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  • Owego & Harford in SAYRE - Lehigh Railway

  • 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

 #596888  by K4Pacific
 
Good Work Folks on finding the STB filing. There still is no official start up date yet and if the agreement will be a dollar lease in lieu of full payment of taxes. I got that confirmed this morning. So it's up in the air, much like my wife's mall. How and when the lease and sale will go is in limbo.

If NS had a record 3rd Qtr (read their website quarterly report), I hope that the 25 - 30 cars three times a week is enough to warrant Lehigh to make the line work. The red box cars for Mahoopany would be a "bridge line" run from NS interchange to RBMN interchange. Perhaps, just perhaps, an alliance for RBMN traffic to move north and west on a less congested line, than south to a more congested NS. Your thoughts?
 #596904  by scottychaos
 
Why wouldnt R&N just run the line up to Sayre?
what is the logic for getting a 3rd party involved?

perhaps only because this new "Lehigh Railway" thought of it first and beat R&N to it?
seems unlikely, but you never know..

or perhaps R&N doesnt want it??
I dont know..

im not complaining!
from a railfan perspective this all promises to be very interesting!

but so far we have only heard that it is happening..
but nothing about why it's happening..

im just curious about the history of it all..how it came about.

thanks,
Scot
 #596931  by tomjohn
 
LEHIGH RAILWAY ? When did this come about? I thought the Owego and Harford Ry was here to stay as a shortline Ry, could some one please explain
 #596962  by charlie6017
 
scottychaos wrote:This was just posted on the PA forum:
johnpbarlow wrote:Here's the URL to the STB filing for Lehigh Railway, a non-carrier entity headquartered at the same location as the Owego and Harford Railway in Owego, NY, to lease and operate NS' ex-LV main between Athens and Mehoopany, PA. LRWY will have rights into Sayre for interchange with NS. It also looks like LRWY could interchange with RBMN at Mehoopany.

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/ ... 223871.PDF

Here's a 2nd part of the filing with more details:

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/ ... 223872.PDF

Looks like a 10 year lease term with no option to buy. Track to be maintained for Class III 25mph operation with < 10% slow ordered. Line currently is handling 2,080 carloads per year on average. There is confusing language re: NS & D&H and the Southern Tier haulage agreement and its potential impact on the lease. I think there's even a suggestion that LRWY gets $300 lease credits for handling overhead NS traffic that doesn't terminate between Athens and Mehoopany or on the The Monroeton Shippers' Lifeline.

TomJohn, read this post..........
 #596966  by scottychaos
 
tomjohn wrote:LEHIGH RAILWAY ? When did this come about? I thought the Owego and Harford Ry was here to stay as a shortline Ry, could some one please explain
I assumed they just gave it a new name for this particular aspect of their operation..
happens all the time..

much like LA&L also has "Bath & Hammondsport" and WNY&P..
and G&W has dozens of lines, all with a different name..
So does GVT..
same "parent" company, but different names for different parts of their overall "system"..

O&H will probably remain the O&H in Owego..
"Lehigh Railway" will be their new operation, but still a part of the O&H..

I didnt even question it! ;)

Scot
 #597033  by scottychaos
 
So I skimmed both PDF's..

and it appears, but im not absolutely sure, that the Lehigh Railway may already exist!
as of 10/28/2008!
maybe..

but "article 28" is a little vague..
is "effective date" and "commencement date" the same thing??
(but if so..why give it two different names?)
was "commencement date" 10/28?? or was 10/28 only the "effective date" and commencement date has not arrived yet?

I got the impression from the documents that this is all now officially official, and the new Lehigh Railway formally popped into existance on 10/28..
but im not absolutely certain..

anyone else want to take a stab at it? ;)

Scot
 #597106  by tomjohn
 
Possibly someone could answer this, About the proposed route LEHIGH RAILWAY isn't that part of the old Lehigh and State line Ry which eventually became part of the L.V. RR which interchanged with The Barclay Railway and then ultimately The S. & NY. RR SUSQUEHANNA AND NEW YORK Railroad which was abandoned in 1942 ?

Tom
 #597117  by scottychaos
 
tomjohn wrote:Possibly someone could answer this, About the proposed route LEHIGH RAILWAY isn't that part of the old Lehigh and State line Ry which eventually became part of the L.V. RR which interchanged with The Barclay Railway and then ultimately The S. & NY. RR SUSQUEHANNA AND NEW YORK Railroad which was abandoned in 1942 ?

Tom
Nope, wrong route..

whats left of the line you are referring to is now the Towanda Monroeton Shippers Lifeline out of Towanda..
the rest of the line from Monroeton south remains abandoned..

The new Lehigh Railway will operate the former LVRR mainline between Athens and Mehoopany,
originally built as the Pennsylvania & New York.

Scot
 #597921  by lvrr325
 
Don't know why this is so complicated. O&H forms a subsidary/companion company called the Lehigh Railway to operate the former Lehigh Valley main from Athens to Mehoopany, which has basically been a branch line since Conrail sold part of the line to the Reading & Northern. NS leases to this company to create an operation which has a reason to use and maintain the entire route. Smaller company has an easier time getting state or federal funds to repair/maintain/upgrade the track. NS has the option to get it back in 10 years in good shape for their own use. All you have to do is read the thread from the first post.

As for the actual interchange, the new road has rights into Sayre, and they'll probably use one of the yard tracks actually in the yard, so the tracks down into Athens can be kept clear to be used to run around trains going to Ithaca and points north.
 #601770  by Otto Vondrak
 
The Surface Transportation Board served their notices this morning on FD 35192 0 Lehigh Railway http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readin ... enDocument

and FD 35193 0 Steven May Continuance in Control:
http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readin ... enDocument

Now that the documents are released to the public, conversation may continue.

-otto-
 #602000  by scottychaos
 
very interesting..
thanks for the update GME!

its not a really a big deal that this thread was down for a few days..
Otto was asked to remove it for awhile because the lease was posted in error..
so he took it down simply out of courtesy..which I agree was the right thing to do.

getting back on course..
I looked it up, and found out the Sayre station is MP 271.0..
that would place milepost 269.5 at about Elmira street in Athens!
just on on the Athens side of the Chemung river bridge.
much further south than I suspected..
I was thinking it would be way up by the Packer ave bridge..since thats where the logical yard location is..

my guess (just a personal guess) is that the "interchange yard" would still have to be up in Sayre, the yard immediately south (railroad east) of the Packer ave bridge..the posted lease does say LS can run onto Sayre..although I dont know why they wouldnt make the "division point" more like MP 270.5 in that case..so the MP 269.5 as the division point between the LR and NS isnt making much sense to me right now..why all the way down there? I dont know..but there it is..

im sure it will all become clearer in time..

Scot
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