Someone bought up the track we used to run and started a business. Scenic, but they don't offer the 9hp Honda when you get tired of pedaling. Surprised there are no glamour photos on the website. Below is a picture of the rail carts.
Someone bought up the track we used to run and started a business. Scenic, but they don't offer the 9hp Honda when you get tired of pedaling. Surprised there are no glamour photos on the website. Below is a picture of the rail carts.
Interesting. I bet it's quite the scenic ride, indeed!
In reply to J.A. Ackley :
If you're also of the less physically motivated type, they also run conventional trains over the line. You can take a 216-mile round trip from Utica, NY all the way north to Tupper Lake, NY and back. And that line is definitely remote. I tried following the inaugural train north by car the one time, and once you get above Thendara, it heads off into no man's land. The only way you're seeing that scenery is riding the train, riding the railbikes, or being an extremely avid hiker.
I've always loved the idea of rail bikes. I wonder if you're allowed to run the lines on your own rail bike (possibly EV or IC motivated)?
No fee for asking. They may allow it (once a waiver is signed) but charge you like a customer.
Utica to tupper lake is some pretty country. The history of the Adirondack railroads are super interesting. Many times they built the lines just to access resorts or timber country. Many resorts back in the day were only acccesible by railroad with no roads in or out. Fun stuff.
https://localwiki.org/hsl/Adirondack_Railroad_Historic_District
if you want to know more about camping at thst time you can read Nessmuk's "woodcraft" here for free.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34607/34607-h/34607-h.htm
or this book of letters
Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk: The Adirondack Letters of George Washington Sears https://a.co/d/d7sqmrB
In reply to NickD :
I used to ride Amtrak from Rochester to New York all the time. If I remember right, Utica had a historic rail station. Is that where this takes off from?
In reply to J.A. Ackley :
Not the rail bikes, but the actual trains depart from Utica Union Station, which was built in 1914. It also holds the distinction of being one of the last train stations in the US that still has an active barber shop inside.. The rich and wealthy in the 1890s-1940s used to ride up from New York City to Utica, then get off and ride up the Adirondack Division to their camps in Old Forge and Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, as well as through-service to Canada.
Also, the rail line was briefly revived in 1979 to haul people up to Lake Placid for the 1980 Winter Olympics. I talked to a gentleman a couple years ago who remembers that operation, and he recalled people riding up from NYC on Amtrak trains, heavily underdressed for northern NY winters, transferring to the Adirondack Railway train to ride north to Lake Placid, which used all old castoff gear with inefficient steam heating, and freezing the whole ride up to Lake Placid, and then getting off in Lake Placid where it was even colder.
Sadly, the northernmost segment from Tupper Lake to Lake Placid was torn up last year and converted to a trail, despite a portion of it being in active use.
Thank you for the history lesson! 
New York - the whole state - has quite the rail history. It's hard to imagine all the lines that once crisscrossed that state back in the day. They had many.
That stretch up to Lake Placid is closed off to us, but at 1800 feet and Ticonderoga at 273 MSL it's a big uphill on a pedal car. Honda is handy. =~ )
Oh, and a picture of the bob run at LKP. it's just outside the landing pattern there.
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