Eastern Railroad Discussion > former Milliken Station Power/AES Cayuga/ plant update

Well it looks like the Former Milliken Station Power Plant
on Cayuga Lake is being circled by the vultures.

NYSEG which formerly owned the Plant told the New York State Power authority
that they do not need the plant for additional power as they can simply increase
the transmission wire size to handle the load with less cost and work for the 14
miles of paired 3 conductor high voltage wire(64 miles of aluminum coated copper wire.


That leaves one customer on the line that may provide 7,000 cars of halite annually
on a good year (The salt business has been bad the last few years HAHA)averages 200 cars a week; 5 revenue trips and 100 plus empty cars in the siding. Lately they have been shipping 2,000 tons a week and most of the employees will be laid o/ff for at least two months come June first.

This will make four shuttered plants for this firm and much less (40%+) tax revenue for the Lansing, New York school district.

That's a shame.

NY, in particular, has been buying a lot of out of state power from the midwest and Quebec. It's definitely changed the value of older, established plants in the state.

Hate to see that many good jobs going away in a region that needs an economic boost.

Ithaca to Lansing would make for a good tourist RR operation. Terminus could be Stewart Park avoiding the cluster of crossings in downtown Ithaca.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
>
> Hate to see that many good jobs going away in a
> region that needs an economic boost.


And could have one except energy development is bad. Still, none of these environmentalist live like Amish-men!

The problem is the length or lack of it.

The NS trackage ends at the property line of
The bankrupt AES/ Cayuga Energy Partners.

The curved run around track to the number one and
two sidings for empty car tracks are the very end
of the old line since 1949.

There is no WYE in or near Ithaca and the turntable was removed
when the round house was torn down when steam era ended.


The train consist would have to be pulled into the siding in
Myers, New York crossing Salmon Creek and then the locomotive
would have to run around and recouple to the south end of the
train for the trip back as Stewart Park does not have a siding
If a center cab unit was used then the consist could stay on the
main line without the need for switching. The other issue is
that the current route is the Ithaca Secondary in use since the
flood control channel was dredged in 1965.

There is no room for a siding along the lake route which has been prone
to derailments due to settling over the years and BUT The only place
it could be done is at Steward Park with limited room due to the
bird sanctuary and the lagoon and would have to have a second road crossing
and possibly two switches and stub tracks.

To the best of my recollection about Ithaca and the southern end of the Ithaca secondary these days;

The Valley View Road in South Danby below the gravel pit has a railroad
crossing with lights bells and crossing arms.

Traveling north there are I believe 5 railroad crossings with cross bucks
before entering the Ithaca.

The existing number of sidings include:

1. three stub track sidings reduced from 4 next to the trailer court.
a. this includes the coal unloader track used by Mix Brothers trucking
which used a Car Hoe to unload Metallurgical coal for the Cornell
University Steam Plant which is no longer used for coal deliveries
since the steam plant was converted to use natural gas.
The Cornell University Steam plant still has its coal stokers and
uses them when needed when the steam turbines cannot keep up.


CONRAIL in its ultimate wisdom ripped out the line to to Cortland, New York
after the last 20 plus coal car derailment in 1975-76 on the South hill a
pproach to East Hill/Cornell University and the rest is history.


2. One siding going into the Reamer Recycling scrap yard where they store the track
repair equipment at times.

The 7 railroad crossings in Ithaca have cross bucks and lights and
traffic warning lights.
1. Cecil Malone Drive
2. State Street
3. Seneca Street
4. Buffalo Street
5. Dey street/6.Willow Avenue has bells, lights and crossing arms.

7. The single separated crossing at Stewart Park has lights bells and crossing arms.

The existing railroad crossings north of Ithaca in Lansing and Myers, New York have crossbucks and reflectors only.
,
The other issue is the Cargill Salt mine as it will move 700,000 tons of Halite/7,000
cars annually when Cargills regional stock piles are empty and need to be refilled.


Its sad thinking about it as the university and the power plant could use Wyoming coal as
the university was consuming 86,000 tons of metallurgical coal for heat and hot water
and the AES plant was using 520,000 tons of poor grade soft coal annually and they could benefit from Wyoming coal.

NS could relay the track up to The Steam Station on Maple Avenue and could deliver less than 200,000 tons of Wyoming coal to the plant when the gas runs out and adding 1,200,000 tons of Wyoming coal to power the plant in Lansing, N.Y. would move 1,400,000 tons of coal back into the traffic load and surpass the need of
10,000 car loads as a minimum to make NS happy.

The 200,000 tons 2,500 80 ton cars/48 trains per year that would be consumed by the Cornell University steam station BUT.............. everything has its opportunity cost and as result the city lost a big chunk of real estate taxes.



It would make for a neat tourist train ride where the system could employ a set of switchbacks from the existing road bed below the old quarry on Portland Point to climb to the top of the valley and back down again on the same set of trackage. The line could be built easily as the entire area is open and sloping from the old quarry to the lake as this area was mined and also used an aerial ropeway to move limestone from the quarry to the cement plant along the lake shore where the ore was milled into cement and loaded into barges and railroad cars. It would be easy enough to build with all the overburden stripped from the quarry
during its active life from 1900 to 1986 before the quarry moved across the road to the new area.

The climb would be short because the route would be straight along the quarry boundary and the distance would permit a long low angle of approach and the beaver tails would also be linear permitting the short trains
to make the climb in three to four movements if the two current property owners were at all interested in allowing a small dinner train using track panels with 165 pound rail.


The land to the north above the existing power station has been sold or is in the process of being sold to a nature conservency trust as it was never used for the nuclear power plant that NYSEG was trying to build in 1974-6 but it would make for a better dinner train location at the end of the exisiting line.



Saying that the old west shore rail line would be a better route for a dinner train because the road bed is still intact and the ruling grade is lower and could connect with the Finger Lakes Rail Road as they are also making or were making plans for a wine trail dinner train. The question would be could we attract enough traffic to operate a dinner train without a revenue route along the same line? It would be big draw for vacationers and promotions by Cornell University and Ithaca College during homecoming and graduation season in May.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/13 09:29 by leonz.