About Tim Rowland

Tim Rowland is a columnist, author and outdoors writer living in Jay.

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Comments

  1. Scott Thompson says

    Will the train operate to Tupper and make the $19+m spent on restoration of the section worth while? The trains to Beaver River and finally to Tupper can’t have broken even last year and while the RR has left time for a potential run on to Tupper Lake, so far nothing is scheduled beyond Thendara?
    So the trail section construction may be moving ahead of schedule and is already very popular and bringing flexible uses and economic gains to the area. (check with business involved in the, albeit poor, snowmobile season)
    The Adirondack Railroad has done a good job with theme trains out of Utica and some popular runs to Old Forge, but is Tupper (Big Moose, Beaver River) a station too far?

    • Boreas says

      $19m (pocket change) gets lost every day in Albany – at least we know where this $19m went! Only time will tell if it was money well spent.

    • Bill Keller says

      Tourist train from North Creek to Saratoga failed. Now it’s Revolution Rail” with rail pedal carts. RR bought it for $2.7 million. Taxpayers paid millions to refurbish the track and build train stations in Thurman and Hadley. The stations alone were over $3million. The one in Thurman had the ice cream Caboose added to it about the time of failure and it never opened. I drove by it daily and in the summer you could see a young adult “working” at the empty station reading a book. The Warren county master plan originally had the entire county portion of the rail line turned into a biking/hiking trail linking with the one currently in Glens Falls. IMO, a much better option.

    • Daniel Bogdan says

      Yeah they could bring in tons of crushed tailings from Tahawus by rail…ahhh wait a minute, never mind.

  2. LeRoy Hogan says

    Does Adirondack RR pay a lease on the rail it uses to help pay for the restoration and future maintenance?

  3. Bob says

    Fantastic news that the trail will be natural stone and or gravel. We need to put an end to new asphalt bike trails. They are ugly oil based unnatural surfaces that need to be a thing of the past

  4. Paul says

    the “the cycling community” what about the snowmobile people? Don’t forget this is a snowmobile trail. A high speed one

  5. Paul says

    As a DAV I live to ride on such trails. Either gravel or paved or worse only big boulders, downed trees or washed out path keep me from the adventure. Thanks.

  6. Dave says

    The train WILL NEVER make money running to Tupper Lake. It doesn’t go fast enough to get up/back in a reasonable amount of time, nor will it run often enough to be wrth it.

    • David and Donna Weeks says

      This is a multi-use trail. Not intended or being constructed for trains. Hikers, Bikers, X country skiers and snowmachines. The trains have long disappeared on that line.

      • Daniel Bogdan says

        Why is a right of way which had a railroad on it for over a hundred years “not intended” for trains? I don’t understand.

      • Paul says

        The comment is referring to the majority of the rail corridor running north to Tupper Lake. Not the shorter section between SL and Tupper referred to in the article. The state is refurbishing the rail section.

  7. Joan Grabe says

    Why don’t we wait to see what happens when the trail part is complete and we can actually use it ? So many people have been waiting for that day. Then we can start moaning and criticizing the rail part. Let’s just finish something ! Anything !!

  8. Daniel Bogdan says

    Two corrections. First, the corridor is 119 miles long (see UMP) and not 131 miles as stated in the article. Second, there are thousands of railroad advocates who wanted the rails to remain who do not call themselves rail buffs. The article implies that only rail buffs wanted the tracks to remain.

  9. Bob says

    Wonderful to see natural surface trails being built instead of oil based asphalt being dumped into nature. With the gravel bike craze happening and the push for green initiatives its mind boggling that asphalt is even a consideration for modern bike trails.

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