Scenic Saratoga 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 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 Chicago-based 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 30mile 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.
Some parties have called for removing tracks and creating a year-round, multi-use recreational trail.