Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Rattling over French Road in Utica, passing by a weathered old New York, West Shore & Buffalo milepost. This is the short stretch where they hop on what was once the West Shore mainline from Buffalo to NYC.

Rattling down the old Utica, Clinton & Binghamton, which was later the New York, Ontario & Western's Utica Branch. After the O&W was abandoned in '57, the DL&W took over this section of track to access remaining customers. They also took on some of the ex-O&W employees, although the DL&W guys didn't much care for how the O&W guys operated.

That's an NYO&W milepost for New York City, saying it's 273 miles away. Yeah, less than a mile away from the West Shore milepost, and yet a 40 mile difference. And remember that the O&W used the West Shore for about 60 miles from Cornwall to Weehawken.

Approaching the end of the old UC&B segment, to switch and reverse down the New Hartford Industrial Track. There's a pretty short segment of track, about 700 feet normally, to pull forward to clear the switch and reverse back. I saw "normally", because the second crossing is out of service at the moment, shortening the tail track to about 400 feet. They had to do a little see-sawing to make it work, unhooking from the rear car, pulling forward, backing onto the Industrial track, dropping two of the boxcars, then pulling forward, crossing back over to the UC&B and grabbing the remainder of the cars and then shuffling back over and putting everything together.

Switching Oneida Warehousing. The fireman's side ditch light went out at this point and was out the rest of the day.

Leaving Oneida Warehousing.

Reversing over the old NYO&W bridge back on the UC&B. The south side of the bridge used to be all grown up with saplings and prickerbush, but someone grubbed that whole area out, affording a nice photo spot now.

While they backed down to grab the Sangerfield-bound cars and get on the DL&W, I went over to the old DL&W depot off of Genesee St., which I believe was termede "South Utica" by he railroad. The depot is a bar, and this old wooden caboose that's returning to the earth was a hair salon, although I don't believe it's open any more. I certainly wouldn't set foot in it.

I noticed this old spur with a concrete loading platform and trees growing up through it. According to Bill Moll, who worked the line under Conrail and then NYS&W, "Jay-K Lumber and S.R. Sloan roof truss company both received loads of lumber at the siding to the right of tracks."

And UT-1 pounds by as they head south for Sangerfield.

At the base of Paris Hill, a helper district in the steam era and the steepest grade on the whole DL&W system, they really pour on the power as they pass the old Chadwicks, NY depot. According to Bill Moll, "Chadwicks freight house was on the right side of the tracks opposite the passenger station. The freight house was too far gone to save when they preserved the passenger station. Freight house was torn down about 1987-90, I’d estimate."

Climbing up through Clayville, NY. I've always wondered about that barn that overhangs the tracks and whether they were a rail consignee or not. The location that close to the tracks seems like it can't be a coincidence. I asked Bill Moll if he knew but he said "If it ever was, it was well before my time." Doug Ellison's book doesn't mention it one way or another.

Passing by Lincoln Davies Building Supply at Paris, NY, which was also once a rail customer. There is a siding there, as well as a switch stand for a spur that's been torn out. Kind of the story all over the Utica Branch; "That business was a customer, but stopped shipping by rail." Steve Zabko an old NYS&W Utica engineer said, "You’d have loved the Utica Branch operations in the 80’s and early 90’s. When Walter was alive, so was that Branch. We ran 3 crews a day sometimes, just out of Utica alone." He has a very funny story about them trying to use one of the big B40-8s to try and switch F.X. Matt and wedging the top of the carbody against the opening in the brewery, because those GEs were so tall. Bill Moll also added that back in the day, you also had the Blue Line to Yorkville and the Central New York Railway all the way through Bridgewater, West Winfield, and South Columbia to Richfield Springs, as well as passenger trips right from Track 6 at Union Station (where the steam engine is today) for Christmas on Main St that went as far as Richfield Junction, plus the Utica & Mohawk Valley NRHS ran trains to Sangerfield and back quite a few times. I would have loved to ride the line below Chadwicks, because that is some gorgeous territory.

Summit Road crosssing in Paris, NY

Passing through Waterville, NY and nearing the end of it's southbound journey.

Crossing Route 20 as they arrive in Sangerfield to work the feed mills. Between Utica and Sangerfield there are no customers, and the tracks are present from Sangerfield down to the division point of the Utica Branch and Syracuse Branch at Chenango Forks, but, again, lack of customers between those two points means no trains run south of Sangerfield.

Everyone else took off once they arrived at Sangerfield, I'm guessing they weren't interested in the CSX unit leading north, or the slightly less favorable lighting. For me, the CSX leader was interesting, it was pointed the proper direction, and I was already down there. It was pretty weird seeing a CSX-painted Spartan cab unit puttering around in rural farmland on a 15 car local freight. Used to be that NYS&W would move their own power over to Utica to help out in the spring, but the New York Mills and New Hartford spurs have 4-axle restrictions and NYSW doesn't have any other 4-axle power, so they would have to cut that power off to work the spurs. Last time NYSW moved extra power over, it was SD45 #3618, which I sadly never go to see run, and they still ended up borrowing a CSX Geep then, because the #3618 had some sort of failure. Borrowing a CSX Geep is simply less work.

Here's some food for thought; during the E-L days, they used to run 100-150 car symbol freights over this line, post-1974. The NE-74/NE-97 came out of Chicago on the Erie and then went to Maybrook Yard to be handed off to New Haven, and then Penn Central after 1969. When Poughkeepsie Bridge (mysteriously) burned in '74, that gateway was severed, so the solution was to bring the freight out of Chicago to Binghamton on the Erie, then take the DL&W Syracuse & Utica Division to Utica, then Penn Central would take it from Utica to Albany on the NYC mainline and then handle it through New England on the old Boston & Albany. Doug Ellison's book also mentions a time where the D&H's mainline between Binghamton and Albany got snarled up with an accident, and the D&H got permission to run their train up the DL&W Utica Branch to Utica to use the NYC to get back on the D&H at Albany. Reportedly the division superintendent heard that the D&H freight had C628s, with those rail-busting Tri-Mount trucks, and he hit the roof. He was already very touchy about "his rails" and had protested pretty badly when E-L wanted to ship new C425s and U25Bs down from Utica to Binghamton, complaining they were too heavy for the cinder-ballasted line. He was overruled and the D&H freights moved over the line until they could fix their line up.

Winding down through the valley at Clayville, as they head back to Utica. To the right is a Pratt & Whitney plant. According to Bill Moll, "where the Pratt & Whitney plant is used to be a paper mill. That generated a lot of carloads at one time. I have a binder book of waybills that I found upstairs in the Utica freight house with a lot of waybills from that plant."

Arriving back in New Hartford. The #2722 was built in '73 for Penn Central and is still earning it's keep 52 years later. In this photo, you can see the pilot plow has notches in the corners, and a yellow outline. Certain CSX power has that modification made to the plow to clear the third rail when operating in Metro North's electrified territory, and the yellow outline is to denote that they are allowed to operate in that territory.

Approaching the Seward Ave grade crossing. The fence to the right encloses the old Bendix Corp./Lucas Aerospace site, where my father worked when he graduated high school. 

On the final leg, headed north up Schuyler Street.

Arriving back in the yard. Sadly there was no brewery switch today, but still good weather and a damn good chase.

I also went over to the Adirondack's platform and checked things out there. The #2400 was nicely parked to get photos, there's the weird new CTRail coaches (Check out those lifting lugs on the roof and inboard-journal trucks) and new kid on the block, C430 #430.

Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society posted some photos of their NKP SD9 inside the "new" Wheeling & Lake Erie's shops in Brewster, OH, which were also the main shops for the "old" Wheeling & Lake Erie. The W&LE was part of the Van Sweringen Brothers' holdings, alongside the NKP, Pere Marquette, Erie, and C&O, and operated in very close conjunction with the NKP, eventually being leased by the NKP in '49. The W&LE basically ceased to physically exist at that point, with everything relettered and numbered for the NKP, but still continued to exist as a separate corporate entity on paper, and, yes, NKP diesels, including SD9s, would have been serviced at Brewster. NKP was merged into the N&W in 1964, as was the Pittsburgh & West Virginia, the Wabash, and the Akron, Canton & Youngstown, but the W&LE still continued to exist on paper, with the lease transferred to the N&W. It wasn't until 1988 that the W&LE was officially merged into Norfolk Southern, only for NS to decide to sell of most of the W&LE and parts of the AC&Y as well as lease parts of the P&WV just two years later. The Wheeling Acquisition Corporation was created by a group of private investors to take ownership of a large portion of the sale, and the company was renamed the "Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway" on May 1, 1990. 

According to FWRHS, the shop forces at the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway were applying a few final touches on the #358. Refinements and testing include load box evaluations to examine the locomotive’s horsepower output, and apparently the #358 may even get out to pull some freight.

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FWRHS and #765 kicked off two weekends of Steam In The Valley at Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad this weekend, but got off to a bit of a rough start. Severe rains on Saturday flooded the access roads and parking lots that visitors would use and they had to scratch two of the three runs on Saturday to give time for the flooding to subside.

Also a bit of a rough weekend for SMS Rail Services/Woodstown Central. From their Facebook page: "On Friday April 18th, locomotive #9 developed an overheated journal on the center axle during the 12pm excursion. The locomotive was removed from the train and our steam crew worked deep into the night in an effort to remedy the problem. Early in the morning of the 19th, it was determined that the damage ensued was beyond repair in our limited facilities at South Woodstown. Efforts are currently underway to remove the center wheelset so the proper repairs can be made. Although we have no official date of when #9 will return to service, we are hopeful that the repairs will be swift and she will return to service this summer. Updates to follow. Stay tuned for an intriguing announcement in the coming days."