RIGHT: A night photo session was part of the joint railfan weekend/anniversary celebration on September 1. Don Chaudrac poses on the platform of “New York Central” switcher No. 705 at the Thendara station. No. 705 was originally built by EMD in 1941 for Louisville & Nashville.
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The need for a railroad deep into the Adirondack Mountains came about when wealthy families from New York’s elite built “great camps” in the region as their getaways. Dr. William Seward Webb, president of the Wagner Palace Car Company and an in-law of the Vanderbilt family, had a large hunting preserve in the mountains, and he decided the best way to get there was by train. He financed the branch, which diverged from another NYC line at Remsen, and construction was started in 1890. Completion took a mere 18 months and the line extended all the way through the Adirondacks to the Canadian border.
The line started to shrink as the far north end was abandoned in 1961. Pas- senger service from Utica to Lake Placid continued until 1965 and in 1972 the line was completely aban- doned; New York State purchased the line in 1975. The first crack at resurrection came for the 1980 Olympic Winter Games at Lake Placid when passenger service was reinstated from Utica. This was short-lived, however, and New York terminated the lease to the new opera- tor in 1981. In 1992, the centennial of the line’s construction, a group of rail enthusi- asts known as the Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society approached the state about starting a small tourist op- eration over four miles of the line be- tween Thendara and Minnehaha. From July 4 until the end of that first season, over 55,000 people rode the reincarnat- ed Adirondack Centennial Railroad. With such a positive response, the railroad became the Adirondack Scenic in 1994 and started pushing south- ward. By 2000 the line had been re- opened to Snow Junction, the connec- tion with the New York Central where Dr. Webb had first built from. From Snow Junction south, the railroad ac-
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cessed Utica via the NYC line that is now operated by the Mohawk, Adiron- dack & Northern.
With the southward expansion com- pleted, the railroad pushed north. Ac- cess was restored all the way to Lake Placid, although not for passenger trains. Regular passenger service was restored first to Carter Siding, and now runs as far as Big Moose Lake. Another passenger operation is based out of Lake Placid to Saranac Lake. The ulti- mate goal is to fill in the gap between Big Moose Lake and Saranac Lake, a substantial distance, which a recent partnership with Iowa Pacific for luxu- ry passenger operations to Lake Placid may hasten to reality.
For the 20th anniversary celebra-
tion, the railroad put together a worthy bash. The two road engines that handle the Utica-to-Thendara train, a pair of former Canadian Pacific RS18s, were given a fresh coat of paint. During the two-day celebration trips were operat- ed south from Thendara to Otter Lake and north from Thendara to Carter Siding. Displays in Thendara included a snow plow and maintenance equip- ment, and the Mohawk, Adirondack &
Northern provided a “guest” locomotive M420W No. 2042.
Other activities included a night pho- to session (which featured event coordi- nator Don Chaudrac as our “actor”) and a train simulator (which gave your au- thor a lot of trouble —I stalled a freight train on a hill and had a runaway going backwards, followed by getting a pas- senger train over the hill, only to have a runaway down the far side of the mountain...). An “unscheduled” photog- raphy bonus occurred when a rap singer showed up with his entourage to record a music video. They immediate- ly picked out the red, white and blue MA&N No. 2042 and set about record- ing the video, much to the delight of the railfan photographers. After the shoot, we had the entourage pose for some MA&N “publicity” photos.
The railroad was very pleased with the anniversary celebration and is considering making the railfan week- end an annual event. There is a lot of variety on the railroad, from switch- ers painted in NYC colors to F-units, and its well worth the time to spend a weekend where the rich and famous once did.
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