maps/kx5dc

[NellieBly]

Well, not so fast. Protect! seems to be basing its challenge on the fact that part of the spur is on easements in NY State forest lands. However, the line was operated as a railroad until 1989, and I'm not sure it was ever formally abandoned (notwithstanding Protect!'s contention). If rail service was never actually abandoned, then the ROW is intact and rail service can resume. Environmental objections are overridden by a "categorical exclusion" for operating (or previously operating) rail lines on the same ROW. The lawyer for S&NC is a knowledgeable guy. I know him.

So we'll see. Going back to ancient history in World War II may be historically interesting, but is unlikely to be determinative in a court case.

[tahawus84]

I dont get what this group wants to protect. They are already running dump trucks out of the mine. If they cant reuse the rail spur thats there then they can just truck out the materials via public roads at the publics expense of repairing road damage. I would rather have one or two trains a week though 17 miles of state forest on privately maintained trackage than have a trucking company haul it out on publicly maintained roads not to mention all the additional fuel the trucks will use. Rail use here would be the most economical and eco friendly route to get material out and if the Protect group does not see this then I would have to question their objective. Why do they not fight trucks using 28N? It also runs though Vanderwacker forest?

[Palmerfalls]

By 1962, Congress was pressuring the General Services Administration to sell off
this kind of surplus property and get what they could for it. GSA was going to
sell it to NL but the State objected, whereupon GSA went to federal court in
Syracuse and had the temporary easement extended from 15 years to 100 years. The
State, still smarting from its 1940s loss in court, did not object. Twenty years
later, in 1982, the mining stopped. After that NL only re-worked the existing
tailings piles, which they are still doing today. Om 1989 the rolling stock was
sold by NL. Also in 1989 GSA auctioned the rails and right-of-way easement. The
State (DEC) decided not to bid because NL was saying at that time that they
might come back and open the reserve deposits at CHeney Pond at some point when
it was economic to do so. Of course they never did and in 200-1 they sold 10,000
acres to the Open Space Institute, including the reserve deposits. (There was a
reservation in the 2001 deed that allows NLI to come back for the reserves.)
Thus, at the GSA auction in 1989, NLI was the sole bidder. In 2006, NLI ripped
down all of the mill buildings and started cleaning up the site, on their
remaing 1200 acres.