NORWICH – Discussions continued this month between Chenango County and New York Susquehanna & Western Railway executives as local economic developers struggled to hang onto railway service through the county seat.
“This is just one more thing on our plate of infrastructure offerings to industry that if we would lose, would knock us out to potential development,” Commerce Chenango President Maureen Carpenter said Wednesday.
Three options developed as a result of the meeting April 3. NYS&W was asked to consider: Making the estimated $400,000 in track repairs to restore service from Sherburne to Binghamton, to consider leaving the 12 miles of service from Norwich to Sherburne open if the line were to be abandoned, or to donate the property to a local organization hoping to convert it into a pedestrian trail.
The NYS&W has had a payment-in-lieu of taxes contract with the Chenango County Industrial Development Agency since 1982. The current PILOT was finalized in 2002 and expires in 2012. NYS&W can nullify the agreement with the IDA and take back its property at any time, Carpenter said.
Local officials say they were unaware of the railroad’s plans to give the privately-held New York Regional Interconnect an easement option back in 2003 for its proposed high voltage power line. Under the agreement, NYRI is paying the railroad for its option until 2008. Carpenter said the railroad’s relationship with NYRI was not discussed and “remains a separate issue.”
Although the region’s record-breaking flood last June damaged the tracks and halted service through Norwich, the Cooperstown-based NYS&W had already begun abandonment proceedings on that portion of its line, citing underutilization.
Following the meeting, NYS&W attorney Nathan Fenno said the group “discussed a variety of options and possibilities,” but he declined to elaborate.
“It’s a broad range,” he said. “From trains running to trains not running and tracks being ripped up.”
“The meeting was just to understand where things stood.”
When asked where things stand, Fenno said there have been no new developments. The NYS&W has no date set to file for abandonment with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.
Norwich Mayor Joseph P. Maiurano, also at the meeting, said opening the tracks from Norwich to Sherburne sounded like a strong possibility.
“I’d like to see it open all the way through, but you have to look at economics,” he said. The train still serves businesses in northern county towns utilizing operating tracks from Sherburne to Utica.
Carpenter said the county “is really going to start focusing in on” attracting enterprises to the City of Norwich’s industrial areas located at Wood’s Corners and Borden Avenue. Both lie alongside the railroad.
Also in attendance were: NYS&W representative Philip deFazio; Chenango County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Richard B. Decker; Peter Chaplin, former chairman of the board for the Chenango County Area Corp.; Sewain Conklin, interim Commerce Chenango president; Terry Bresina, city alderman; James Downey, IDA legal advisor; Hugh Kearney, former IDA president; and Keith Severson, Cornell Cooperative Extension director.
Decker could not be reached for comment. Prior to the meeting, he said the railroad should be the “good neighbor” that Chenango County had been in the past.
“I think we have done more by allowing the railroad to be here tax-free. That’s first, and second by always endorsing them within the state for funding when they needed it at certain times. Seems to me they need to be a good neighbor, too,” he said on April 2.
No representatives from the Chenango Greenway Conservancy were in attendance. Carpenter said the NYS&W executives attending the meeting “would entertain” the idea of donating the property to the organization.