Railroad hangs in the balance

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

RIVER VALLEY — Railroad entrepreneur Walter Rich of Cooperstown, NY hopes to convert the Norfolk Southern Railroad’s Port Jervis mainline into a passageway that supports and advances local industry.

Two agricultural feed mills, Narrowsburg Feed and Grain and Cochecton Mills, already utilize the line, but Rich believes the railroad’s potential is broader.

Further, if certain steps are not taken, the short line could be abandoned, thus ending a long-time industrial and cultural tradition in the Upper Delaware River valley.

Rich, who is president of the Central New York Railroad, recently leased the short line from Norfolk Southern, and his first step in turning the line into an investment for his company is to reduce the railroad’s property taxes faster than the abatement schedule authorized by the state’s Railroad Ceiling Law, which was passed in order to correct the state’s over-taxation of the property in the past.

The measure would cost Sullivan County and four of its municipalities about $25,000 over the next five years, according to a study completed by Shepstone Management Company, which is based in Honesdale, PA.

If the tax reduction is denied, according to the lease Rich can opt out of the deal. And if that happens, Norfolk Southern has indicated it would legally abandon the railroad, an element of transportation in the river valley since 1852.

In order for Norfolk Southern to sell the 40-mile-per-hour line, the company would have to invest between $10 and $15 million to upgrade it. “It’s safe to say that if we fail in this effort it will mean the end of the railroad,” Rich said.

The short line runs along the banks of the river and provides an essential connection within the Delaware Otsego System. If abandoned, one of only two railroad connections between Buffalo and the New York metropolitan area would be severed, according to the Shepstone study.

Rich, who is also president of the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway (Susquehanna), has been in the business of saving railroads from abandonment since 1980, when he bought a bankrupt rail line extending from Jersey City to Warwick, NY.

At town board meetings in the river valley last week, Rich said he saw a 30-percent increase in his railroad business last year, and the trains continue to get longer. Over the last three to four years, his company was able to increase traffic on the New Jersey section of the Susquehanna line from 5,000 to 12,000 cars per year, Rich said.

“The business is coming back,” he said.

Forestburgh resident Eugene Blabey, chairman and CEO of the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad, accompanied Rich to support the tax reduction, which will be considered at the Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) meeting this Friday.

Blabey said 19 out of the 28 remaining short lines in New York have some sort of county property tax abatement.

Future prospects for the Port Jervis mainline include transporting lumber from the river valley to Canada. Rich also said he would pursue leads into plastic and propane freight.

Driven by interest in the survival of the rail line, three town boards in the Upper Delaware valley voted last week to support the tax reduction. The Delaware Town Board first voted in mid-January to support the measure, which the IDA is promoting as a way to avoid the abandonment crisis that could lead to the loss of jobs at the river valley feed mills.

Tusten, Fremont and Cochecton followed suit at their February meetings, voting to support the tax abatement plan.

Before making its decision, the IDA will consider comments from the public at hearings scheduled for Thursday, February 17. The hearings will be held at the Tusten Town Hall in Narrowsburg at 10:00 a.m., the Cochecton Town Hall in Lake Huntington at 11:30 a.m., the Delaware Town Hall in Callicoon at 1:00 p.m., and the Fremont Town Hall in Fremont Center at 3:00 p.m.