The demise of the Upper Harlem

It seems that the rail trail people are about to acquire about 14 miles of former Upper Harlem roadbed in Columbia County. I guess it's safe to say that there won't be any plans for expansion, or restoration of rail service along the line. www.indenews.com

...to hear that the line will never see trains again. One, my wife's great grandfather was the engineer-contractor who built the line and thus Millerton NY is named after him. Second, there shoud be a second line from NYC to Albany on the east side of the Hudson!

The good news is that 14 miles of ROW will be preserved, perhaps with many left behind artifacts, and open for public use.

It would have been a real crying shame for 14 miles of ROW to wind up in the hands of developers.

Not too many artifacts left- usually when they build a trail they remove things like whistle posts, tell tales, relay cases, and mileposts.

As for "in the hands of a developer..." what a developer gonna do with a 14-mile by 20-foot stretch of land that bisects private property?

I agree that some ROW preservation is better than none at all.

-otto-

Not too many artifacts left- usually when they build a trail they remove things like whistle posts, tell tales, relay cases, and mileposts.

I've biked and hiked on several trails in this area where many artifacts were left in place. The Hudson Valley Rail Trail is a good example as is the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. Whistle posts, mileposts, and some signal equipment was left in place on both of these.

As for "in the hands of a developer..." what a developer gonna do with a 14-mile by 20-foot stretch of land that bisects private property?

Owning land that enables you to join properties would facilitate building something huge (strip mall, factory, warehouse, etc.). Granted, this will not happen in the middle of nowhere, but near towns (where stations were formerly located) it might happen. A classic example of this is in Elmsford on the old Put. Just north of Route 119, the ROW has been lost forever because it was sold to a developer. Now, a series of buildings and storage lots block the route.

The current Harlem Valley trail did a pretty good job of preserving artifacts along the ROW. The North Country Trailway on the former Put had most of the wayside artifacts wrenched from it.

I am not thrilled with "Rail Trails", problem I have with them is that the
need may well come some years down the road for further extension of
the Metro-North service beyond Wassaic. If and when that happens, the
rail trail people will fight it tooth and nail to say nothing of the nimby's.
I think it would have been much better had the line been "railbanked"
with the track left in place even if it grew up to weeds and the crossings
got paved over.
I doubt if the right of way would ever be available again as a railroad if and when it is needed.
Noel Weaver

Rail trails are a "best of a bad situation" deal. In cases where reversionary clauses were included in right-of-way agreements, the use of the ROW as a "rail trail" maintains the "transportation use" role of any surviving agreement. It's a tenuous position, but one that seems to have held up against challenges generally.

Better to fight future NIMBYS than to face dozens of buildings smack-dab in the way...

...Rail to Trails programs there is a clause that returns the ROW to rail use if warrented in the future, but not in all such programs. Check with the lawyer nearest you and see which side he is on! (I is sarcastic, ain't I!)

Never mind that current railroad restoration starts at $1 million a mile and up, and that's after years of environmental studies and a rigorous permitting process.

-otto-

During the dedication of the rail trail extension to wassaic, the chairman of the MTA said that he woulld love to extend the line to Millerton; biggest hurdle is- yaah u guessed it- the NIMBYS. Too bad...never should have torn it up in the first place, but that dead horse has been beaten.

work safe

Derail

You'll never see trains north of Wasaic again. Property has been altered in different areas. A bridge south of Hillsdale is gone. Chunks of property have been sold off.

Its ashamed its gone, but back in the 70's the big thing with railroads was to bankrupt and abandon. My Father once told me, "it was the crime of the century when they ripped up those rails."

About 2 years ago I met a noted and very knowlaged railfan of this line. He told me that back when it was being abandoned. That GE told the State they would pay to maintain the line if the state would purchase it. Because they hauled high and wide load transformers down the line from a plant in Pittsfield Mass. He claims that is on writen record from the formalities of the bankruptcy and abandoning procedeures. But NY state didn't go for it and that was that.

33 years ago today, the last passenger train left Chatham for GCT.

Is it true that Penn Central refused to consider a bid that would have had the line railbanked for future use, and instead sold it for a lesser bid to the contractor who removed the rails? Incidently 29 years ago today, the last train, a southbound freight, left Chatham, ending 124 years of service to the Upper Harlem.

...a shortline operator after the demise of CR?

As noted above, I do have an affection for this line. My last rememberance of complete line was late one August evening in 1968 while traveling from Springfiled, MA to Binghamton, NY, about dusk, seeing the passenger train coming into Chatham.

And I never say never. Almost never anwyay. But if there is need and reason and determination it can be rebuilt. The hardest obsticle to overcome is not rivers with no bridges or filled in roadbeds but the minds of the opposition!