Looking for the Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome grading...

This may be a long shot, but does anybody know of any remains of the ill-fated Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome Railroad? I know of only three parts, all documented at my Unfinished Railroads of New York State page. One of the three is the one that izzy1985 dug up between Lowville and Castorland.

Conversely, the question may interest other people who are similarly lacking answers. Does anybody want to join me in a field trip some spring weekend? There's time to write some letters to the appropriate town historians along the suspected route.

To provide an almost totally useless reply, I remember doing a web search years ago and finding a page which claimed that the remains of an unfinished tunnel could be found in, I think, the Black River gorge. It sounds as if that might represent Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome work, but I'm not certain.

Yes, I just now found the email I received several years ago from one John W. Gilbert, who said that there was a tunnel collapse near the Pixley Park site. He may have seen the same website.

.... time passes

I found it, and added it to the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdensburg ... e_Railroad

Been staring at the 1 meter per pixel aerial photos, and I think I've found a bunch more sections of it. Of course, unlike a railroad that ran trains, we can't be sure that the sections were ever actually connected. I've updated this:
http://russnelson.com/unfinished-railro ... tonandRome
In particular, look at the route of the railroad: http://rutlandtrail.org/gmap.cgi?OCnR.u ... d.ny.track
That will show you in detail on Google Maps where are the bits I've found and claim to be remains of the OC&R.

I need to back this up with field research, cuz it's just photo-interpretation on my part.

Russ,

Be careful interpreting the aerial photos up through the Boonville Gorge. I believe that a lot of what you highlighted as ROW is actually the towpath for the Black River Canal, which operated well into the 20th century, including a reroute after the construction of Delta Dam/Lake. The portion SW from Pixley S.P. (falls) contains the famous Five Combines (set of 5 locks), visible from SR 46 and the towpath hiking/X-C ski trail. It would seem that the RR ROW would have to have taken a higher path to avoid the steep grade of the canal at that point. I live about 10 miles from there. PM me if you are coming this way, no promises but I might be able to join/guide you.

WS4Ever

Ha! Ha, ha, and double ha!

I do believe that I've found the location of the OC&R tunnel at Pixley Falls: The cut leading up to the tunnel was right here: http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.40288,-75.34579&z=17&t=T . See how the topographic lines jog to the left into the hillside? Now switch to the Satellite view, and you can see a matching cut on the other side of the hill which lines up with this cut. I noticed in the description here:
http://adventurers.meetup.com/103/messa ... ad=3239690 that the tunnel was on the *west* side of the highway. One look at that cut and I knew (speculated) that I'd found it.

Field work in the spring. Gotta.

WShore4Ever wrote:Be careful interpreting the aerial photos up through the Boonville Gorge. I believe that a lot of what you highlighted as ROW is actually the towpath for the Black River Canal

Yeah, I thought I was being careful enough, but I'm guessing that you're right, and I wasn't. Dang.

According to this guy: http://www.paulkeeslerbooks.com/BoonvilleGorge.html there's a road cut on the east side of the creek and remains of a bridge abutment about a mile and a half below Lansing Kill Falls. That would be about where J is in this map: http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.40721,-75 ... ville%20NY

Probably the RS&E interurban; but what do they have to do with the Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome?


Edit 12/26/09: Wondering why this makes no apparent sense?

This comment refers to a Scharnhorst post that I should have quoted, I guess, since it's now gone.

RussNelson wrote:According to this guy: http://www.paulkeeslerbooks.com/BoonvilleGorge.html there's a road cut on the east side of the creek and remains of a bridge abutment about a mile and a half below Lansing Kill Falls. That would be about where J is in this map

Hmmm... Looking at the topo map, I see evidence of a road coming down the hillside just west of K on this map, which is about 1.5 miles south of Lansing Kill Falls as described in the link above. It's quite possible that the "road cut" and "bridge abutment" belong to the road, not the OC&R. Field work needed! It's only a 3.5 hour drive from me; except for the snow I would do it tomorrow.
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.41576,-75 ... ville%20NY

FYI, I did some research on my birthday last March 21st. Found some bits and pieces that I'm fairly certain are from the OC&R. http://www.flickr.com/photos/russnelson ... 565316465/ Trouble with any unfinished railroad is that you can't be certain that the bits of railbed were ever connected. Very ambiguous. But fun! Lots of tramping around in fields, staring at humps of dirt.

I've just uploaded new photos, so if you've seen this before, look again.

Russ,

Did you get to see the remains of the tunnel at Pixley Falls?

Unfortunately, it was completely socked in with snow, so no, I didn't see a thing. I saw the two approach cuts to the tunnel, but that's it. Further down the hill I saw the railbed up on the side of the hill, and walked it for a ways. Also spotted some grading on the west side of the Lansing Kill. Very easy to spot with snow on it. And I was told how to find the bit in the Happy Hollow Campground, and did. Also saw the cut that was later used for the Glenfield & Western. I'm sure there are other bits of which I'm not aware.

RussNelson wrote:This may be a long shot, but does anybody know of any remains of the ill-fated Ogdensburg, Clayton & Rome Railroad? I know of only three parts, all documented at my Unfinished Railroads of New York State page. One of the three is the one that izzy1985 dug up between Lowville and Castorland.

Conversely, the question may interest other people who are similarly lacking answers. Does anybody want to join me in a field trip some spring weekend? There's time to write some letters to the appropriate town historians along the suspected route.

hay Russ you may want to try and make contact with a guy by the name of Jim Heidt in the Clockville, NY area his father had something to do with this railroad as well as the NYO&W and might be able to give you some more insite on the line. I don't know his address or phone number. I can tell you that he should not be hard to find in the phone book as he runs a law firm.

Quoted to keep this making sense in the future:

scharnhorst wrote: hay Russ you may want to try and make contact with a guy by the name of Jim Height in the Clockville, NY area his father had something to do with this railroad as well as the NYO&W and might be able to give you some more insite on the line. I don't know his address or phone number. I can tell you that he should not be hard to find in the phone book as he runs a law firm.

Do you mean Jim Heidt of the CNY division NMRA? I have his email handy, I can always shoot him one and ask if he wants to correspond with Russ about this road.