Saratoga & North Creek (S&NC) Discussion

[J.D. Lang]

interesting commentary on things upstate new york and snc.
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... ing-clear/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Very well written article. Thanks for posting the link. We can only hope that public voices can prevail over the greedy special interests groups and their collusion with the state.
J.L.

[griffs20soccer]

Some tidbits form the Warren County Public Works meeting.

1. The railroad will start operating with trains for the Hadley Maple Festival.

2. Employees will be returning by April 10th, some have already returned.

3. The contract with the rail bike group should be signed shortly. They will be operating on the north end of the line (ie. the sections the county doesn't own)

4. They have purchased another engine, an F40PH. It is equipped with HEP for powering the cars instead of dragging a generator car. Here is what I found interesting, Justin made it a point to mention that it is PTC compatible. There was talk in the past of S&NC wanting access to the Rensselaer train station. You more knowledgeable posters can comment, but wouldn't they need that to be able to run on the track that Amtrak has control of.

Finally some good news.
Don

[SemperFidelis]

I truly hope thier freight ambitions work out. That will really help out the rest of the operation.

If I had the ambition to live in the "frozen wasteland" (FX's Archer) of northern New York and worked in government, I would try to lure one of the wood pellet makers to the paper mill site. Even with lower fuel prices, people really like those things in the cold months. I have heard they are very efficient and pretty cheap, but don't know from personal experience.

Just one decent industry in the area to take over from where the paper industry failed would make a huge difference.

I remember watching red CP locomotives switching that plant when I was young and in the area.

[Otto Vondrak]

interesting commentary on things upstate new york and snc.
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... ing-clear/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That article has nothing to do with Saratoga & North Creek. It refers to the troubles on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad.

Let's try to stay on topic.

-otto-

[Safetee]

i think that we should read the whole article before we get too testy.

[TrainDetainer]

Justin made it a point to mention that it is PTC compatible. There was talk in the past of S&NC wanting access to the Rensselaer train station. You more knowledgeable posters can comment, but wouldn't they need that to be able to run on the track that Amtrak has control of.

If they want to continue going anywhere out on the general system, like Saratoga, they'll need PTC as soon as it's implemented.

[BandA]

So the current situation is that SNC can run into Saratoga Yard where NS crews also run into with NS 31T but NS and SNC are not allowed to interchange. CP's letter to the STB stating why they opposed SNC interchanging with NS at Saratoga seemed to exaggerate how busy Saratoga Yard really is but on the other hand it is CP's property. All SNC freight moves to date have involved SNC running directly into Saratoga Yard. Unfortunately there are about 17 miles of CP trackage between where the SNC rights end and NS/Amtrak/CSX interchange could occur at NS CP-485- Amtrak/CSX CP-160 in Schenectady.

Why doesn't anti-trust law apply to railroads and prevent "paper barriers" from gumming up this and so many other situations?

[newpylong]

Justin made it a point to mention that it is PTC compatible. There was talk in the past of S&NC wanting access to the Rensselaer train station. You more knowledgeable posters can comment, but wouldn't they need that to be able to run on the track that Amtrak has control of.

If they want to continue going anywhere out on the general system, like Saratoga, they'll need PTC as soon as it's implemented.

They'll be able to come into the yard / station without it.

[hs3730]

The SNCRR website was updated... and on the Map Page it looks like they've cut all the stops from the schedule, except for Saratoga, Hadley, and North Creek. Trying to view the pages for the now-removed stops yields 404 errors. Any idea what's going on? If they really did eliminate the intermediate stops, I'm quite surprised not even Thurman made the cut.

[Safetee]

What is curious to me is that the schedule from 5/27 through 10/8 appears to consist of one train leaving for north creek from saratoga at 10am with the return trip leaving north creek at 3:40 returning to saratoga at 5:57. While i am sure that there are some people that might want to/could spend 8 hours riding on this fine old D&H line and hang around north creek for a bit. But i don't think that there's many of them. it almost automatically excludes families with children.

In a world that says that 3 hours is the most a non buff train rider can tolerate, this move is almost reminiscent of the days when d&h was trying to abandon service.

My hope for them is that i'm reading their schedule wrong.

[hs3730]

The idea is take the train up, enjoy the town of North Creek for a few hours (and spend money there), then come back down.

They used to have a midday short turn that started from North Creek, ran down to Thurman, and then went back up. This paired nicely with the main train to allow you to visit multiple stops in the same trip, versus getting locked in to the first one you decided to get off at. You could spend time in up to 3 stops this way.

Of course by eliminating most of the intermediate stops, the value of the short turn has disappeared as well.

Since the trip time is now shorter, they should have the run start at 11 instead of 10. Part of the reason I never did this trip was because I can't trust myself to get up to Saratoga by 10AM on a weekend...

[Safetee]

This explore the end of the line train idea may work in places like boston and nyc. But i dont see a whole lot of people with the possible exception of some extreme rail buffs who want to take a train ride so they can take a walk around north creek. For tourist train traffic i believe the ideal ride length is supposedly under two hours. this ride of snc with its "visit" is time prohibitive for most people at eight hours.

[BR&P]

I agree - for Mom, Pop and the kids, 2 hours max is a good rule of thumb.

[hs3730]

That's what the winter Polar Express trains are. 25 minutes each way in the dark, barely up the route, but they sell pretty well.

The summer runs were never really intended to be excursion in nature, they were meant to be tourist/transportation - bringing people to otherwise hard to reach places in the Adirondacks to explore. Some of the stops were campgrounds, where people could disembark, tent up, and come back down the next day. The great thing about it as originally planned was that they reactivated all the original D&H stops along the line, rebuilding several to commuter rail quality (Hadley, Thurman, and North Creek itself).

If they want to do adult excursions they need to shorten the North Creek layover to at most 2 hours. Enough for a meal, look around a bit, then back on the train. I'd probably take a trip like this 2-3 times a summer. To do this they'd have to either move their initial departure to 11AM, or the return departure to 2:40PM. The problem with the latter is it would find itself stepping on the NY-bound Adirondack's arrival.
I guess if they want kid-friendly excursions, they need to go up to Hadley, makes a 10 minute station stop, then back - total trip is just within 2 hours. Which would suck, because it would effectively abandon the North Creek part of the Saratoga and North Creek. That said, they *could* run a schedule like that with broad appeal on special racing days, such as Travers' day. It provides a reason to get up to Saratoga early (before the traffic), a good alternative to the first few races, and brings people back with plenty of time (and bankroll that would have been lost anyway) for the featured race.

[Jeff Smith]

Money problems/reduced cutbacks: PostStar.com

I'm going to cross-post this into my new IP group, but return it here to NYS since that's been its home.

Brief, fair-use:

Railroad won't cut back trips as much as proposed

Saratoga & North Creek Railway will not scale back its summer and fall schedule as much as it planned after Warren County leaders questioned the cuts.

The company will announce in the coming weeks a plan to run tourist trains more frequently than the weekend, county supervisors said Friday.

The news came as the county treasurer told supervisors Friday that his office is having problems collecting money that SNCRR owes the county.

Treasurer Michael Swan said the company owes the county money dating back to last December.
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