D&H at Lake George

[lstone19]

How did the trolley get from US9 over to Thomson Ave.? It clearly runs on the east side of Thomson, and looks like it crosses the Lake Shore Drive Connector at points C and A and continues on to B, but beyond B I'm clueless.

I assume in village streets but what village streets is a mystery. However, there was the cable-hauled railway up Prospect Mountain. The current hiking trail (the pedestrian bridge over the Northway just south of Exit 22) is mostly on the right of way. I was going to say it is a good bet that the trolley came by the mountain railway terminal but now I see the mountain railway was abandoned in 1903 so it may have been gone by the time the trolley arrived.

[Alco RS2]

The trolley went northward up the middle of Canada St. (Rte.-9) through the village until it got to the old court house. This is the brick building with the clock tower which is now the historical museum. At that point it turned to the left (westward) on to Amherst St. and followed that route past the south end of the school's recreation field. Then is turned right (northward) around the southwest corner of the field and continued north to Thompson Ave. You can still find some of the old ROW along the west edge of the rec' field. It's a dirt road in the woods now.

My father told me some interesting stories about the trolley in LG. One of them was about a kid that used to lay on the tracks until the trolley was almost upon him. Then at the last second he would jump away. Of course the trolley conductor had to slam on the brakes, which must have startled the passengers and could have made some flat spots on the wheels. Another story was the time that someone found a work car near the recreation field and got it going downhill on Amherst St. When it got to Canada St. where the tracks made a right angle turn to the south, the car jumped the tracks and hit the court house. My father said the building still has a chipped stone from the collison.

[Alco RS2]

Earlier in the thread several posters cited 1957 as the year the D&H exited Lake George.

When I was a kid, my grade school class took a field trip on the train from Lake George to Glens Falls. This was in May of 1957. AFAIK, the passenger service continued through most of 1957. However the freight service continued to some time in 1958. I read somewhere that they started to take up the track in November of 1958. If anyone can give me a more precise date for that, I'll research it in the archives of the local newspapers.

[greenwichlirr]

I have some more questions about the branch, while we are on the topic. One of the posts talks about this being, at one time, a major route, to the north. I have noticed bridge piers on the river in Hudson Falls. They are half way between H.F. station, and the trash plant, where the railroad runs next to the street. Was this a railroad bridge? It would have connected the West Shore Branch, to the Lake George Branch?

They were GOING to be for a railroad span, but it was never completed. Up the hill in the church parking (the one near the traffic circle) there is a historical marker telling about the peirs. At the moment I forget what RR exactly they were built for.

[RussNelson]

Oh, really? I guess that an unfinished bridge "counts", so I've added it to my Unfinished Railroads of New York State. Is there anybody reading this who is local and who could do some more research? It looks like they were trying to extend the railroad line on the opposite shore up the hill past the canal basin. There's no sign of that line on the 190X topo maps, so it's a relatively modern branch line.

[RussNelson]

Found it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/russnelson ... 406303764/ and also have photos of the piers from the north and the south. It was the Saratoga & Whitehall Railroad. No information on the route ... yet.

[RussNelson]

Ugh. As best I can tell, this hysterical marker is lies, all lies. The Saratoga and WASHINGTON railroad was incorporated in 1834, and may or may not have built the bridge piers. It seems to have run into difficulty because of the Panic of 1837 (not 1838), and was not completed until 1845. It went bankrupt and was reincorporated as the Saratoga and WHITEHALL in 1855, and went on to become a part of the D&H. There was definitely an industrial track to the plant on the South Glens Falls side of the river, which was aligned with the bridge piers.

[RichCoffey]

I am curious - I will be up in Glen Falls soon doing another RR/trolley history project (my son moved there) and couldn’t find any historical topo maps that show the Hudson Valley Electric Railroad ROW in that area. I have located the UNH 1897 topo but nothing else until the UNH 1955 version. The ITO Map and OpenStreet Map of course are helpful but does anyone have a link to a topo map showing the HVRR before the Trolley Line was abandoned?

[Engineer Spike]

Russ, there was a line on the west side of the Hudson to SGF. It left the .mainline at about MP54. They call it the Westshore. I don't know if this was the proposed route of the line, via GF, before they settled on Ft. Ed, Ft. Ann, to Whitehall.

[RussNelson]

Russ, there was a line on the west side of the Hudson to SGF. It left the .mainline at about MP54. They call it the Westshore. I don't know if this was the proposed route of the line, via GF, before they settled on Ft. Ed, Ft. Ann, to Whitehall.

Yeah, and it goes up to an industrial plant of some sort. It could definitely have been used to cross the Hudson on those piers ... but was it ever? I have no evidence that it was, and the sign says it wasn't.

[Steve Wagner]

I believe the industry the D&H served in South Glens Falls was originally the Imperial Color Works, which produced pigment and wallpaper. After it stopped making wallpaper there it was sold to Hercules in 1960, which sold it to Ciba-Geigy in 1979, which closed it in 1989. See http://www.colorantshistory.org/ImperialColor.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for more detail. I may be wrong, however.

[lstone19]

The description in the website linked to in the post above has it in Glens Falls itself, not South Glens Falls. South Glens Falls is a separate municipality across the Hudson River from Glens Falls. The Imperial Color plant would have been served by the Lake George branch which did run along Warren St. before turning north toward Lake George Village.

[Engineer Spike]

That's correct. The Ciba-Geigy plant was on the Lake George Branch. It was along Warren Ave. About where Quaker Road comes in. If you look at Google Earth, it is east of where the Coolidge Branch to Finch and Pruyn comes off. The cement plant is in the crotch of the junction.

[Dr. Gil]

A program on the the early 20th century trolley route from Warrensburg to Glens Falls will be shown at the Richards Library in Warrensburg on Sunday, May 15, at 3:30. Warrensburg was the northern terminus of the Hudson Valley Railway (the trolley) from 1902 until 1928. The “power-point” presentation of photographs, maps, and aerial photos by Paul Gilchrist, PhD, will follow a ceremony unveiling a roadside plaque marking the location of the hydraulic plant that supplied electricity for the trolley all the way to Queensbury based on water power from a dam on the Schroon River in Warrensburg. The ceremony will be held at 3:00 at the Warrensburg Farmers Market (across from Curtis Lumber on River Street).

[Dr. Gil]

For more information about the trolley route program posted above, please email Paul at [email protected].