Eastern Railroad Discussion > "Winter Railroaders" MA&N

Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern ran its first train in several weeks north out of Utica, NY to Boonville, 35 miles.

Since the last run, we've had a good amount of snow. The crew toughed their way north with one load, a covered hopper, for Bailey's Boonville Mill. They also needed to switch-out an empty from Bailey's.

After "dropping" the loaded hopper two miles south of the mill, the crew proceeded light to pick up the empty. You will see it was a bit challenging.

Here are a few photos:

1. Clearing the tracks, Boonville.

2. No. 805 in Bailey's siding.

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3. Heading Back To Utica.

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Fantastic Video !  Bailey's Feeds-Generations of Service, and generations of rail service too ! I wonder if the 805 ever switched this place back in the day?

Nice coverage, thanks for braving the elements to share!

great video , thank you for all your time out in the cold , 

This is a GREAT video. Beautiful filming and you gottta love the Alco sound. Wonderful job.

Very COOL video, but how does a railroad stay solvent delivering 1 car in several weeks on a 35-mile haul? Always curious about some of these sort lines....

TJY

The car being delivered is an Incobrasa Industries car that probably contains soybean meal (what is left after they take the oil out of soybeans) from their soybean processing facility at Gilman, IL about 60 miles south of downtown Chicago. The owner of the company came from Brazil where I was fortunate to visit some of his facilities and farms.

Bruce Stikkes
St. Joseph, IL

Wonderful video. Saw this locomotive back in it's BC Rail Days with the same nice sounding Canadian K5H horn.
A lot of trouble to switch those two cars. Glad small roads still have that dedication!

Regards, Jim Evans

Any other consignees on the line, and does this one place have a busier season?

Or is the state basically paying the RR to do this service?    Just wondering.     Love the shortline railroading. Its like the Class Ones used to be on branchlines, till they became to big to be service oriented...

 

Winter railroading is tough.  But least there are no snakes.  Thanks for posting.

pdt Wrote:
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> Any other consignees on the line, and does this
> one place have a busier season?
>
> Or is the state basically paying the RR to do this
> service?    

MA&N's Utica-Lyons Falls, NY branch is 45 miles in length and was once part of New York Central's St. Lawrence Division.

There are no customers until Boonville, 35 miles north of Utica. There, the railroad serves Bailey's Mill (as shown in the video) and 3B Timber (ships telephone poles).

It seems Bailey's gets about 2 cars per month, maybe a few more in spring.

There used to be a paper mill in Lyons Falls which provided good business for the railroad. The mill went out approx 15 years ago.

Over the past several years, MA&N has stored hundreds of cars (covered hoppers and tankers) in the 10-mile stretch of unused track between Boonville-Lyons Falls. Also, the Adirondack Railroad uses the first 23 miles of track or so Utica-Snow Jct (Remsen) en route to Thendara/Big Moose, NY.

Besides the Utica-Lyons Falls branch, the railroad serves customers in Utica and Rome, the latter point reached via trackage rights over the CSX Main. MA&N has also stored cars in Rome recently as well.

Then, farther north still in Carthage, the railroad serves a few customers there too (NY Central severed the Utica line in Lyons Falls in the early 1960's leaving a 13-mile gap between L Falls-Lowville), The railroad will also serve Benson Mines if that operation ever gets going again.

Thanks for all the comments about the video, glad you guys liked it.

John

Talk about backyard railroading.

Posted from iPhone

Ex BC Rail alco thousands of miles away from 'home' and a hopper with not a trace of graffiti . . . .doesn't get much better than this! VOTD !

Craig
mcmrailvideos.com

UT-1 thanks for the photo and video.  Great stuff.

Great video!!

Wonderful to see this operation in snow!

Thanks for the video!