Railroad Forums 

  • Saratoga & North Creek (S&NC) Discussion - 2014

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New York State.
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New York State.

Moderator: Otto Vondrak

 #1265201  by traingeek8223
 
And since D&H no longer provides interchange to the BKRR at Eagle Bridge, that means CP would have to hand off the cars to Pan Am Southern for delivery to BKRR.
Off topic but, believe it or not, to my knowledge Battenkill still holds never exercised trackage rights into Mechanicville.
 #1265308  by Noel Weaver
 
I doubt if "E" units are hard on the track. It is more likely that the "E" units are geared a little too high for practical operation at the speeds called for in this territory. In addition not all of the weight is on the drivers and that reduces the tonnage that can be hauled with "E" units. This is exactly why some railroads with grades stayed away from 6 axle/4 motor locomotives in the first place. I would think the ideal power for a line like this one would be a version of the GP-38-2 which is fine up to about 45 or 50 which is plenty fast enough for this line and will pull all outdoors. They were one of EMD's best products. I'll never forget my trip on the Maybrook line with 3 GP-38's and two dead GE's pulling 136 cars over the Maybrook Line enroute from Oak Point to Selkirk via Danbury. We lost one GE at Van Nest and the other one between Devon and Derby Junction. Neither GE wanted to start when I tried them before leaving Derby Junction but those three GP-38's pulled the train along with the dead GE's over the grades with just a loud bark, not fast but we kept moving. This was back in the early 1970's. One more thing, where the track damage came in it was probably from wheel slips on the part of the "E" units, with not all of the weight on the drivers they tended to be slippery with bad rail conditions, heavy trains or on good grades.
Noel Weaver
 #1265795  by griffs20soccer
 
Attached is a link to the Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting notes. S&NC attends these meeting to update the county. There is some good news concerning passenger operations and mention of track upgrades for the Tahawus branch. Once again I have my fingers crossed that my link works.

http://www.warrencountyny.gov/gov/comm/ ... -23-14.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A follow up on the topic of E units being hard on the track. The way it was being described, was that the longer wheel base of the trucks and the 3 axles caused the gauge to spread in the curves. Noel and others, I'm not saying it's true, I'm just repeating what I heard. It made sense to me if you look at the physics of what was said.

There was also talk of possibly needing to extend the track at the Tahawus mine another 1/3 mile to the tailing's pile from the existing yard track in order to eliminate trucking the stone to the yard. We'll soon find out.
 #1265887  by Zog
 
"A follow up on the topic of E units being hard on the track. The way it was being described, was that the longer wheel base of the trucks and the 3 axles caused the gauge to spread in the curves. Noel and others, I'm not saying it's true, I'm just repeating what I heard. It made sense to me if you look at the physics of what was said."

As a track supervisor for a short line in Connecticut I can testify from first hand experience that those long wheel base 6 axle trucks are tough on track. They are particularly so if the tie condition in those curves is not great.
 #1265960  by RussNelson
 
Holy crap, 6 axle trucks?? What is this, a diesel version of the Big Boy???

(yes, you should feel a tugging on your leg. But just imagine it ... a six axle truck!)

Yes, as far as I can see from the aerials, the tracks were substantially reduced at Tahawus, back from the tailings hill (it goes way beyond being a "pile").
 #1266042  by Adirondacker
 
RussNelson wrote:Yes, as far as I can see from the aerials, the tracks were substantially reduced at Tahawus, back from the tailings hill (it goes way beyond being a "pile").
They weren't interested in the tailings back when it was an active mine, they were interested in the ore. ( Long Island is a bigger pile of sand gravel and rocks, back when they were mining ore when Long Islanders needed some gravel they just dug it up... )
 #1266071  by scottychaos
 
RussNelson wrote:Holy crap, 6 axle trucks?? What is this, a diesel version of the Big Boy???

(yes, you should feel a tugging on your leg. But just imagine it ... a six axle truck!)
He didnt say "six axle truck"..he said "six axle trucks" ;) big difference..
"Six Axle Trucks" is the way its normally said, by everyone, to refer to a locomotive with two trucks with 3 axles each,
6 axles total on the locomotive, like a SD40-2 or an E-unit.
no one ever says "three axle trucks"..

Scot
 #1266108  by griffs20soccer
 
The gentlemen I overheard said that the "yard" track was pretty much in place. Some ties and surfacing and it would be ready to go. There was no mention of the condition of the "Y". Back in January in the meeting with Warren county, S&NC estimated 8,000 ties would need to be replaced between North Creek and the mine plus the rehab of 3 road crossings before stone shipments could start. It sounded like one of the switchers would be stationed up there to assist in the loading of the cars, may be our old friend S-1 #5. Tahawus84, I would be interested in seeing your pictures.
Don
 #1266216  by tahawus84
 
Here are some photos I took 3 years ago. I have more that I will upload in the next few days. When they demolished the buildings they also knocked down the steel shed the plow was stored in and the elements are really taking a toll on it. Looks like the river is eroding the rail bed its parked on. The plow had a really nice headlight on it when it was in the shed but like everything else it went missing (im assuming) There is also a flat car there.
http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/tahaw ... t=3&page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1266619  by traingeek8223
 
A few observations from North Creek from an very pleasant and sunny drive there yesterday:

B39-8 8524 in the shop getting some work done. It is now facing north.

BL2 52 on the extreme north of the turntable lead connected to a string of passenger cars. It is now facing south.

E8s 807 & 808 still on the Barton siding north of the yard coupled to the Columbus & Greenville Business car.

S2 821 one track over from E units with the SNC bay window caboose (now faded to a pink color).

BL2 56, S1 #5 and RS36 5019 all facing south and parked on the west side stub siding south of the station.

As Don reported earlier: the two Iowa Pacific lettered E8s are now off the property (I also checked Saratoga and they are not there either).

All three former CN Heavyweight coaches are still on the property. They were receiving some work when I was there including boarding up of the windows. one was parked directly in front of the engine house and the other two were behind the engine house on the turntable lead. The one closest to the turntable had a freshly applied "Colebrookdale Railroad Company" logo on it's side giving an indication of where the car is heading.

I also took a ride up to the mine at Tahawus. There was no evidence of full sized railroad equipment up the line recently, at least at the 28n crossing. it did look like a hi-rail may have gone up the line and cleared some downed trees. There were also some brand new RR crossing signs at the Tahawus Rd crossing saying "no gates or flashers". The 28n signs still say "exempt". I did not enter mine property.
 #1266682  by griffs20soccer
 
Matt,
Thanks for the update.

I was debating whether of not to post this link because the article's writer has a definite negative slant to it. Some of the comments to the article I believe are from some of our friends who are against railroads in the Adirondacks. The article is about IPH selling 80% of the company to investment firms in order to improve cash flow. Read it and make you judgement on whether or not it's a bad thing. My opinion is it's a good thing.

http://poststar.com/news/local/most-of- ... f887a.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1266754  by tahawus84
 
LAst I saw the plow and flat was three years ago but I am guessing they are still there. I don't know who owns them but since SNC bought the line maybe they now own them? Would be nice to at least see the plow saved. It has really deteriorated since its been left outside.
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