Central New York RR to lease NS Southern Tier

The question on my mind is would the Q Reletter locomotives or
would the CNYRR remain fallen flag paper company like it has for the past few years??

...a DO or NYSW affiliate? Read the STB petition and the company address is up in the woods northeast of Johnstown, NY just shy of the Adorandack Park border. Only the Philadelphia law firm representing CNY has any real identity.

Pardon a naive question -- but does this "dark territory" w/o a passing track (is that near Susquehanna, PA?) mean that only one train can be on the entire PJ - Bingo section at one time? How do train orders work in "dark territory"?

There are several existing passing sidings on the line right now. Shohola, Narrowsburg, come to mind. The double track between Deposit and Susquehanna (12 miles?) will be pulled but supposedly two passing sidings will be made out of its remains, one at either end which would end up being on either side of Gulf Summit.

Multiple trains can operate over the line with Form "D"s which would be issued between Milepost A and Milepost B via radio. The NYS&W runs this way on the rest of their line right now.

Some1 mentioned the possibility of local freight on this line. Did the CR
symbol OIBU and BUOI train ever peddle freight between PJ and Bing?

Also, why would you want to remove assets like ABS and double track?
Couldn't they be left in place and placed oos if their not needed or is
NYS crazy tax situation in play here. Who knows what the future might
bring. Just thinkin out loud.

STEAM ON
/--OOO--;-oo--oo-

Fewer sideings and less double track also means even less chance of passenger rail, but you'll notice that the agreement goes out of its way to prevent that anyway. one hundred million dollars in insurence for excursion trips is required.

The signal system through there is ancient and is poorly maintainted. Often during thunderstorms or other such natural occurences the system goes down- and the maintainers come out of Reading from what I am told. With the current traffic it makes no sense to keep the signals and all of the track.

Reading PA? why so far?

I doubt they'd physically remove the signals right away—just turn off the power, turn the mastheads and stop maintaining.

Also, why would you want to remove assets like ABS and double track?
Couldn't they be left in place and placed oos if their not needed or is
NYS crazy tax situation in play here.

Taxes are the likely reason. NY taxes for each track and a double-track area is taxed 2x what a single track would be. An empty r-o-w is taxed far less, which is why the D&H in Albany along the Norman's Kill was yanked so quickly.

I don't know Joshua, that's where NS pulled back their maintainers to.

David Hutchinson wrote:The railroad that cries for an excursion operation is the Middletown and New Jersey. Would cost a lot, but the tracks are intact all the way from Middletown to the New Jersey border............. it's a beautiful line.

They tried it in the 1960s with a steam loco. Unfortunately, it became a "been there, done that" thing, i.e. very little repeat business. But in those days, there was very little in the way of marketing. Today, tourist RRs do all sorts of things like mystery trains, Day Out With Thomas, Santa Claus specials, etc.

Henry 6,

The address on the STB filing may confuse you, but it is known in railroad circles that the CNY filing is basically a Susquehanna filing.

While it is pure speculation on my part, I can only suppose that the CNY corporate shell was used for the purpose of avoiding problems with the NYSW - BLET collective bargaining agreement.

Also, I believe the Susquehanna is(?)/may be a Class II railroad (revenues greater than $5,000,000.00) . Labor protections provisions might have kicked in as well if it went directly to the Susquehanna. If the Susquehanna is not a Class II, but rather, a Class III railroad, the additionals revenues might have pushed them over the class III thresehold.

All of which easily explains why the Susquehanna would use the unused shell of a long departed DO property.

Plus, Gerry McKenna, holds/had held various positions throughtout the years with various Walter Rich run organizations.

While we may not know all the details behind the formation (reincarnation?) of the CNY, we do know that one of the hands behind that organization is none other than Walter Rich himself.

See ya all later..........


The Rising

If memory serves, the "original" Central New York was operated from Ridgefield Jct. to Ridgefield Springs, NY. Interchange was with Conrail at Ridgefield Jct. Originally a DL&W line.

Great pictures of the CNYK in action:
http://ginosrailpage.com/DOS/cnyk.html

History of the CNYK from Gino's page: http://ginosrailpage.com/DOS/DOgeneralnotes.htm
Central New York:
DO acquired former DL&W Richfield Springs branch from Richfield Jct. To Richfield Springs, 22 miles, in 1973. Enginehouse  was at Richfield Springs. Became part of NYS&W northern division after NYS&W bought Syracuse & Utica branches from Conrail in 4/82. Traffic on line gradually dropped off. Line east from Bridgewater embargoed in 1990. abandoned and track removed in 1995, westerly 2-3 miles left in place for stone trains.

I just read the NS/CNYRR lease attached to the STB filing. It makes it clear that this is all about tax abatement. There is even a clause that the Lessee intends to attempt to transfer the property to a government entity for a tax abatement, in which case the government entity would lease it back to NS. There are provisions to terminate the lease if the desired tax abatements, removal of signals, etc do not happen in the near future.

There are restrictions that preserve the existing NS and NYS&W trackage/haulage rights and require CNYRR to only interchange with NS and NYS&W and not grant any trackage/haulage rights to any other entity so through traffic will be pretty much as it is now.

There is also a restriction that prohibits passenger operation, except for "excursion" and "dinner trains". Any such operation requires 100 Million Dollar liability insurance (protecting NS) and a maximum speed restriction of 25 MPH.

The signal system through there is ancient and is poorly maintainted

The signals run off lines side wires, i.e. old telegraph poles. When is the last time you saw that? Those poles are easily 50 plus years old, I remember several being marked "ERIE" with the appropriate milepost number.

When the signals go dead, a train has to stop and proceed at every darn signal even though there was no other train on the line. Permission from the dispatcher is necessary too.

If traffic increased to the amount that signals were needed, the existing system is not the one they would want. A new system would need to be installed.

I am curious about the tax structure in PA. Once over Gulf Summit in the westbound direction the track crosses into PA. There is an interlocking on the west side of Starucca Viaduct (left over from the D&H Penn Division) maybe that is where a new passing siding would start?