Environmentalists applaud removal of remote rail cars

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Environmentalists are applauding the removal of out-of-service rail cars from a remote line in the Adirondacks.

Only two dozen of more than 80 oil tanker cars remain stored on tracks alongside the Upper Hudson and Boreas rivers.

The rail cars were brought there last fall by Chicago-based Iowa Pacific Holdings LLC, operator of the now-defunct Saratoga & North Creek Railway. The firm stored the rail cars, which belong to out-of-state companies, on a 30-mile line from North Creek north to Tahawus, a small abandoned mining hamlet.

Iowa-Pacific leased space for the rail cars as a way to generate revenue.

But part of the line runs through the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Environmentalists voiced strong opposition, citing potential ecological threats and Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened legal action if the rail cars weren’t removed.

Owners of stored rail cars have started pulling them out.

“We can see there are still 24 at the north end of the line, quite close to the former iron mine in Newcomb,” said William C. Janeway, Adirondack Council executive director. “The railroad company told the Warren County Board of Supervisors last week that the final 24 cars would be removed soon.”

Iowa-Pacific owns the tracks from North Creek to Tahawus.

Separately, for the past several years it had operated the Saratoga & North Creek Railway, a scenic train business, on tracks owned by the Town of Corinth and Warren County -- from Saratoga Springs to North Creek.

But company President Ed Ellis announced recently that trains won’t run this summer because the railway was losing money and had no prospects of turning a profit.