Realizing a Dream: the Rolling Stock Display

As the idea for a Railroad and Mining Heritage Park took shape in the early 1990s, a few people shared a great dream. Most evidence of Moriah's proud mining heritage had been demolished, but railroad equipment could help people visualize a part of the Town's history. Undaunted by impossible costs and logistics, the team of dreamers persisted for over seven years in order to assemble this short train, painted in the black and gold livery of the Lake Champlain and Moriah Railroad.

Railroad Bridge , Two steel plate girder bridges carried LC and M Railroad tracks over Route 9N/22 and Park Place from 1905 until 1993. They replaced the light iron bridges erected in 1873. The new bridges weighed 13 Tons each, spanned 48 feet between masonry abutments and could carry a load of 130,000 lbs.

[Photo captions, from left to right, read] , . The Alco RS-18 is the equivalent of the locomotive used by the Delaware and Hudson Railroad to transport sintered ore to Troy and Buffalo from Port Henry. Montreal Locomotive Works, a subsidiary of Alco Locomotive, manufactured this unit in 1957 for Canadian Pacific Railway. It took 4 to 6 such locomotives to haul an ore train. Donated and delivered by CP Rail in the winter of 1997. Restored summer 2000.

. In 1917, Chateaugay Iron Ore Company ordered 59 of these cars from the Pressed Steel Car Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When the Standish Mills closed in 1928, the cars were sold to the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. Lake Champlain and Moriah Railroad bought them in the mid-1930s to replace wooden "Jimmy" cars and some older 40-Ton ore cars. The 300 series can carry 55 Tons of crude ore. This #326 ore car sat on a spur track in the mine yard after its retirement in 1948. Donated by Carl Perry of Witherbee. Restored summer of 2001 by Michael Mazzotte, Bill Petro Jr., Chip Perry Jr. and Brian Venne.

. Built in June 1947 at the Fisher Hill Shops in Mineville from a 300-series ore car, this Hack #5 Caboose replaced a smaller 2-axle model. Locomotives could not push a loaded train equipped with the 2-axle caboose. In service until Republic Steel closed the mines in 1971, #5 was purchased by the Delaware and Hudson Railroad and then sold to the Battenkill Railroad in Salem, New York. It served as a work transfer caboose until its wheels developed flat spots. Traded for a side-dump car by Canadian Pacific Railroad and donated to the Town of Moriah in 1996. Restored 1999 by John and Joyce Sweet, Joe Mazzotti, and Brian and Laura Venne. . This historical marker was erected by Lakes to Locks Passage. It is in Port Henry in Essex County New York