(The following story by Jim Kinney appeared on The Saratogian website on October 12.)
CORINTH, N.Y. — For the first time in decades, a passenger train will pull into Corinth Saturday morning, the first stage of what local officials hope will be a railroad renaissance for the Adirondack mountain towns between Corinth and North Creek.
Crews have been working for weeks repairing the beaver-dam washout in Greenfield and linking Corinth again with the Canadian Pacific’s mainline in Saratoga Springs used by Amtrak.
“We think we’ve sold 200 tickets for Saturday already,” said Lake Luzerne Town Supervisor Eugene Merlino Wednesday afternoon. “It should be a great event.”
Merlino, who is organizing Saturday’s trip along with the Upper Hudson River Railroad and the town of Corinth, had just heard Wednesday that Saturday’s scenic train would be able to pull all the way into Corinth. The contractor doing work further south at the washout is using the area around Depot Road.
“But everything should be OK,” Merlino said.
The tracks north of Corinth have been opened for traffic for more than a year through the efforts of Warren County. Warren County owns the rails for 40 miles north of Antone Mountain Road in Hadley to North Creek.
The town of Corinth bought the 16-mile stretch from the village south to Saratoga Springs in 2006.
Then, in May of 2006, a beaver dam on the Putnam Brook in Greenfield gave way and the brook washed out a 250-foot section of the line, leaving railroad ties dangling from a ribbon of rail strung over the creek.
Corinth Supervisor Richard Lucia said the work is being paid for out of the same $2.2 million federal grant the town used to buy the line in 2006. The track came with a clause making the former owner, Canadian Pacific Railway, liable for maintenance for a year.
Lucia said work will hopefully be completed by the time the weather turns.
Lucia said the former International Paper Co. mill used the tracks for freight regularly. Passenger service hasn’t been regular since at least the 1950s, according to the railroad.
Plans call for the line from Saratoga Springs to Corinth to also deliver freight to the former IP mill site which the new owners are working to redevelop.