New mileage on tourist railroads, especially those that can be reached by non-motorists as well as motorists, are very rare, but one has been providing service since last year, and is completing its second season of its “new” operation. It’s the Adirondack Railroad (reporting mark ADIX), and it runs occasional day trips between its base at Utica’s Union Station to Tupper Lake, 103 miles away, as the High Peaks Limited.
I made the trip on Saturday, Oct. 5. It takes all day, leaving Utica at 8:30 AM, and is scheduled to return at 6:45 PM. It was closer to 7:30 before our train got back. The ride was not particularly scenic, and people familiar with the railroad say that it lost its most-scenic mileage. The destination was not interesting, either, but the ride was. The crew members were competent and pleasant, and the train ran with interesting equipment, some of which brought back memories of trips I took a half-century ago.
Utica and Back: Difficult but Feasible
Utica, N.Y. is an old city, with many historic downtown buildings. A number are on Genesee Street, the main street of the city (although there is also one called “Main Street”). The city is worth visiting, but the trip to Tupper Lake did not allow any time for that. Amtrak trains serve the city four times per day in each direction, but there has not been an overnight train that served the Empire Service route since 1971, except for one that ran a week-end schedule briefly in the mid-1990s. So the two choices are to stay in a hotel in Utica (the Hotel Utica has operated since 1912) or take an overnight bus from New York City’s Port Authority terminal. My Greyhound bus left at 1:25 AM, but did not go to Utica. Instead, it went to Syracuse via Binghamton and arrived about 6:00. A connecting bus to Boston stopped at Utica’s Union Station at 7:50, in time for the 8:30 train departure. It would also have been possible to take Amtrak Train 280 from Syracuse for an 8:00 arrival at Utica.
Part of the reward for putting up with the new bus whose seats were even less comfortable than those on the older Greyhound buses (which was difficult to believe at first) was enough time to take a long look inside Union Station, a monumental edifice from 1914. The station is a stunning architectural marvel that features marble walls, columns, and pilasters. Light is supplied by fixtures hanging from the high ceiling, as well as individual lights. The building features ornate vaulted ceilings on the sides of the waiting room, as well as one in the middle of the building, raised by a clerestory roof above two rows of windows. There are also large arched windows around much of the perimeter of the room. The original heated waiting benches are still in use. The building also features a restaurant, a barber shop (open when I got there, but there wasn’t enough time for a haircut), and city and state agency offices. The station building was saved from a demolition threat and is now considered historic.
The station once had 12 tracks, but that was reduced to a single track on a side platform by the 1960s. Two more tracks have been opened beyond the sole surviving track, and an elevated walkway provides access to them. The New York Central was always the dominant railroad in Utica, but the Lackawanna Railroad and the New York Ontario & Western once used the station, too. Those services ended decades ago. Nonetheless, the Adirondack Railroad’s use of the station legitimizes its name: “Utica Union Station” in a way. When I arrived, the line to pick up tickets stretched from the ticket office to the wall on the other side of the waiting room, a scene reminiscent of the prior Golden Age of passenger trains.
Vintage Consist, Interesting Ride
The consist was relatively long for a tourist railroad, especially one with a regional reputation, rather than a national one. Besides a homebrew-modified lounge that served as a crew car, most of the coaches came from CN. They were true intercity coaches with reclining seats, some of which survived to run on VIA Rail. I had ridden on cars of that class in the 1970s, and they were comfortable. They still are. There was a dining car that originally ran on the New York Central. I had eaten in cars like that in the 1970s as well, including on the Lake Shore Limited. Several cars were outfitted with small tables between pairs of seats facing each other. I rode in one that had been owned by Norfolk Southern and outfitted with commuter-type fixed seats. Between each pair of seats that faced each other, club style, was a table top, turning the car into a sort of lounge car. The crew served food and drinks from a bar that had been retrofitted into the car. Bringing up the rear (or the front on the way back to Utica) was a 1955-vintage dome observation car that was originally built for UP, but later ran on the Algoma Central and other railroads before coming to the Adirondack RR. Riders in that car paid “diamond class” fares to eat at dining tables in the domed upper level and to sit in wide chairs with wide arms that did not have the “railroad look” of extra-fare cars but would have fit well into a late-20th Century living room.
Motive power was supplied by two Alco units belonging to the Mohawk & Adirondack Northern, a freight operation that owns the tracks from Utica to Snow Junction (MP 29.2 from Herkimer on the original Mohawk & Malone, which ran between there and Montreal. Tourist railroads are at their busiest during “leaf season” in October, so it was not unusual to see “foreign” power pulling the train.
Not Scenic, but Interesting
Most of the 103.3 miles of the line between Utica and Tupper Lake runs through woods. Some of the trees had leaves that had turned yellow, but the fall colors were generally weak. With the dry summer that the region had this year, it does not appear likely that the colors will become stronger before the leaves fall. The train went past some bodies of water, crossing some rivers and running along some lakes, even a few places where clearings afforded scenic glimpses of the water as the train passed by.
An occasional scenic highlight was a historic station, one of which was a replica built according to the original station plan. That was at Remsen, about 1.5 miles south of Snow Junction and which, according to the railroad, once served 50 trains per day, going in all four cardinal directions. Forestport (MP 35.5), Big Moose (MP 69.3), and Tupper Lake Junction (MP 113.6), where the line terminates. There were more stations in the past, including some private stations built by Dr. William Seward Webb, who built the railroad and then sold it to the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad in 1893.
The busiest station along the line was Thendara (MP 58), an original station from the beginning of the railroad. The current railroad originates several trips from there, including Sunday trips that allow four hours at Tupper Lake. According to Conductor Al Heywood, it would not be feasible to run such trips from Utica because it takes about 2½ hours to run between Thendara and Utica, and such a long trip would require a second crew. With the 11-hour duration of the current Tupper Lake trips, any delay beyond a slight one would cause the trip time to exceed 12 hours, which forces the crew to “go dead.”
The trip featured a 25-minute layover at Thendara in each direction, most of it used to let about 200 passengers off and board another 150 on the way to Tupper Lake, and the reverse going back to Utica. The Eclipse Special last April turned there, as we did our best to watch the eclipse through the gathering clouds. Many passengers who got off there on this trip took shuttle buses to Old Forge, an interesting old town about five miles away. The railroad also offers a “bike adventure” from Thendara, where customers sit on open-air seats and pedal to move the “train” of ultra-light “cars” along the way.
The Thendara station itself retains its historic character, has a siding with room to store a separate consist that is used for the Sunday trips, and contains a small display of historic artifacts from the railroad’s past. There is not much to see in the town today, especially since the hotel across from the station is not currently in operation. When I first rode the railroad in 2012 with a friend, we had lunch there with the crew before taking the shuttle bus to Old Forge to spend the rest of our time in that town.
As a destination, Tupper Lake was disappointing. I had been informed that it was about 1.5 miles from the actual center of town, where the town’s museum (which was previously located in the station and was forced to move) and other attractions are located. We arrived at 1:28 PM and were given 62 minutes to spend. The station itself was an attractive building, in the rustic style often seen in the Adirondacks. Like the Remsen station, it was a replica built from the original plans. The “crafts fair” that was supposed to take place at the station featured only one vendor, although her wares looked appealing. The rest of the neighborhood looked run-down, and food offerings were minimal. The Woodsman’s Tavern was closed, apparently for renovations. The local eatery, the Lumberjack Inn, was in operation, but was closed at the time. I settled for some chili from the convenience store and gas station which, along with snacks on the train, held me until we got back to Utica.
Friendly Crew, Cordial Atmosphere
The seats in several cars were set up in club groups, two seats facing each other with a table top between them. Everyone in those cars rode facing forward in one direction and backward in the other. Some food: a bagel or breakfast sandwich in the morning, a ham and cheese wrap or a salad for lunch, and a snack plate or shrimp cocktail on the way back, came with a “first-class” fare, along with coffee and soda, with beer and wine for sale.
That arrangement provided a congenial atmosphere, aided by a friendly crew and similarly-friendly fellow passengers. My tablemates were Ken and Pam Figel, who had come from Buffalo to spend time with relatives from Albany and to ride the train. Ken said that he has a friend who is involved with the railroad, and who convinced them to ride. They had lived in Utica in the past, but usually rode Amtrak’s Empire trains between Buffalo (where they now live) and Albany, without getting off at Utica.
There were other food offerings for sale in the dining car, as well as an opportunity to sit there and eat them. There were sandwiches, including meatball sandwiches (I had one while riding the Eclipse Train on April 8), as well as baked goods from Utica. One was Utica’s version of “tomato pie”: tomato sauce on a thick pizza crust, without cheese and eaten cold, definitely an acquired taste. It is usually found in Rhode Island and occasionally in Boston. It is not found in or near New York City, except at one bakery in Hoboken, N.J., where the owner said that Frank Sinatra bought it there about 90 to 95 years ago, for a snack on his way home from school.
The crew members who served us were competent and hard-working. Even without running water in the car, they did a good job. On the way to Tupper Lake, one crew member used all the tables in the dining car to assemble snack plates to be served on the way back to Utica.
I got to spend some time with the operating crew in the crew car. Conductor Al Heywood, who has 22 years on the railroad, was originally a high-school social studies teacher, and joined the railroad as a car host after he retired, so he could “teach the passengers” about the history of the railroad and the region. He told methat the railroad now operates year-round, with “cabin fever” trips to Remsen in the winter. He said that the railroad has 10 to 12 full-time employees, and some part-timers, along with car hosts and other volunteers. He added that the railroad is growing, and that adding the dome car, and the dining car enabled it to run more “event trains” while “keeping our routes, by serving “families who want to take a train ride.” He said that the count for the train was 305 passengers for Thendara and 270 to Tupper Lake. The Thendara count included those taking the shuttle to Old Forge. Regarding the scenery, he said: “It’s been so dry that we didn’t get that fall sparkle this year.” He also mentioned that he is on the Board of the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society, the railroad’s non-profit operator.
The Assistant Conductor was Lee Willey, a 50-year railroader who started on the Boston & Maine, but not in or near Boston. He began his career on the west end of the “Minute Man” route, near Troy, NY. He had also worked at Conrail and Amtrak, as well as other places, before joining the Adirondack Railroad
Progress Mixed with Disappointment
Regular passenger service on the line when it was part of the New York Central ended in April 1965. New York State bought the line from Penn Central in 1974, and trains ran from Utica to take riders to the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. It was supposed to be a year-round operation, and I planned to ride the following spring but, by that time, the operation had been discontinued. It came back in pieces, starting in the railroad’s centennial year, 1992. There had been plans to restore service on the entire line, but the Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates (ARTA) was reported as having the money and the clout in Albany to convince the legislature to turn part of the line into a snowmobile trail. Rail advocacy organizations including the Empire State Passengers’ Association (ESPA) and the Rail Users’ Network (RUN) fought alongside the railroad itself to keep the line intact, but they were no match for ARTA. The 34 miles of track between Tupper Lake Junction and Lake Placid were ripped up in 2020, and the historic stations at Saranac Lake and Lake Placid will never see another train.
Still, the ride we had was an enjoyable experience, which delivers more of the flavor of a railroading from the mid-20th Century than many other tourist railroads provide, including the opportunity to start and end the trip at a beautiful station that was built during the primacy of passenger railroading and has remained essentially intact since that time. It is one of only two stations north or west of Hudson, N.Y. on Amtrak’s Empire route that has kept both its original appearance and its downtown location.
Before leaving Utica, I had time to go to Nina’s on Genesee Street for two local food specialties: Chicken Riggies (rigatoni with chicken and veggies in a vodka-like sauce) and Utica Greens (greens with bits or prosciutto and cherry peppers, baked with cheese on top) and get back to the station to take Train 49 (the Lake Shore Limited) to Syracuse and a 2½-hour layover to catch an after-midnight bus on Greyhound back to New York, which arrived at 4:35 AM. Two hours later, after taking the first train of the morning on NJ Transit and the first bus from Newark (no trains that early), I finally got back home.
It had been a difficult trip, but it was fun, and there is not much “new mileage” for me to ride anymore. New mileage is rare, especially on a tourist railroad that can be reached without an automobile.
Utica also has other things to see, some local food specialties, and a downtown area that still retains much of its historic character. That also holds for Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and the Capital Region in and around Albany, all of which are served by Amtrak’s Empire trans and have enough local transit to allow non-motorists and motorists alike to enjoy a vacation in the region, at least when it’s warm enough. Utica would be a worthwhile component of such a vacation, and a ride on the Adirondack Railroad (at least to Old Forge) would be worthwhile component of the Utica portion of that vacation.
David Peter Alan is one of North America’s most experienced transit users and advocates, having ridden every rail transit line in the U.S., and most Canadian systems. He has also ridden the entire Amtrak and VIA Rail network. His advocacy on the national scene focuses on the Rail Users’ Network (RUN), where he has been a Board member since 2005. Locally in New Jersey, he served as Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition for 21 years and remains a member. He is also a member of NJ Transit’s Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Advisory Committee (SCDRTAC). When not writing or traveling, he practices law in the fields of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks and Copyright) and business law. Opinions expressed here are his own.
