This past winter was long and cold for all of us, and thankfully everything is finally beginning to look bright. Upstate in the Adirondacks the Saratoga & North Creek Railway was hard-hit. Normally operating several snow trains a few weekends during the winter, much of February’s service was entirely cancelled due to the extremely cold weather. Prior to the cancellations, one train that did run broke down heading southbound, necessitating a school bus to carry all the passengers back to Saratoga.

I had been planning to photograph the railway in the snow, but the lack of trains cancelled those plans. Instead I visited in April, catching the Spring thaw along the line, with just a few bits of snow remaining along the banks of the Hudson. Although minimal freight operates on the line, I didn’t see any, only capturing the two passenger trains that operate each day.

Tourist trains have operated on this line since 1999, but the Saratoga and North Creek has only been running since 2011, operated by Iowa Pacific Holdings. They’ve only been carrying freight since 2013, a business they’d like to expand, as they’re losing money on their tourist trains (no doubt the harsh winter and cancelled trains did not help). Historically, the Delaware and Hudson Railway acquired this line in 1871, and ran on it until 1989 (an abandoned portion of the line, including a bridge, can be seen in a few of my photos).

                       

4 Responses

  1. Jeff Morris says:

    I can see that the blue engine and cars are the Saratoga & North Creek tourist RR, but what is the red engine? Another of theirs that is a different color?

    • Emily says:

      The one in the forest with the Lackawanna paint, I assume? They bought that from the NRHS a few years back, the goal was to fix it up and repaint it, but apparently that never happened.

  2. Mark says:

    Remember seeing some D&H freight around North Creek in the 1970s. Also remember taking an Amtrak Train (The Adirondack?) from Fort Edward into GCT.

Leave a Reply to Jeff Morris Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *