The request is part of the conservation department’s effort to have the track declared abandoned. The track in question is owned by Iowa Pacific Holdings, which had operated the Saratoga & North Creek Railway on the southern portion until it shut down in 2018. Iowa Pacific had used the northern portion to store freight cars for other railroads, until opposition led to their being removed.
DEC filed its original abandonment request in Sept. 2018. As Iowa Pacific negotiated with OMNItrax to sell the tracks, the request had been stayed. OMNItrax recently said it was unable to reach agreement on a sale, leading to the state’s renewed effort to seek abandonment.
Union Rail has been negotiating with Warren County, N.Y., to run passenger trains on the southern portion of the track that the county owns, and has indicated it would also consider running freight trains to the abandoned titanium mine at Tahawus, which contains tailings that can be sold. It is unclear whether the state wants to tear out the northern tracks if it is successful in its abandonment effort.
The NY Communist State seizes private property? I find that easy to believe considering who their governor is.
W Cook is right on. I visited the Tahawas mine last October and observed iron /titanium/vanadium ore in outcrop. (I’m a geologist.) The New York City people and others want to depopulate the Adirondacks. They want tourism out , too. If the only access is on foot, there won’t be many tourists. In the larger picture, the environmentalists want to reduce the earth’s human population to about 500 million. Oddly enough, their ultimate opposition will be the Chinese communists. They’ve already learned how to control the population.
Yes, and New York City has proposed $250,000 administrative fine for speaking one’s opinion about illegal immigrants. Never mind the constitutional protection of free speech and the constitutional requirement of a jury trial for fines over $20.00.
Simple, just write to the STB as is allowed telling them why they should deny the request by NYS.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Mr Ellis only owns a right of way and the railroad assets, he doesn’t own the land underneath.
Also, why can’t they simply build the trail right next to it? Why must the rail come out before a trail can come in?
Tons of trails co-exist with rails across the country, why is this one any different?
New York State had the worst government in America. The State is trying to steal Ed E. Ellis’s. private property just because they don’t like him as a neighbor. He owns that track and the value of it is when it is used to haul tailings or even new ore. The mine contains iron ore that has never been exposed, and also rare metals that the solar industry now want to buy.
New York City Water Dept. didn’t like their neighbor; being the railroad track of the Catskill Mt. Branch running through their “Takings of the Valley” for their Ashokan Reservoir and bribed the Ulster County with $1.5 million for tearing up 12 miles of track, severing a scenic tourist railroad intended route. That government action destroyed $50 million of value that belonged to county residents
.
In New York State, if you don’t like the color of the neighbor’s house, just use quirks of the law and with government money, have it destroyed and removed.
Whatever New York wants, it gets. Kiss the entire line goodbye. This is also the future for the Adirondack Railroad line. Neither wants to be shut down, but the SNC is dead and NYS is happy about that.