END OF THE LINE?
Scenic Saratoga & North Creek Railway out of money
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » A scenic, but financially-plagued railroad has apparently reached the end of the line.
Warren County officials say they have no plans of spending the $5 million company owner Ed Ellis says is needed to keep the Saratoga & North Creek Railway operating this summer.
So, barring an unexpected 11th-hour source of funding, the roughly 60-mile line will be idle except for limited freight traffic.
“We just don’t have the financial wherewithal to keep it going,” Ellis said Monday.
The railway began operating tourist trains from Saratoga Springs to North Creek in 2011 under a contract with the Town of Corinth and Warren County, which own the tracks.
The town owns from the Spa City to Anton Mountain Road in Corinth. Warren County owns from there north to North Creek.
The railway was welcomed with great fanfare when it opened under Ellis’s new management as small towns along the Upper Hudson River, such as Hadley and Thurman, envisioned a significant tourism boost to their rural economies. Ellis is president of Chicagobased Iowa Pacific Holdings, which owns several other excursion trains throughout the country.
But after an initial strong start, numbers failed to meet expectations.
In addition to leasing the Saratoga-to-North Creek line, Iowa Pacific purchased a separate 30-mile set of tracks from North Creek to Tahawus, home to an old abandoned mining operation.
Ellis hoped to offset tourist train losses by hauling rock from the mine, which could be used for road construction and similar projects. But that market hasn’t materialized, either.
As a last resort, he began leasing space last fall on the North Creek-to-Tahawus line for other companies to store out-of-service rail cars. But such plans ignited a firestorm of protest from environmental groups opposed to large numbers of rail cars in the Adirondacks.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened legal action by the state if the company didn’t have cars removed.
Iowa-Pacific’s primary customer agreed to pull cars out, and other rail companies have balked at getting involved in the controversy.
So with no other revenue source available, Ellis says he simply doesn’t have the money to continue operating tourist trains this summer. He’s already about $20,000 behind on contractual payments to Warren County.
Last week, Ellis told Warren County officials he would run the railway this summer if the county agreed to pay $5 million for the railroad he owns from North Creek to Tahawus. Ellis said a resolution Warren County passed, opposing his rail car storage plan, is what really deterred other companies from doing business with him.
But Bolton Supervisor Ronald Conover, who chairs the county board, said Warren County was only supporting a resolution previously passed by Essex County, which Tahawus is in.
Warren County has no plans of buying a railroad that’s mostly in Essex County, he said.
“It’s time to take a look at this entire corridor once again,” Conover said.
Some parties have called for removing tracks and creating a year-round, multi-use recreational trail.
“The first thing we need to tackle are the whole legal ramifications,” said Horicon Supervisor Matt Simpson, Warren County Public Works Committee chairman.
Iowa-Pacific still has a contract through August 2019 to
move freight for Barton Mines on the Saratoga-to-North Creek line. Warren County is obligated under federal railroad law to continue letting the company use its tracks for such purposes, Simpson said.
He said Monday a separate rail operator has already contacted Warren County about the possibility of running tourist trains this summer. But it’s doubtful, with so much legal uncertainty, if the county would agree to such plans.
“I don’t envision it,” Simpson said. “We really need to sort out our obligations so we can move forward with whatever process we choose. It’s complicated. We’re going to take our time and do it right. We need to bring all the stakeholders together and figure out what’s best for this corridor.”