Vestal Spur

What, if anything, is left of the old Vestal Spur (remnant of the old DL&W main west of Binghamton) is left ? As I recall it used to deadend almost at Route 17 in Vestal.

crosses the river and leaves cars for plastic pipe company on a siding. I am not sure the track crosses Old Vestal Road anymore although the bridge is still in. After that, track is gone all the way west. Roadbed is now a RAIL/TRAIL from Sycamore Rd to Bridge St. (In fact, walked it this past SUnday!)

henry -

I'd love to hear you share some details on that walk as I once did something similar there about 17 years ago....haven't been in Bingo since.

...the row is paved (and in winter, plowed) with plastic seats along the way to sit down. Hundreds of people walk each day with kids and dogs and runners and skaters. We walked out Springer Spaniel and wove between all other kids of dogs. The town also provides plastic bags and containers for doggie poo! There is so much going on from sun up to sun down that the ghost of Phoebe Snow hasn't a chance. I know this is not the description you wanted to hear, but...

SO that's the line they changed. I was wondering this myself. It switches Broome Bituminous i think i flew over it once, and there's a bunch of tracks with covered hoppers on them.

NS switches both the power plant, and Broome Bituminous.

Conrail stopped switching to Vestal by Rt 17 about 1990. Agway and a coal company used to be customers there, both are now gone.

The tracks were torn up, to its current dead end, when the Town Square Mall was built.

There are no tracks on the overpass. A few years ago there was a newspaper article that proposed destroying the overpass to ease the curve in the road, heard nothing since.

The Sloan-era Vestal station resides at the Vestal library and is now the Vestal Historical center, open to visitors. For a wooden station over 120 years old, it is in excellent condition. Vestal and Painted Post have precious few of the pre-1900 stations.

I know, the tracks end ack behind BB, there are strings of covered hoppers back there.

I wondered if there was ever a branch or line off of the Vestal Spur?

If you drive around the circle on 434 and cross over the river towards Vestal and the SUNY complex, right along side the river appears a path that could have been an old ROW. Since they've begun reconstruction of that circle, I'm not sure what can be seen any more.

It appeared to me that this path could have tied into the Vestal Spur just "west" of the bridge past the power plant. My thoughts were that it was either a cut off to avoid yard congestion for the DL&W. This would seem to make it quite old and I never remember hearing about it. My other thought was that it was part of the old Trolley system coming from Binghamton?

Any one know of this path that I am thinking about?

Pat Connors

That path was the towpath for the illfated Chenango Canal extension. It can be seen in places along the river all the way to Apalachin. But, there were sidings off the spur, like near Sycamore Rd east and west off the eastbound track and near the Vestal Rd overpass into the quarry areas.