Former LV trackage in Cortland

They now have a small shop at 33 Cleveland Street, coincidentally not far from the former LV right-of-way that used to pass under I-81 and head toward Utica.

Per Google sattelite views, there's a siding on this line, possibly at the freight house? It's a bit west of the passenger station, at any rate. Not sure how old their pic is but there was some kind of MOW equipment on the siding and about a dozen cars stored on the line close to the former diamond.

lvrr325 wrote:Per Google sattelite views, there's a siding on this line, possibly at the freight house? It's a bit west of the passenger station, at any rate. Not sure how old their pic is but there was some kind of MOW equipment on the siding and about a dozen cars stored on the line close to the former diamond.

My guess is that it is from 2006 sometime, or possibly early 2007. If you head west along Port Watson Street to the corner of Main and Tompkins Streets, you can see the rubble from the clock tower building in the photo. The building burned down in April 2006, and the rubble remained there for months before they cleared it away.

lvrr325:

Just west of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad passenger station in Cortland, on South Ave., was located the freight depot. In the final years of the LVRR the office portion was utilized by the local crew for a on duty and tie up location. The rear portion was leased by a firm for storage. Adjacent to the freight station was a small yard with three or four tracks. Haven't been in Cortland for several years, so do not know how many tracks remain there now.

Most of the tracks are still there, just heavinly overgrown. The passenger station is now for sale. I don't have a direct link but google "Hage Real Estate Cortland" and look for their commerical offerings.

I was looking at Cortland in Google maps today, which is a recent aerial view, and I see the tracks to Gutchess Lumber look to be in bad shape. In street view there is a washout at the McLean Road crossing. An earlier post mentioned that this track was to rebuilt (2006). What happened? When did Gutchess last ship by rail? Their facility looks busier than ever from the air. Gutchess's Latrobe ,PA facility seems to have active rail service, maybe it's time to knock on their door again?

Strange, looking further at the Google images, the culverts just east of McLean road are washed out. Yet at the West Road crossing a 1/4 mile east, in street view the track looks as if it has been recently rebuilt, and there are newish crossing signals.

Street views is probably a little more current - though all of those aerial image sites tend to be 2-5 years out of date.

Not sure why the track wasn't rebuilt, nor when Gutchess last received a car at their location. I think they may unload cars on the siding inside the wye south of Port Watson Street, and truck the loads the rest of the way. Prior to 2007, there was at least one winter where tank cars were stored on the line as far as Route 281/West Road. After 2007, when I moved here, the farthest they've stored cars has been Owego Street, although the past few winters they haven't gone past Main Street.

There is a small washout on the north side of McLean Road...this area floods easily with heavy rains or rapid snow melt. Just north of this, the concrete culverts have been removed, as well as sections of rail...not sure who performed this work, but it was done sometime last fall or early winter. The Route 281/West Road crossing was rebuilt (as well as the tracks leading up to it) a couple of years ago as part of the widening of Route 281. Before it was a two-lane road with a pair of flashers...now it's four lane with some serious grade crossing protection (which has never witnessed the passage of a train).

Anybody know if the LV tracks in Cortland heading west from Pendleton Street have been pulled? I know they haven't been used for a number of years, but somebody told me that they've been pulled. What about the west-pointing interchange track? Is that gone too?

They just built a rail-truck loading facility off the interchange track (2015) with a 30 year lease of the property from the city, so I'd be amazed if they pulled that out.

With all the tank cars they store every where there's room I'd be amazed they pulled out storage space.

Rails remained intact compass west of Pendelton St. as of this past October. Heavily overgrown west of Main St., however.

Thanks, TB.

I drove through in November and they were intact then, too.