What's the official status of the torn-up D&H Albany Main?

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote: NS only got as far as Mohawk, with CP retaining the GE plant a couple miles south of the yard as a customer. Everything to Mechanicville and the line to Port of Albany is still in their hands, and NS didn't gain any new rights down there.

I apologize for not going back and digging through the 100's of posts on the NS takeover in various threads, but if NS only gets as far as Mohawk and not Mechanicville, how will they run trains up the D&H from Binghamton and on to New England (Pan Am Southern). Does PAS get down to Mohawk? That would seem a bit awkward given the big NS yard at Mechanicville just a few miles farther, but I am not familiar with the details of operations. JS

They won't be getting all the way up to Mohawk - just to MP 484.85 with rights through it and usage of the yard. That gives CP enough head room to set off on the Mohawk side without needing to have rights on NS.

NS has rights from their end of ownership to Mechanicville.


NS will be aquiring the western portion of the Albany Main as part of the transaction.

Good evening I hope everyone on here had a very safe and happy weekend. Here is the definition for rail banking for people not familiar with the term.

Railbanking, as defined by the National Trails System Act, 16 USC 1247 (d), is a voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail agency to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until a railroad might need the corridor again for rail service. Because a railbanked corridor is not considered abandoned, it can be sold, leased or donated to a trail manager without reverting to adjacent landowners.

Railbanking takes place during the rail corridor abandonment process. Official negotiations with the railroad begin after the railroad submits an initial notification to abandon the line to the Surface Transportation Board (STB). Negotiations end with either railbanking or line abandonment.

The railbanking provisions of the National Trails System Act as adopted by Congress in 1983 have preserved thousands of miles of rail corridors that would otherwise have been abandoned.

UP4141 wrote:Good evening I hope everyone on here had a very safe and happy weekend. Here is the definition for rail banking for people not familiar with the term.

Railbanking, as defined by the National Trails System Act, 16 USC 1247 (d), is a voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail agency to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until a railroad might need the corridor again for rail service. Because a railbanked corridor is not considered abandoned, it can be sold, leased or donated to a trail manager without reverting to adjacent landowners.

Railbanking takes place during the rail corridor abandonment process. Official negotiations with the railroad begin after the railroad submits an initial notification to abandon the line to the Surface Transportation Board (STB). Negotiations end with either railbanking or line abandonment.

The railbanking provisions of the National Trails System Act as adopted by Congress in 1983 have preserved thousands of miles of rail corridors that would otherwise have been abandoned.

Thanks, UP! A few questions if you know the answers...

Is there any history of a RR purchase and subsequent rebuilding of a previously torn-up and railbanked ROW? What are the processes that a RR has to go through to say (in layman's terms) "We want that"?

Yes, I know of a few examples of RRs reviving a former ROW. In the pre-Staggers area, LV relaid rail on the east side of Seneca Lake in the '50s to reach the power plant at Milliken. However, the ROW had not been not officially railbanked.

In the post-Staggers area, the Heritage RR rebuilt about 10 miles of the former Erie/EL mainline in eastern Indiana to access a new refinery circa 1986. This is a rare event and (as the examples show) is typically undertaken to service a shipper generating a sizeable amount of traffic. Would that happen on torn-up section of the former D&H?

"In 1991 the Laketon Refining Corp built a 3.1 mile section of track between their refinery at Laketon to the connection with the ex Conrail NS Marion Branch at Bolivar, IN."

Google tells me that much - from what I can see looking at it it would appear they were able to buy the propery, as part of the refinery is built on the former ROW.

Different situation - guessing fewer NIMBYs to deal with, too.

Is there any history of a RR purchase and subsequent rebuilding of a previously torn-up and railbanked ROW? What are the processes that a RR has to go through to say (in layman's terms) "We want that"?[/quote]

Good morning greenwichlirr, there are probably more knowledgeable people on this form that are able to answer that question. I don't believe that any trail that has been trackless and a trail for several years in at least the northeastern United States has ever been re claimed for commercial rail use again. Rail banking legislation was in acted basically to classify all rail road right of ways in the United States to be forever available for current and future rail use. Basically removes the red tape so to speak to take the land back. There are several abandon trackless right of ways in New York state that have not become a designated recreational trail and that's probably because there may be a future use in mind, for example, the former Rome Watertown Ogdensburg right of way between Rome and Richland. This could easily be put back in service if the Saint Lawrence sub gains more significance. I believe legislators in New York have a pretty good idea witch right of ways will never be necessary for rail use.

Albany County rail trail now. S Pearl St to bridge over the Normanskill is graded and looks like crushed stone laid. saw heavy equipment working last week. the area around Kenwood Ave and New Scotland Rd is graded but gets muddy in the rain. old ROW is blocked off and signs designate it as the rail trail. don't know a completion date. section where the diamonds were in Voorheesville hasn't been graded and ballast and tie remnants remain. looks like they are working from Pearl St west.

To respond to the question about railbanking, I am very sure that the legislation made it clear that recreational use was only a "placeholder" until rail use was again warranted. Continued recreational use should be seen as a benefit to rails since it preserves the right-of-way for future rail use. Given the degree to which the railroad network was built, before paved roads and rubber-tired vehicles took over many passenger and freight functions, there are many abandoned rights-of-way that will never (at least in our lifetimes) have any rail use. That said, I will be interested to see which, if any, lines that have been converted to rail trails will come back to rail use.

Those who read this board regularly will probably recognize that I am adamant that the Adirondack Scenic Railroad north of Thendara is not economically viable without massive state subsidies. ($70,00 to patch a few spots near Lake Placid and now $900,000, according to ARPS board members, to fix the track to Carter Station so they can again run on the $1.4 million government upgraded tracks to Big Moose.) That said, rest assured that I will aggressively defend any viable, commercial rail operation that needs to reclaim a rail trail. We recreational users do need to remember that we are just "borrowing" that right-of-way, but also preserving it for he long run.

Tony, can you contribute to anything without bitching about your pet peeve?

lvrr325 wrote:Tony, can you contribute to anything without bitching about your pet peeve?

You beat me to it. The first part of Tony's reply was totally fine, until his typical agenda crept in during the second paragraph.

Now, back to the subject at hand.

The question about reclaiming the ROW is this: How does a RR company go about doing it? What is involved? Is it something as simple as "Gimme!" and they pay the market value and that's it, or does it involve lengthy court hearings, public comment, etc.?

And what conflicts (if any) will it cause if, as in this case, the railroad company that sold off the tracks has now sold out to another company? Does it even matter?

To date there have not been very many rail reactivations, so how it works in practice is hard to tell. I believe that the longest reactivation was by RJ Corman in Pennsylvania where they took over about ten miles of rail trail. There was apparently a good deal of controversy and resistance to losing the rail trail. The purpose of the reactivation was to access an abandoned strip mine and convert it to a landfill, so I think I am on solid ground when I say that most of the opposition was about the proposed landfill and not about losing the rail trail - even if that was the stated objection.

Here is a link to a sheet that I put together with links to other rail reactivation issues. The issue of UP wanting to reclaim a bridge from a rail trail to use on one of their active lines indicates that not all legal issues have necessarily been worked out. I think I am correct when I say that the clear intent of the railbanking legislation was that all the railroad had to do was, as in earlier post, say "gimme". In this issue where ownership of the railroad that abandoned the track has changed it's probably anyone's guess how a reactivation will play out.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6ytj ... sp=sharing

The simple answer is if the Railroad has retained legal title to the abandoned ROW its pretty easy to relay track and get the line back in service. The BN did this with their Stampede Pass (former NP) line in Washington State much to the chagrin of local adjoining landowners around Auburn who had started to consider the old rr track as their own.
However in the northeast most railroads were not solvent and wanted to get any possible taxable property off their ownership so abandoned ROWS were quickly sold if possible further use was not envisioned. Trustees in bankruptcy are looking to turn any assets into cash and will sell land to any willing buyers. This obviously creates big problems for returning the old line to use since land title must be re acquired.
If the line was purchased by the state or municipality then it all depends on the terms of the enabling legislation, some lines are "banked" for further rail use and temporarily turned into trails for public use others are purchased outright in fee with no restrictions and are owned just like any other real estate.

Further Info
http://www.traillink.com/trail/helderbe ... rail).aspx

http://mohawkhudson.org/our-preserves/h ... ail-trail/