I was always amazed how the NYS&W's shabby pre-WW2 100 lb. stick track never cracked under the stress of six axle locos and superstackers.When the trains started in the fall of 1986, it seemed they spent more time on the ground than on the rails. There were two pretty impressive wrecks: One right adjacent ot Matthew Chemicals in Riverdale, which the railroad must have thanked the rail gods that the cars tipped to the left and landed on grass rather than the right where they would have landed on a couple chemical tanks cars.
The other was a few weeks later when an eastbound stack train flew off the rails on the curve under the steel highway bridge in Franklin. Several cars caught on fire, and the damaged bridge was closed for several weeks. After that one the FRA slapped a 10 mph restriction on the whole line.
I remember vividly the first stack train I saw on the NYS&W. It was in Butler in October of '86, and the eastbound I saw was the first or second eastbound to use that route. It was just about dusk, and this train roared down the grade at 40 mph. The people around the tracks in Butler were flabbergasted. The entire town shook and rocked. [/quote]