There’s a rail corridor that runs all the way from the Hudson River through Kingston, NY west into the Catskill Mountains past the Ashokan Reservoir, winding 38 miles through Ulster County and on into Delaware County and beyond. The corridor is intact, but unusable in several places because of storm damage, neglect — and the deliberate actions of Ulster County which began demolishing the line in early January. The plan is to convert an 11.5 mile section that runs along the north shore of the Ashokan into a trail, reserving six miles for use as a tourist rail road out of Kingston, and letting the rest go, with a rail bike operation coming in to run on a stretch out of Phoenicia, NY along the Esopus Creek — but more on that below. (If all you’re looking for a short-form article, you can skip to the breaking news down the page. I promise you, it’s a big story.)
Here’s some background.
New York City has long wanted the line removed from the watershed around the Ashokan, part of its water supply. A dispute between Ulster County and the city over the way the city was releasing water into the Esopus Creek was resolved a few years ago, with the city agreeing to put up $2 million to remove the line, and the county would then come up with $7 million more to turn it into a trail. The region is changing; the local economy could use a boost and tourism is a major driver of what remains. Industries along the line have largely moved on, and regular freight service ended when Conrail pulled out. Passenger service had ended some time before that, although once upon a time thousands traveled to and fro by rail. Today the corridor is paralleled by Route 28, a major east-west highway.
That doesn’t mean the rail line is dead. The Catskill Mountain Railroad runs excursions out of Kingston; the annual Polar Express runs draw thousands of riders. If I recall correctly, a New York Times article estimated there are 45 million people within 2 hours of the line. Kingston is right on the New York State Thruway, north of New York City.
Original plans called for the CMRR to gradually restore the line to service. For a number of years it muddled along, not quite meeting its targets, but managing to get some work done and build ridership. The relationship with their landlord, Ulster County turned contentious several years back — starting with the deal with NYC — and since then it’s gone downhill. CMRR is still operating on the line, but its lease with the county puts it under conditions that have been very restrictive. Essentially it’s been under a gag order on pain of losing access to the rails.
The potential of the line has been allowed to largely lie fallow under Ulster County’s management. The CMRR was also operating out of Phoenicia, NY along the Esopus, where the plan now calls for rail bikes from the Rail Explorers. A key bridge at Boiceville was washed out by Hurricane Irene, and a section of tracks washed out along the creek. FEMA money was applied for to replace the bridge, but the county never followed up on it. The county has chosen to begin removing rails for the trail at a point which means CMRR riders will end well short of being able to view the Ashokan’s eastern shore, and will not be able to link up with the trail.
The county is deliberately limiting the potential of the rail line. It has been framed as the fault of the CMRR, which conflates the CMRR with the corridor to the corridor’s detriment in the public eye. This ignores the fact the the railroad is a cash cow for the county, paying to lease the line and handing over a percentage of ticket sales.
The county’s plans also fail to take into account the potential of the corridor as an international tourism draw. When I was there one weekend in October and took these pictures, there was a group of college alumni who had taken a tour bus up from New York City just to ride an excursion. They were from Taipei. The same weekend, over on the Delaware & Ulster Railroad, a group had come from Canada by tour bus to see the fall foliage. (The D&URR is a separate railroad operating on a section of the corridor in Delaware County out of Arkville, NY)
Other attractions along the corridor include the Trolley Museum of New York State down in the waterfront section of Kingston, the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoenicia, and Belleayre Ski Center at Highmount at the western county line. There’s also activities like tubing on the Esopus, the World’s Largest Kaleidoscope, and the outdoor recreation and resort opportunities the Catskills have long been known for.
Ulster County’s decision to break up the rail corridor for a trail, driven by New York City’s funding, has also been driven by the rail trail industry which is aggressively seeking out rail lines to convert to trails. Such trails are always described as “world class”, heavily promoted as ‘free’ (at taxpayer expense, of course), and boosters of the tourism economy (just ask them — they’ll tell you.) New York City and Ulster County between them have stated that there can be and will be no trail built in the corridor alongside the rails. It can only be one or the other — and they’ve chosen the trail. This is despite a 2013 study from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy which has found that rails with trails are both practical and popular. The rail community has no objection to trails with the rails — but they’ve been largely ignored, or worse.
There is starting to be some push back against the rail to trail movement. One reason is disastrous cost overruns. Railroad ownership is not simple, and taxpayers thinking they’re getting a trail on the cheap have often been shocked when they find out what they’ve taken on. The cost of maintaining ‘free’ trails is a funding problem for communities that is seeing a new solution — bicycle registration fees and other revenue generators, such as Oregon’s Bicycle excise tax. There are also those who think it is a perversion of the rail banking program, which was originally set up to preserve rail corridors by funding conversion into trails. The idea was, this would keep them from being built over, broken up or made otherwise unavailable in the event restoring rail service once more became desirable. Instead, the program is funding cannibalization of rails into trails these days, and is being used by NIMBY interests, and those who don’t want public investment in rail (Highway, fossil fuel interests, conservatives, libertarians), etc.
The short-sighted nature of the Ulster County decision is troubling. Severing the line precludes any resumption of freight service — a valuable potential use for many reasons — that might take trucks off the route 28 corridor among other benefits. It makes the economy less diverse, and decreases its resiliency. A class 1 railroad, CSX, runs through Kingston. The corridor used to connect to it and the rest of the national rail network. Passenger service might one day be restored on the west shore of the Hudson — but with no connections into the Catskills, no passenger runs or ski trains, no commuter service. Lost opportunities — including operators who might offer to take over the entire line. There are reported to be several who were interested.
The demolition of the line has been brutal. There has been no effort to save any of the rails for reuse, although there are other areas along the 38 miles of the corridor where they might serve. Instead they’ve just been cut with torches and dragged to a collection point to be scrapped. Ulster County isn’t even collecting on that — they’re allowing the contractor to keep the money according to press reports. Demolition began with no fanfare — no recording for historic purposes, no official celebration of the first step in building the trail. Instead the whole process seems to have been deliberately carried out in stealth mode. I have heard reports they were prepared for the possibility of demonstrations and disruptions. The area has been closed to the public, and is being monitored.
For Immediate Release: January 16, 2018
Illegal Rail Removal Puts Ulster County Trail Plans in Legal and Financial Jeopardy
The U & D Railway Revitalization Corporation (udrrcorp.com) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the Catskill Rail Corridor. We oppose Ulster Country’s plan to convert a key section of the line to a trail. In the course of our efforts we have found Ulster County has failed to meet critical legal requirements before beginning demolition of the Catskill Mountain Branch rail line along the Ashokan Reservoir.
The county’s agreement with New York City Department of Environmental Protection requires them to file for abandonment with the Surface Transportation Board of the Federal Government before removing the rails. There appears to be no evidence that the county has done so. Further, there appear to be unresolved questions over the ownership of the line. This means Ulster County may have taken a number of actions which put the entire project in legal and financial jeopardy, and may have incurred a number of liabilities on the part of the county.
We have filed a petition with the Surface Transportation Board for declaratory relief, and are seeking a restraining order to prevent the county from proceeding further until the Surface Transportation Board can rule on these matters.
The Surface Transportation Board has regulatory oversight of surface transportation in the United States. This includes ruling on questions of railroad abandonment status and ownership. We have reason to believe Ulster County has repeatedly failed to address those issues with the STB, as called for in its 2015 agreement with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and in its ongoing management of the rail corridor. This failure has serious potential consequences.
This jeopardizes Ulster County’s ability to meet contractual obligations to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. It exposes the taxpayers of Ulster County to potential liability running in the millions of dollars as well as further legal action by other parties who may be affected. This failure also calls into question the county’s ability to obtain the funding to complete its plans for the corridor, including the trail.
We believe it is not in the best interests of Ulster County or the Catskills to allow demolition to continue until the Surface Transportation Board has reviewed our petition and determined how to proceed. This is a course of action Ulster County should have completed prior to beginning demolition of the rail line. It raises questions of due diligence on the part of the county. It also raises questions about the quality of the information given by the county to the public and to county legislators before they voted to approve the plan.
We believe the current and future interests of the region are best served by a restored rail corridor with compatible trail development. We justify this on the grounds of preservation of unique local history, sustainable economic opportunity, and sound environmental policy. We desire a resolution that will truly reflect the needs of all the stakeholders in this matter, and invite their support.
U & D Railway Revitalization Corporation
P.O. Box 503
Phoenicia, NY 12464
udrrcorp.com
Media inquiries should be directed to: udrrc.media@gmail.com
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a board member of the UDRRC. I was invited to join last year, and have been working with the group to find a way to save the rails. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit group — all of us are volunteers working on this in our spare time.
What we recently discovered was that Ulster County appears to have skipped over some important legalities in their rush to rip out the rails. This appears to be a pretty serious breach of the public trust all by itself that is potentially going to cost the taxpayers of Ulster County millions depending on how the Surface Transportation Board rules. It shouldn’t matter which side anyone is on — this should make everyone angry. The fact that there may have been disinformation on the part of public officials is also a matter of concern.
The bigger picture is, this is a dispute with national implications for railroads and the trail movement. The STB ruling on this may clear up a lot of longstanding issues — or not — but it is going to be watched very closely.
As I said, we are a non-profit group — but that doesn’t mean we don’t have expenses. You can find out more about us at our website (a work in progress). You can even donate money to us there. You can also find us on Facebook. If there are typos and other goofs in this post, it’s because I’ve been pretty sleep deprived for the last few days leading up to this, both between all the writing I’ve been doing and the stress of waiting to get all our ducks in a row. We’ve had to watch and wait while the rails were being ripped out, scrambling to find a way forward. It hasn’t been easy — and it’s not going to get any easier — but we’ve begun.
I’d like to think this effort is part of what Daily Kos is for, encouraging people to become aware, get involved, and try to make a difference. You may or may not agree with our particular goal — saving a historic rail line, saving the future of the region — but the idea of getting to work holding government accountable when it goes off the rails, fighting for the rule of law (and you don’t know what that really means until you really REALLY need a lawyer), becoming active in defending what we think our community should be… That’s what matters.
Wish us luck.