Today's Train Of Thought- Batten Down the Hatches! March 26th, 2015

With today's train of thought, we bid farewell to a particularly eventful and record-setting winter with this Christmas-card like scene in a quiet corner of upstate New York.

Interchanging with Pan-Am's former Boston & Maine Fitchburg Main at the tiny hamlet of Eagle Bridge, NY, the Batten Kill operates some 30 miles of track in rural Washington County on the ex-Delaware & Hudson 'Slatepicker' line between Eagle Bridge and Salem, NY [which used to run further north to Rutland, VT- NANESB!] as well as the former Greenwich & Johnsonville line between Greenwich and Greenwich Jct, NY.

The primary source of traffic for the Batten Kill is a feed mill around Greenwich Jct, but in recent years the line has also made some extra money storing freight cars on the seldom-used line to Salem during the economic downturn. Up until 10 years ago, the Batten Kill also offered passenger excursions and an intact-but-disused line to the eastern shore of the Hudson at Thomson from Greenwich once made it an attractive candidate for hauling unit trains of PCB contaminated sludge from the river as part of a multi-year dredging project undertaken by GE.

The railroad is best known among northeastern railfans for their historic all-ALCo roster, though. Technically the railroad owns three RS3 roadswitchers- the youngest of which is 62 years old. BKRR #605 started out life on the Lehigh and Hudson River before winding up in Vermont- first as part of the St Johnsbury and Lamoille County and then the Vermont Railway- before being sold to the Batten Kill upon its 1982 formation. The Batten Kill also inherited RS3 #4116 from predecessor Greenwich & Johnsonvlle and is still painted in the orange and black scheme. The third RS3 was also purchased secondhand from the Vermont railway and is kept as a parts supply behind the Greenwich enginehosue.

However, the Batten Kill has also been known to borrow motive power from the nearby Vermont Railway, Canadian Pacific or Pan Am if there are problems with the #605 and #4116 simultaneously or the enginehouse has been cut off from the rest of the line. Most recently, a burly Pan Am SD40-2 was brought in to help the two ALCo raodswitchers with removing more than 40 COFC spine cars that were in storage on the line in February 2015.

Here, Batten Kill #605 is seen with the tiny railroad's flanger at the Pan-Am interchange in Eagle Bridge, NY in the last rays of sunlight on Valentine's Day 2014. According to photographer Colin Buckoski, the #605 headed down with the flanger to clear the line and headed back to the feed mill in Greenwich Jct with five cars from Pan-Am later on that night.

Today's Train of Thought- Encounter At Eagle Bridge, September 25, 2011

Today's serendipitous Train of Thought takes us to a rural corner of Upstate New York that seems frozen in time on this particular date.

Sharing a name with the nearby Batten Kill creek, the quixotic Batten Kill Railroad was formed in the early 1980s to take over operations from the shuttered Greenwich & Johnsonville and the Southernmost 20 miles of the former Delaware & Hudson 'Slatepicker' line between Eagle Bridge, NY north to Castleton, VT. Besides operating some seasonal excursion trains, the Batten Kill might be best known for being the first railroad owned and operated by an African-American.

The rural line trundles its way through Washington County, NY, paralleling the Vermont state line for much of the way. From day one, motive power for the Batten Kill was a pair of Schenectady-built ALCo RS3s, the newest of which was built in 1952. For the last 30 years, traffic has mainly consisted of feed and grain to an elevator at Greenwich Jct. NY, although in recent years, the BKRR has also made some money storing idle flatcars around Salem, Greenwich Jct and the company headquarters in Greenwich.

The Batten Kill's link to the rest of the North American rail network is at the village of Eagle Bridge. Although the D&H had abandoned the Slatepicker line north of Salem in the 1970s and sold off the southern portion to the Batten Kill, they retained trackage rights over Boston & Maine (now Pan-Am's) Fitchburg Division between Mechanicville, NY and Eagle Bridge to interchange with the Batten Kill. Although both the B&M and D&H were supposedly indistinguishable under the Guilford umbrella, that changed in the late 1980s when the financially struggling Guilford divested themselves of the D&H. After a few years in which the New York, Susquehanna & Western was named the designated operator of the D&H, the Canadian Pacific purchased the D&H in 1991, and this whole time the D&H still retained their trackage rights over the Guilford/Pan-Am line to reach the diminutive Batten Kill.

And with that in mind, we get a glimpse of the Batten Kill's RS3 #4116 (ex D&H, same number) Still in G&J paint as it trundles by parked Delaware & Hudson GP38-2 #7312 with a cut of 5 cars at the Eagle Bridge, NY interchange. From all appearances, Railpictures.net user Gary R. Schermerhorn could've captured this scene shortly after Ron Crowd purchased the ex-D&H line in 1982. However, this fortuitous find actually took place in May 2009, some 27 years after the founding. It's not commom practice for Canadian Pacific the leave their power overnight on another line, but according to the photographer, a fallen tree blocked the #7312 from reaching the Pan-Am line and returning back to Saratoga Springs, NY. With the tree removed, the EMD sporting the blue and grey lightning stripe scheme is awaiting a new crew for its nocturnal return to Saratoga Springs NY with local freight D44. Meanwhile, the #4116 will trundle north to the grain elevator at Greenwich Jct.

The Boston & Maine/Guilford/Pan-Am line is out of view and to the left of the trees on the left hand side of the photo.

Today's Train of Thought- Do you Believe in Miracles? Febuary 22, 2010

Today's Train of Thought marks the 30th anniversary of the 'Miracle on Ice' by taking a look at some of the railroads serving Lake Placid then and now. In 1979, the Adirondack Railway began operating over the former New York Central branch that ran from north of Utica, NY to Lake Placid, NY. NYC successor Penn Central abandoned the line in 1972, but the state of New York took possession of the right-of-way in 1975 and was re-opened in 1979 as the Adirondack Railway in part to bring visitors to and from the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid.

However, keep in mind that the, like the rest of the country back then, the railway industry was in a state of turmoil in the late 70s and on through the 1980s- particularly in the Northeastern USA. Less than four years prior, the bankrupt Penn Central and Erie-Lackawana were merged with smaller, bankrupt and troubled railways like the Ann Arbor, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Lehigh Valley, Reading Lines, Lehigh and Hudson River or Pennsylvania-Reading Shore Line to form the Consolidated Railway Corp- or Conrail. The beleagured Delaware & Hudson was only a few years away from being sold to Guilford Transportation for a paltry $500,000 in a short-lived and disastrous marriage and shortlines throughought the country like the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville; Wellsville Adison and Galeton or Skaneateles Short Line were on their last legs.

But the renewed interest in opening up a route to Lake Placid to accomodate the Olympics gave one tiny corner of the nation's rail network a brief reprieve from the turmoil. This kind of made sense, since Olympic host cities like Salt Lake City, Torino, Nagano and Vancouver are served by large international airports, multiple expressways, railways or ferries. Lake Placid simply didn't have any of those some 30 years ago (and as far as I know, still doesn't)- just some two lane highways cutting through the Adirondacks and the recently re-opened branchline. To haul the passengers, the Adirondack acquired some secondhand ALCO diesels and coaches and for good measure, leased additional locomotives from Conrail and Delaware & Hudson. Here, rrpicturearchives contributor Chuck Edwards caught borrowed D&H RS3 #4075 shortly after its departure from Utica with a northbound consist in the snow at Remsen, NY on Febuary 2nd, 1980.

Sadly, the Adirondack Railway went bankrupt in 1981 and the tracks remained dormant for another decade.



However, in 1992 a group of volunteers began restoring 4 miles of right-of-way on the southern section of the line between Theandra, NY and Minehaha, NY and operating it as the Adirondack Centennial Railway in observance of the 100 year anniversary of the line's completion. The excursions proved to be very popular and in 1994, the railway was renamed the Adirondack Scenic and work began on restoring the line all the way through to the Mohwak, Adirondack & Northern interchange and operating on trackage rights to Utica's Union Station. In 2000, the northernmost 20 miles of the line were reopened, operating roundtrip excursions between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. Above, railpictures.net contributor Andrew Blaszczyk caught Adirondack Scenic ALCO C424 #4243 leading it's consist westbound across the Chubb River shortly after it's departure from the Lake Placid station on the last day of August 2006. Although the entire line isn't yet up to snuff for operating passenger trains, volunteers and work crews can send ballast and MOW equipment the entire length of the line.
The Adirondack Scenic generally operates in the summertime and the right-of-way is used as a snowmobile trail in the winter. Aside from ballast for MOW purposes, there is no freight traffic to speak of on the line, although the excursions are becoming increasingly popular with canoers.