Tahawus and North Creek

Just to clarify points brought up by Bob Sandusky:

The Tahawus mine and its output had nothing to do with the NL facility on Central Ave. in the Town of Colonie, just west of the Albany City line (New York Central Mainline).

It is my understanding that this facility was originally a brass foundry, and that NL started manufacturing items at that site for the Defense Department in the late 1950's. I believe many of the items manufactured were made of depleted uranium.

The facility was closed down in response to a court order in the late 1970's or about 1980. A cleanup of the property has gone on for many years and, as far as I know, the Federal government still owns the property. The health impacts of that facility on the surrounding community have been significant.

Thanks for the clarification.

I talked with people who lived near the NL site when it was active and they talked about seeing D&H (and other) cars there all the time. I put 2+2 together and came up with 3. Sorry about that.

As to the site, it is still vacant but the reported "significant health issues" to the surrounding community is basically an urban myth. The surrounding area is very urbanized and a highly active part of Albany. The plant site itself is small in comparison. I go past it myself about once a month (I stay off Central as much as I can due to the high traffic volume).

As a past traffic dept. employee of National Lead Co, and was involved in the some of the processing and shipping of ileminite ore, please note this web site of our old NL plant in Sayreville NJ on the RRRR. This was a processing location for turning the ore into the pigment. A lot of sulphuric acid was used and the residue was dumped (by barge) off Sandy Hook NJ, out to sea, which became the famous "acid grounds" in that part of the ocean. Please note the D&H cars.
The problem, with this ore when first mined as an iron ore source, is the separtion of of the iron from the ore was not possible at that time, due to lack of processing ability. That is why it was never really developed as a source of iron. Yes, when the ilmenite is ground very fine and processed for the titanium it is a pure white. This made the best paint (Dutch Boy). The paint remained pure white for a long time. The more titanium the better the paint.

http://www.raritanriver-rr.com/Wrecksof ... ix1972.htm

As a follow up, on the Tahawus operation of the National Lead Co. Here is a site showing the last train out of the mine in 1989.

http://www.adirondackbranch.net/sTac.html

As a further follow up, of the history of the Tahawus operation of the National Lead Co. See the attached complete time line of the mine and railroad.

http://www.adirondackbranch.net/History/TaHistory.pdf

BTW, if anyone wants to see the large version of the last wreck photo, it's "G41." Two thumbnails ended up with the same link, but changing the '5' to a '1' once you get to the photo will redirect you to the correct image.

Heckuva way to see the underframe details on those cars . . .

I found this interesting fly over of the rail line into Tahawus, using google earth. Enjoy the tour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBMouR0O ... re=related

The line south of North Creek has a new operator as Warren county and Iowa Pacific have agreed to a contract.
Iowa Pacific had said they would operate the line only if they were also able to negotiate a purchase contract with NL
for the line to Tahawus as well. I would assume we'll hear something about that soon.
http://poststar.com/news/local/article_ ... 03286.html

The old plow was still there 2 years ago when I was there. All buildings were demolished and the plow was now outside. I dont know why they needed to demolish the shed it was in but they did. The old flat car with the little crane was also there as well. Dont know if they are both still there but I hope they are. I have a few pics of it when it was in the shed and I took a bunch of it out side in the open. Unfortunately I lost the pics of it outside when my computer crashed.

Also where is the rocks on the tracks at?

So does anyone know if the plow was just used for the trackage around the mine/plant or if NL actually used it (or intended to use it as the case may be) to plow the line down to North Creek?

tahawus84 wrote:Also where is the rocks on the tracks at?

It's marked on OpenStreetMap. Just a bit north of the Hudson River Bridge.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/47415725

Thanks Russ!

In the summer of 1957 I was a sophomore geology major in college and had a summer job working with National Lead in Tahawus. Our team was doing the basic magnetic surveying for the new mine areas, so I spent most of my time out in the bush. I do have a few photos from those days and have posted them at http://homepages.uc.edu/~huffwd/1957%20 ... index.html

Here are some pics of the plow and other car (i dont know its purpose) up in tahawus