Eastern Railroad Discussion > Branch Line Rambles On NYS&W's Utica NY Line

This short video shows NYS&W GP40 3040 & CSX GP 38 doubleheading a short freight down Paris Hill's 1.8 % grade and concludes showing the freight heading down Utica, NY's Schuyler St.

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Nice work!

Very nice video !!

Nice video!!

That tower!!!!!!!!!

Track looks in relatively good condition for a branch line.  Videos on branches through communities are a special treat!

Here is a view taken in November 1981 of a Conrail light engine at Foundary Crossing in Clayville where the video opens. It still had a DL&W feel to it with the DL&W Private Crossing sign.

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Two more showing the same scenes as in the video taken of an empty piggy back train  in March / April 1982 just before the NYSW takeover.

The first photo is Clayville nortbound with the pig flats stretching in the distance through town as they descend the 1.8% hill bound for Utica. In  November 1979 Conrail embargoed the branch south of the Sangerfield Feed Mills for 20 miles all the way to Sherburne. Several times they used the empty tracks in the Nine Mile swamp immediately below Sangerfield to store empty surplus TTX flats due to the economic downturns at that time. These flats were the last batch stored there and had been snowed in all winter. They were literally frozen in there and packed with snow. They had a heck of a time pulling them out with those two B23-7's. The trainmaster was getting frustrated and so was the brakeman pushing is way along the cuts in the snow. Engineer Ray Kaminiski would start to pull and those GE's would chug-chug-chug with black smoke skyward and stall. He would take a little slack and you would hear on the radio "One more time !" ... Chug - chug - chug !!  Out they came. I think there were 70+ of them this trip. The ex PC trainmaster remarked that he (Kaminski) was not used to handling a big train. Ha!! If he only knew the big long trains Ray had pulled over this branch, especially in the 1974 - 1976 period with the Maybrook detours. One trip Ray had over 200 cars coming north out of Binghamton with Dave Hodge on pushers (2-1200 series GP-7's) and the pushers stayed on all the way to Utica. Ray also brought south a big PC TV train on a detour the last weekend of EL operations that was a sight and sound fest on Paris Hill. No one had to tell him how to handle a long train, and  he could give lessons about train handling tonnage on a roller coaster branchline to those flat lander NYC Water Level Route guys !

Last shot is the same train with Schuyler Street plugged with flats from one end to the other and is where the video ends. The tower is just behind me over my left shoulder. This was a crossing watchman's tower erected in 1952 to automate the cross streets on Schuyler. Repurposed from its' original function as a control cabin for the Erie Canal drawbridge (pre-1918) when the canal ran through on the old alignment that is now Oriskany Street.
NYSW automated it as part of the Schuyler Street track rehab project about 1987.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/15 06:30 by train1275.

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Very nice video, I enjoyed it very much, nicely done. My bud and I visited this area a few years ago, but we didn't catch the NYS&W. Thanks for posting, looking forward to your future videos.

     REK

Thanks for all the feedback and, Train1275, thanks for posting the pics & recounting bygone days! See you tonight at the NRHS Utica & Mohawk Valley Chapter annual banquet!