On the return trip, I swung by Corinth, NY to visit the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson, the new kid on the block in terms of NY tourist lines. Operated by Hal Raven, owner of a pair of switchers, it runs on 7 miles of the former D&H Adirondack Division that was purchased from the IPH bankruptcy liquidation. Iowa Pacific ran freight and passenger service from the CP interchange at Saratoga Springs up to North Creek and Tehawus.
The SC&H began operation this May, using Raven's Alco S-1 that was the Alco Schenectady factory switcher, a flatcar converted to an open air car, and Iowa Pacific/Saratoga & North Creek passenger cars that were abandoned on the property when IPH imploded in 2018. A lot of the staff is also ex-Saratoga & North Creek, and their engineer worked on the D&H, CP, and S&NC. The Corinth "station" is a small clearing in the woods with gravel parking, a large wood-fired grille, and a Backyard Outfitters preconstructed shed powered by a Honda gas generator, mostly manned by Raven's family members.
The SC&H seems to already be cultivating a strong relationship with the community, which is a key to a lasting tourist operation. Today alone, they had a train to take kids to pick pumpkins and decorate them at a clearing down the line, they also had a classic car cruise-in where participants were given a free meal ticket, and a 50/50 raffle to benefit the local hockey team that generated $600+.
The classic car cruise was a huge hit, a real surprise considering how late it was in the fall. One guy said he was literally driving his car to winter storage, saw another car turning into the parking lot and decided to follow him. The parking lot ended up overfull, and they sold out on food and the 1pm train, resulting in a run to the grocery store and an added third train of the day. There were some neat cars there too. My favorite was a super-rare 1947 Oldsmobile woodie.
I had prepurchased a ticket to ride in the cab of Alco #5 on the 1pm trip, which they offer on all trips. I swung aboard with the engineer and front brakemen and they lit off the 660hp Macintosh & Seymour 539, which is a 158 liter, naturally aspirated, 4-stroje inline-6. It's a gutsy, raspy, clattering thing that shakes, rattles and rolls the whole locomotive.
The engineer and brakemen were a fun pair to talk with. The brakeman was teasing the engineer about how on the 11am, while stopping at the pumpkin patch, the engineer accidentally goofed up and dumped the train into emergency. It had caused a minor panic with the rest of the train crew as they tried to figure out where the train had derailed or come apart.
The scenery is heavily wooded, interspersed with stretches through marshes. There's an old loading platform that has a mural painted on it, ironically of the now-defunct Saratoga & North Creek.
There aren't active runaround tracks currently, so they have to make a shove back to Corinth. The brakeman departed the cab to rode on the platform of the rear car and give us a lookout. This left the engineer and I in the cab alone and we had a good chat on the way back.
He said the D&H, even in the throes of bankruptcy after the Guilford era, had been a terrific company to work for, treated all it's employees like family. He said CP was much less pleasant to work for, and when they sold off the line to IPH he went over to the Saratoga & North Creek, since he knew the territory. His summary of IPH was succinctly "They sucked." He did say that despite their failings, IPH did do some good during their time, they built up North Creek as a nice destination during their time. He also said that during the D&H era, the entire line was under a 10mph slow order, but IPH got it up to 25mph for freight 40mph passenger. SC&H runs at 20-25mph, in order to keep the 14 mile round trip of adequate length.
I asked how business had been this year, and he said astounding. Pretty much every train had been 100+ headcounts, and they had only had rain on two of the days they operated on. They had only had one mechanical failures, when the ragjoint coupmer on the auxiliary generator came apart, and that was on a day when they only had 30 passengers. He said every one of those passengers came back as soon as they were operational again and went for another ride. His appraisal was "Honestly, it's amazing how well we've done. We started operating in May, and in February we'd had a locomotive that looked like it just rolled out of a cancer ward, the open air car had a rotten deck and no swing or handrails, the passenger cars had all their windows smashed out and they spent days trying to get the brakes free, and the Pullman car was completely gutted."
On the future of the SC&H, he said they're trying to develop destinations for next year. They're discussing leasing an old farmhouse past the current turning point where they would be able to hold wagon rides and chicken BBQs. They're talking with Saratoga Springs about going there, since that's a big tourist site, but that's a ways down the road and they need to convince Saratoga that the railroad has something to offer them. North Creek wants them to run there, but he said that all the businesses the S&NC had helped develop have dried up and blown away and there's really no reason to go there. I asked if Raven's other Alco, D&H S-2 #3021, will be moving down to the SC&H from the Batten Kill Railroad and he said he guarantees it'll be on site before Christmas.
I asked what the status of the line from North Creek to Tehawus was. It had also been up for auction, and one buyer purchased it only for their finances to get held up and cause them to miss the deadline for the down payment. He said that that buyer had some railroad experience but also that some railroads had banned him from their property and that there was more to the down payment story than met the eye. As of right now, it looks like Revolution Railbike is taking over instead. I mentioned the rumor that Revolution Railbike wanted SMS Rail Services to run freight on the line. He laughed and said the odds of SMS wanting to be involved were slim to none. In his words, "SMS hauls freight, and does it well, but they run things the way they want to run things. They have no interest in clearing brush and cutting trees to move one or two cars a week at 10mph. We sat and talked with the Revolution folks and they're pretty naive on how the whole freight rail industry works." He said potentially the SC&H might haul the freight instead, if freight service actually materializes, since it would keep just two parties using the rails, SC&H and Revolution, instead of three.
All in all, it was a very pleasant trip, and I'm curious to see what the future holds for the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson. I think Hal Raven seems like a smart guy, from what I saw of him, and a great people person. They definitely seem to be off to a good start and have good heads on their shoulders.
