The Adirondack Railroad is the designated operator of 85 miles of track owned by New York State between Remsen-Tupper Lake.

Unhappily, as most here know, New York authorized the removal of 34 miles of track between Tupper Lake-Lake Placid.

However, the State then contracted with Tartaglia Railroad Services to upgrade the 85 mile line; until this year, the 45-mile stretch of track between Big Moose-Tupper Lake had not seen a revenue run since 1981.

Tartaglia began work in 2020. While work still remains to be done around the Tupper Lake station, the job is nearly done. Tartaglia recently provided this update on work to date:

83,951 ties replaced, 2743 feet of rail replaced, 82,580 bolts replaced, placed 65,630 tons of ballast (the line previously had mostly cinder ballast), surfaced 447,278 feet of track, replaced 3 public crossings & 17 private crossings, cleaned over 28,000 feet of ditches and miscellaneous turnout and siding work.

This video features a look at some sections of the newly reopened line north of Big Moose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpAhUmmqGU

More specifically, a train is observed northbound over the Twitchell Creek bridge and, approximately 90 minutes later, the same train is observed southbound cresting the summit about 1/3 mile north of the former NY Central Big Moose passenger station.

A few screenshots:

This has certainly been a virtually monumental track restoration project and seeing that much of it back in service is sure impressive. What is even more astounding is a state government choosing to abandon 20+ miles of track that they have dumped millions of dollars into that was by no means abandoned.

Perhaps the biggest plus is that any one of the growing number of oil burning steam locomotives now running around could make an occasional run on this line. There is a wye in Tupper Lake, too.

Rob Gardner

Thanks for the continuing story and especially for the photos, for which I have a question...

It appears that Twitchell Creek bridge originally had an "open" deck, with rail directly fastened to the bridge timbers (whose ends appear in the photo). In the rehabilitation, the track was raised significantly, creating a ballasted deck over Twitchell Creek.

This would require a new "floor" atop the retained bridge timbers, which would be typically designed in the shape of a well, with shoulders to prevent loss of ballast.

Unless this is a "temporary" arrangement, can anybody advise how the shoulder ballast is retained in this structure?

I put your question to Doug Ellison, recently retired career railroader and a former superintendent of the Adirondack:

"As far as I know, Twitchell was always a ballast-deck bridge. It was way back in NYC days anyway and was not changed or altered by ADK RR or ARPS. As far as I can recall, all of the NYC Adirondack Division main line bridges were ballast-deck (except Kayuta), but not on the D&H Saranac-Placid side....The bridge has concrete retainers (or had in my day) on each side to retain the ballast...it was no different in NYC days in the 50's"

The first passenger train from Utica to Tupper Lake since 1981 is running tomorrow, October 16, 2022:

Here's the link to the sold-out excursion:
Adirondack RR: High Peaks Limited (Utica → Tupper Lake)

An October 17, 2022 article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise:


Link to the full story: ‘Junction Function’ welcomes rail passengers to Tupper Lake

Great news. Typical journalism:

Easy to explain: They pulled the prime mover and put in racks of seats with pedals to save on fuel. It was lunch break.

Here's a video featuring highlights/interviews from yesterday's Utica-Tupper Lake and return run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FBJVGJGTdc

I just got to look at this, and a couple of things stand out.

One is that scenically, it's not as spectacular as the narrow gauge country of Colorado and New Mexico, but it's still more than pleasant enough to put down the lie from the trail crowd that it would be just a boring ride (and if would be boring as a train ride, then it would be boring as a snowmobile ride, and REALLY boring on foot!) Lots of woods and lakes, and parts look boggy or swampy, too; I can believe some comments seen in other venues about the issues with beavers!

Another thing is that running speeds for the most part look pretty decent! This is anything but some weedy, 10-mph railroad. This, and the relatively low cost per mile of the rejuvenation, again puts down the lies from the trail crowd about the northern end--which still lacks the improvements the trail crowd was supposed to get, at an unknown cost. In fact, a part of that segment that regularly had beaver troubles is showing signs of neglect already (at least that's how it looks in other forums), and it won't be too long before there are washouts from those industrious animals.

The only suggestions I'd suggest the management consider would be to find some way to reopen the line to Lake Placid (and we can use the lies from the trail crowd as ammunition to reverse that mistake), and finding some way to incorporate steam power (this would be a really wonderful ride with steam and appropriate cars, even more so than it looks now). Note that both of these comments are merely suggestions for consideration, and that either one would obviously depend on money and time.

Still, it's great to see some real progress after what has been going on for years there.

As a local and someone who chased the inaugural trip (I wish I could have ridden but I had a bunch of unplanned expenses that made the $150 ticket ill-advised at the moment) I can confirm that it goes through some remote territory. You can kind of follow it closely by road below Remsen. The Remsen-Thendara segment gets a little trickier, especially with traffic. Above Thendara though, it's out in "no man's land" for a lot of the journey. You aren't seeing that scenery unless you take the train or have a small airplane.

And, yes, this is a relatively high-speed operation over a well-maintained roadbed. In a car they are tough to keep pace with, and when they went by me at Big Moose Station, they were really wheeling and kicking up quite a bit of dust.

An advantage to riding the train north of Thendara that I really haven't seen mentioned is that it lets you bypass the bottleneck that is Old Forge. Old Forge is a major tourist destination with really only one road through it, and on a weekend in the summer and fall it's not that uncommon to spend an hour or two trying to get the 3 or 4 miles through Old Forge. If you just want to see the sights and spend a little time in Tupper Lake, you can skip the aggravation.

A favorable commentary on the return of rail service on the Adirondack--and a confirmation that the ride was smooth on the repaired track.

In fact, I think a lot of people don't know how good rail equipment can ride. I have a relative who couldn't believe it, not with steel on steel, had to feel every bump, etc. I asked him, when does a railroad have potholes?

https://romesentinel.com/stories/kellys ... ake,142370

We just call them other things.