The Newton Falls line of the Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern, located in the northwestern part of the Adirondack region, has seen its first train in 25 years. They picked 5 gondola loads of “material” at Benson Mines. It’s an iron mine closed decades ago, and is flooded. Video by our old friend Harrison.
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This is on the Carthage branch, which runs east from the CSXT connection in Carthage.
In the 1950s, the site was the largest open pit magnetite mine in the world and employed up to 1,000 people. By the 1970s the plant and mining operations diminished and the plant ultimately closed in 1978. There was a large oil spill from the past which turned the site into a Superfund clean-up site. Besides the aggregate, there is a timber operation along with a 12-megawatt solar farm that will be built.
Details about the aggregate: https://www.bensonmines.com/
Need a map? Google Maps
The paper mill in Newton Falls closed for good in 2011. Current plans for redeveloping the site will not produce any rail traffic for MA&N.
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Rail line not clearly identified as such on the map
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Zoom in to the tracks. Follow that to the east/right to see the aggregate loading area.
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I figured the aggregate was overburden. I did a tour of the mine in the early 1970s on a geology field trip. I drove by the site in 2014 and noticed the big pile of the stuff. Trains did an article on the branch about 10 years ago. They mentioned that the concentrator mill was moved into the mine pit in later years to shorten the ore haul. Since the mine was abandoned and filled with water, only the mill smokestack stuck above water.
When Iowa Pacific was running the ex-D&H North Creek branch as the Saratoga & North Creek, they brushed out the idle Tahawas mine extension hoping to haul the spoil piles as aggregate, but CP apparently wasn’t interested in the short haul from their connection. Without the freight, the full tourist passenger operation was unsustainable.
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Hopefully they can get more loads than 5 at a time.
That’s a long run (about 40 miles? If i read the mileposts right) with two engines and crew.
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Pretty cool video. And Hello to Harrison, a name from the past.
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dumb question. This load was listed as the first trip. How did the empty cars get to the loadout? by transporter?
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Sounds like it was a turn job. Crew took the empties out, waited/respotted the empties to be loaded, then “turned” and brought the loads back.
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Harrison is doing well. He is volunteering on the Adirondack RR (the passenger RR, not the one in the video), and has also penned an article about the effects of the drought in northern NY. The article is paywalled, otherwise I would post a link. And he continues to post on Instagram and elsewhere under the moniker “North Country Trains”
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Any reason why not on here?
I don’t know. But watching the fecal festival on the STEM thread, I totally understand why someone might want to hang out elsewhere.
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Thanks for the update. I remember him well from his days on the old Kalmbach forum.
Rich
When he first started to post his videos he was a student. I believe he went pro, and I think professionals are not supposed to post their own video promotions.
Thank you for the update
I remember Harrison when he was a student. and glad that he is making a name for himself.
Forum had a history of self described “rail producion (sic) companies” that would spam the forum with 15-20 new topics in a shot, all with just a link to their videos. No discussion, no comments from the poster, unless they were asked to not post 20 new topics in a minute, then they’d get all butthurt. He came in at the tail end of that and kalmbach was pretty strict about people self-advertising other media.
Despite that, I doubt Harrison got any real traffic to his videos from the forum, so it wasn’t worth the effort. This really was never a photo/video type forum. A dinosaur anymore.
He probably gets more engagement on ‘gram or discord, barq, or whatever the newest thing is.
What ever happened to Tree68? He worked on the Adirondack but I haven’t seen him lately.
Checking Users - he seems to be lurking at present.
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He posted as recently as November 6th but the Search bar doesn’t specify where.
Most of us are reaching an age where medical conditions can take us out of action with little to no advance notice - either on a temporary basis or permanently. I missed the week following Easter.
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