DENVER — Some 30 miles of New York rail line formerly operated by the Saratoga & North Creek Railroad has been sold for $3.33 million to a couple whose company plans to ship titanium ore from a mine on the route.
The Albany Times Union reports Doc N Duchess Rails LLC, owned by Carol and John McClean-Wright, outbid two competitors in a bankruptcy auction held in by a Denver court for the San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad and subsidiary Saratoga & North Creek, former Iowa Pacific Holdings properties that went into receivership in 2019.
Carol McClean-Wright told the newspaper that, with the backing of financial partners, the company has rail equipment and is in the process of buying a mine at Tahawaus, N.Y., from Mitchell Stone Products. The site has been mined for iron and titanium in the past but currently serves as a gravel pit; McClean-Wright said there is titanium that can be extracted from tailings at the site.
Doc N Duchess outbid Revolution Rail, which had entered a stalking-horse bid of $700,000 in January and has operated a rail-bike attraction on the route, and the Sierra Railroad. McClean said the new owners would try to work with Revolution to allow the rail-bike operation to continue.
Ahh, The saddest words are, “IT might have been”
With recent global events going on this is a very opportunistic purchase. Domestic titanium demand is expected to rise since the largest suppliers are in Russia and China.
Poor Ed Ellis has to be scratching his head. The prime freight demand came a couple of years too late.
As a former mechanic on the SNC please be assured there was freight potential there that was never realized due to the recalcitrance of the interchanging railroad. Raw timber and garnet stone were real shipper ready to ship by rail. Alas, you can’t play ball when the other team decides not to show up.
Who was the difficult carrier I might ask?
The SNC interchanged with only one railroad.
Canadian Pacific, soon to be CPKC. There is no second track at the merge, so I am guessing that whoever runs the Adirondack Branch would have rights to bring freight down to the CP Saratoga Yard. Or CP didn’t want to bring a switcher up past the Amtrak station to pick up anything. So I wonder who the heck dropped off all the empties for Ed Ellis to store back in his days?
“MCLean said the new owners would try to work with Revolution to allow the rail-bike operation to continue.” Sounds like restoration of tourist passenger service is not part of the plan.