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Catskill Mountain brings steam back for first time since 1949
I’d rather see a ‘Niagara’ 4-8-4 (lot’s-a-luck), but a F-12 4-6-0 would be better.
Bet this will bring in more money in two days for the local economy than a rail trail walk will in two decades. Hope the folks running the city of Kingston and the County of Ulster are paying attention. Or at least the voters are. They need the economic boost this and the lower Catskill RR group will bring instead of booting the railroad historians out in favor of shoe leather and bicycle rubber.
Henry Sommers,
I agree completely. There is something about the emotional appeal of a working steam engine that a dead, quiet trail can never match.
It’s disconcerting to me that this might be the last time I ever ride the old Castkill Mountain Railroad if they get evicted. People need to go up there in large numbers and spend money in the area to convince the county that rails will bring more economic benefit than trails.
Can’t do this with another redundant trail.
The last common-carrier freight on the CMt Branch pre-dated the law that made Rail Trail legal access. The Surface Trans. Board can not give this line the Rail Trail statue that Ulster County expected to get (and $), and there are land owners who, the moment the rail is removed, will fence their property. Ulster County then considered hooking the line back up to CSX, haul some freight, then abandond it, and then go to Surface Board for new legal status. That will not happen as CSX has changed the entire cross section of the track on the curve where the switch used to exist. It would require and switch in the tangent a block north, and major road crossing and gate potection rebuild. The rails are paved over in the Post Office parking lot also. The County has a problem, whereby they should let the tourist RR do its thing and keep the money coming in. Last year they made over a Million dollars of revenue and could exceed that this year.
If the Trail folks want a rail-trail so much they should work on the Wallkill Valley RR from Kingston downtown 7 miles to Rosendale where the bridge has been open and the trail exists from there to New Paltz and soon all the way, via Highland trail and Poughkeepsie Bridge to Hopewell Junction, where the station was rebuilt.
Montour Trail shares right-of-way.