The Utica side is dead, folks. Walter Rich and his friends have driven almost all the business off that wasn't gone already. The washouts from Sherburne to Greene remain; a small amount of the line from below Greene to Chenango Forks is being used as car storage, and there is still some traffic to Sherburne, where Baillie Lumber still ships out some wood products and Chenango Valley Pet Foods still gets inbound grain. Metal Products has stopped using rail. There is talk of a biodiesel plant in Norwich that will never happen IMO.
The value in the line to Walter Rich and friends is in the proposed NYRI power line that as of yet has no interested users downstate. It is a redundancy and inefficient transmission line, but I think the investors are looking at 10-15 years from now as demand grows.
I often wonder what business the LAL crew could have built had the had access to this line. If they can generate traffic from Hornell to Corry, they could have done it from Utica to Greene.
Instead Route 12 gets more congested with trucks and a rail line gets neglected.