Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad

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Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad
legal form Corporation
founding 1991
Seat Utica , New York ,United StatesUnited States
management David J. Monte Verde
Branch Rail transport
Website https://www.gvtrail.com/mohawk-adirondack--northern.html

The Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad ( AAR reporting as mark: MHWA) is a Class-3 local railroad - railway company in the north of the State of New York . The subsidiary of Genesee Valley Transportation (GVT), founded in 1991, offers rail freight transport on routes with a total length of almost 200 km.

history

On the western side of the Adirondack Mountains , the Utica & Black River Railroad (U&BR) built a railway line from Utica north into the Black River valley via Lowville , Carthage and Philadelphia to Clayton on the Saint Lawrence River between 1867 and 1873 . From 1883 the Carthage & Adirondack Railway (C&A) built a railway line from Carthage to the east, which was gradually extended to Newton Falls in the town of Clifton until 1896 . From 1886 the U&BR was under the control of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad , which in turn was taken over by the New York Central Railroad (NYC) in 1891 . The NYC also acquired the C&A in 1893. In Lowville there was a connection to the Lowville and Beaver River Railroad (LBR) from 1906 .

Passenger traffic from Utica via Lowville to Carthage (and on to Ogdensburg ) ended in 1961. In February 1964, the NYC put the 20.6 km long section between Lyons Falls and Lowville to a standstill and removed the track system a little later. The remaining sections, which were still used for freight traffic, came to Penn Central in 1968 and Conrail in 1976 .

After GVT had taken over LBR at the beginning of 1991 and GVT was already acting as a Conrail partner in Buffalo , Conrail and GVT started talks about a cooperation in the Adirondacks. This culminated in the takeover of three routes including the local rail freight services there by GVT: The 25.1 km long section Lowville – Carthage, known as the Lowville Industrial Track , the 73.2 km long route from Carthage to Newton Falls and run as Newton Falls Secondary the 45 miles long connection from Utica to Lyons Falls. To this end, GVT founded the Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad (MHWA), which began operations on June 13, 1991.

On December 30, 1992, the GVT subsidiary Genesee and Mohawk Valley Railroad (G&MV) acquired two more route sections from Conrail: Utica Yard station and the almost 13 km long Rome Industrial Trackage in Rome . From August 6, 1993, MHWA was granted exclusive trackage rights for freight transport on both parts . In addition, the MHWA received trackage rights on the Conrail route between Utica and Rome so that the MHWA can operate its systems in Rome from Utica.

In the winter of 2000/2001, the paper mills in Newton Falls and Lyons Falls ceased production, which more than halved MHWA's freight volume and about a dozen employees were laid off. The Newton Falls Secondary has been without regular operations since then. The Lowville – Carthage connection, which also had only a small amount of freight from around 2000, was last used regularly on January 24, 2007 and then only used to park unneeded freight wagons. Since then, freight transport in the northern part of the MHWA network has been limited to serving customers in Carthage.

From 2010 to 2012 the Lewis County and GVT negotiated the sale of the Lowville Industrial Track Lowville – Carthage to the county. Plans called for the section to be handed over to the county for a symbolic dollar, while a price of 425,000 dollars was set for the subsequent LBR route. While the MHWA section was to be converted into a rail trail , the LBR was discussing the establishment of a museum railway by the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York, which had been based at the end of the line in Croghan since the mid-1990s . On April 30, 2012, however, the county decided against purchasing the infrastructure.

For the Newton Falls Secondary , the Empire State Development Corporation of the state of New York provided a grant of 9.9 million dollars in 2016, with which the infrastructure is to be repaired. $ 6.8 million of this was used in February 2016 to commission a construction company. With the restoration of the navigability of the route to Newton Falls, the settlement of new industrial companies on the fallow land of the closed paper mill at the end of the route and a former mining area near Newton Falls should be facilitated. The MHWA is integrated with the counties via Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreements: Instead of a fixed basic tax rate, the MHWA makes payments depending on the amount of freight carried.

Infrastructure

The station building at Remsen station, 2005

The MHWA's own infrastructure consists of two parts. The Northern Division includes the Lowville Industrial Track , which runs between Carthage and Lowville 15 miles north-south in the Black River Valley. At the southern end there is a transition to the LBR. The route has been closed since 2007 without regular operation and due to bridge damage. Also part of the Northern Division is the 73.2 km long Newton Falls Secondary , which leads from Carthage with numerous inclines via Oswegatchie to Newton Falls in the western foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. About 37 km of the route are in Adirondack Park . In Carthage, both routes are connected with each other and with the St. Lawrence subdivision of CSX Transportation . In 2020 this part of the CSX network is to be taken over by the Canadian National Railway . [outdated]

The Southern Division of MHWA covers the 72.4 km long route from Utica north via Marcy , Remsen and Boonville to Lyons Falls. In Snow Jct. north of Remsen branches off a route to Thendara and Lake Placid , which is owned by the state of New York. In Utica there is a transition to the network of CSX Transportation and the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway .

traffic

MHWA freight train on its way to Boonville, 2015

The freight traffic of the MHWA mainly comprises the transport of steel products, paper, wood, plastic pellets and food. The interest group Railroads of New York (RONY) put the volume in 2018 at 2,000 freight wagons per year. In the mid-1990s, MHWA was still moving around 5,000 freight wagons a year.

MHWA freight customers in Utica, on the Rome Industrial Trackage and the connecting railway to the former Griffiss Air Force Base , now an industrial park, were served four to five times a week in 2016 and 2017. From Utica to Boonville was driven irregularly as required, the further section to Lyons Falls was only used for parking cars. On the Northern Division of MHWA, three freight customers in the local area of ​​Carthage were served once a week.

From Utica to Snow Jct. north of Remsen run also trains the Touristikbahn Adirondack Scenic Railroad , which in Snow Jct. switch to the route to Thendara .

vehicles

Like all GVT railway companies, the Falls Road Railroad almost exclusively uses diesel locomotives from the manufacturer American Locomotive Company (Alco). Main vehicles are machines of the types MLW M-420 and C-425 .

Web links

Commons : Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Railroad Member Profiles: Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern Railroad Corp. Railroads of New York (RONY), 2018, accessed March 8, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b Douglas J. Fear: New life in the North Country . In: Trains Magazine . November 1997, ISSN  0041-0934 , p. 55 (English).
  3. ^ A b Peter Eisenstadt, Laura-Eve Moss, Carole F. Huxley: Encyclopedia of New York State . 2005, ISBN 978-0-8156-0808-0 , pp. 889 (English).
  4. ^ A b c d Edward A. Lewis: American Shortline Railway Guide . Kalmbach Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-0-89024-290-2 , pp. 205 (English).
  5. ^ A b Charlie Wood: Genesee Valley Transportation . In: Railfan & Railroad Magazine . tape 36 , no. October 10 , 2017, ISSN  0163-7266 , p. 48-51 (English).
  6. ↑ Interstate Commerce Commission (Ed.): Finance Docket No. 32169; Genesee & Mohawk Valley Railroad Co. - Acquisition and Operation Exemption - Consolidated Rail Corporation . September 7, 1995 (English, supplement to publications from the years 1992 and 1993, including Federal Register Volume 57, page 48807, from October 28, 1992).
  7. ↑ Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern Railroad Corp .; Trackage Rights Exemption; Genesee & Mohawk Valley Railroad Co. In: Federal Register . tape 58 , no. 159 , August 19, 1993, p. 44195 (English).
  8. ^ Dan Barry: Passion for Trains Is a Way to Run a Railroad . In: New York Times . April 30, 2001, p. A1 (English, full text ).
  9. ^ David H. Link: Last Train to Lowville. Railway Historical Society of Northern New York, January 2007, accessed March 8, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Steve Virkler: Lewis legislators abandon rails-to-trails plan . In: Watertown Daily Times . May 2, 2012, ISSN  0885-680X (English): “For the past several months, county officials have discussed buying the 10-mile Lowville and Beaver River Railroad line from Lowville to Croghan from the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern Railroad Corp. for $ 425,000; the county then was to acquire the 17-mile Lowville Industrial Track from Lowville to West Carthage for $ 1. Under the proposal, the corporation, a subsidiary of Genesee Valley Transportation, Batavia, was to remove tracks from the donated spur so it could be developed as a recreational trail, with the Lowville-to-Croghan spur remaining intact to allow the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York possibly to operate a scenic railroad from its depot in Croghan. "
  11. ↑ Brian Molongoski: Newton Falls rail project demands Jefferson, Lewis funding involvement, additional. In: The Daily News. Batavia Newspapers Corporation, April 28, 2016, accessed March 8, 2020 .
  12. ^ A b Garland McKee: Alco Empire Revisited . In: Railfan & Railroad Magazine . tape 35 , no. October 10 , 2016, ISSN  0163-7266 , p. 42 (English).