The Adirondack Railroad (formerly the Adirondack Scenic Railroad) (reporting markADIX)[1] is a heritage railway serving the Adirondack Park that operates over former New York Central Railroad trackage between Utica and Tupper Lake. The railroad is operated by the not-for-profit Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society, with train crews composed largely of volunteers.
ADIX operates between Utica and Remsen over trackage of the Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad, part of the Genesee Valley Transportation Company. The Remsen–Tupper Lake segment is owned by the State of New York and is designated as a multi-use corridor for rail traffic during the spring, summer, and fall seasons, and as a snowmobile trail during the winter months.
The line was built in 1892 by William Seward Webb, a Vanderbilt in-law,[2] as the Mohawk & Malone Railway and was purchased from him in 1893 by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad.[3] Its successor from 1913, the New York Central Railroad, ran passenger trains on the route until April 24, 1965.[4][5] It passed to the Penn Central Transportation Company on February 1, 1968,[6] which abandoned freight operations north of Remsen in 1972. New York State bought the entire Utica-Lake Placid line from the bankrupt Penn Central in 1974, primarily to serve the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. The Adirondack Railway then operated passenger services between Utica and Lake Placid from 1979 to 1981.[7] Tracks were dormant from 1981 until 1992, when restoration began with a 4-mile (6.4 km) section from Thendara to Minnehaha, New York. The section was approved and demonstrated on July 4, 1992, and the line was given the name Adirondack Centennial Railroad. It was renamed Adirondack Scenic Railroad in 1994, and the name was changed again to the Adirondack Railroad in 2020.
The railroad had formerly planned to restore passenger operations over the entire Utica–Lake Placid corridor (142 miles [229 km] in length), and did operate from 2000 to 2016 on the short (8-mile), isolated segment between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.[8] While this vision was supported by several local communities (most notably Tupper Lake and the Next Stop Tupper Lake[9] organization), a key and well-funded opponent, Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates (ARTA), called for replacing the Tupper Lake–Lake Placid section with a rail trail.[10] Trackage was slated to be dismantled in late 2016,[11] but was delayed pending resolution of a protracted legal battle.[12] The New York Supreme Court ultimately sided with the railroad on September 26, 2017, annulling the rail trail plan in its entirety.[13][14]
However, at the behest of Saranac Lake multi-millionaire venture capitalist Lee Keet, a co-founder of ARTA whose political clout in Albany runs deep,[15] the Adirondack Park Agency obeyed the New York State Legislature and successfully circumvented the court ruling by redefining the term "travel corridor" in the Adirondack Park Act in 2020 to include a trail in place of a rail line.[16] Mr. Keet has been, and remains (2023), the top trail supporter in the region and is still the most important and influential member of the re-named Adirondack Rail Trail Association (still ARTA). As a result, trackage on the 34-mile (55 km) Tupper Lake-Lake Placid section was removed in October 2020, taking 128 years of Adirondack railroad history with it. [17]
Concurrently, New York State renovated the decrepit trackage from Big Moose to Tupper Lake.[18] The first train ran over the entire 108-mile (174 km) Utica–Tupper Lake corridor in September 2022, and regular scheduled tourist excursion service began in late spring, 2023.[19][20]
^Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society, Inc. v. New York State Adirondack Park Agency (Leilani Ulrich); New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (Basil Seggos); New York State Department of Transportation (Matthew Driscoll), 2016-213 U.S. 16-1-2017-0129 (Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Franklin; September 26, 2017).
Drury, George H. (1985). The Historical Guide to North American Railroads. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing Company. ISBN0-89024-072-8. LCCN85080107.
