Riding Adirondack rails in a private car

Over 30 speeders explore Utica to Tupper Lake

By Tom French

Tourist trains and railbikes are not the only wheels riding the recently refurbished rails between Thendara and Tupper Lake. A group of motor car, or speeder, enthusiasts have also been exploring the remote corridor.

In the 1970s, the Adirondack Speeder Society “moonlighted” from Big Moose to Tupper Lake after the bankruptcy of Penn Central. According to Peter Gores, coauthor of “Hojack: Remembering the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad and Division,” the tracks were “marginal with some trees down, and a washout just past Tupper Lake stopped our progress north.” 

After the tracks were rehabilitated for the Olympics, the group did get to Lake Placid, but disbanded in the late 1980s as track conditions deteriorated again.

A gathering of speeders: An eclectic group

This year, around 75 aficionados gathered in Thendara in early May with more than 30 speeders.

The “set-off” was in Remsen on a Thursday afternoon. Most arrived with their railcar on or in a trailer behind a truck or SUV. Some showed up in semis carrying two or more speeders. A handful had customized truck beds, and others came in RVs. Tailored rails served as ramps for offloading. A few had tilt beds. Almost everyone had a winch. 

Gordy Wallick, a retired “career railroader” with 34 years at a short line in Massachusetts, has participated in the hobby since 2004 and choreographed the operation. Vehicles are placed strategically in case someone breaks down and has to “go on the bar.”

Offloaded perpendicular to the tracks, the cars were “turned” once positioned between the rails. Those with bars that slide out were swiveled like wheelbarrows. Others had turntables that lifted the cars so they could be rotated easily.

According to Tom Sopchak of Williston, Vermont, most people find the hobby by accident. He discovered it in 2016 while talking to someone at Tony’s Train Exchange, a model train store in Essex, Vermont. Now he has five cars, down from seven. “I’m thinning the herd,” he said.

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Tom French takes part in a speeder trip between Croghan and Beaver Falls

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His favorite is a Fairmont MT-19 with an aluminum cab and 18-horsepower Onan engine that required a frame-off restoration. “You take the whole thing apart – engine, transmission, drivetrain, brakes, every nut, bolt, and screw.”

Sopchak also likes the reliability of a “lawn mower engine.” 

Eric Thompson of Columbus, Indiana, prefers the older “poppers” – single-cylinder, two-stroke engines that require manual, real-time adjustments and literally “pops” loudly, like a constant, rhythmic backfiring as it cruises down the tracks.

“You need to understand engines a little bit better to run a two stroke,” Thompson explained. “As you slow down, you need to retard the timing. As you speed up, you advance it like an old Model T. A popper can be temperamental if not operated correctly.”

Originally used for track inspections and work crews, with a history beginning as human-powered handcars (think Wile E. Coyote, the blind man in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, or “Blazing Saddles”), motorized railcars supplanted the hand-powered versions in the early Twentieth Century, but were displaced themselves in the 1980s by modified trucks and SUVs known as hi-rails. Relegated to railroad graveyards, scrapyards, or open fields, hobbyist began restoring them and “moonlighting” on whatever track they could find.

Years of dedication

As Dan Willey, a retired Senior Software Development Manager with IBM from Cary, North Carolina, recounted, “Big railroads said, ‘We’re not going to have it,’ so they began torching the axles and cutting them in half at random.”

The need for safe and legal operations resulted in the formation of the North American Railcar Operators Association (NARCOA), which held its first motorcar meet in 1986. Now they sponsor dozens of events every year across North America including in the Adirondacks.

My speeder experience began with Gary Smith who had traveled from Great Meadows, New Jersey, with his Fairmont M-14 – a railcar with a history along the Union Pacific. He has its “birth papers” – the original purchase order. “Everybody is proud if they have their birth papers. Mine was built in 1986, right at the end of their production.”

This is Gary’s 11th year, and he’s tallied over 18,000 track miles.

We cruised south from Thendara to Remsen along the Moose River, crossing it three times, and past the depots in McKeever, White Lake, and Forestport.

Riding rugged tracks

Gary also rode the Adirondack rails in 2016 before the track was rehabilitated. 

“It was brutal. The joints and ties were out of square, and you bounced around from side to side. They call it hunting because it’s hunting for the right track. My wife was on that trip, and she was not happy.”

Each car on the consist was assigned a number in their order on the tracks. At some point we stopped because of chatter on the radio about a broken-down car. “Copy. Sixteen on the bar. Car 17 backing up.”

Gary commented, “The rule is: it’s not if you get towed, but when. I carry one of everything – spark plugs, chain links, fuses. Pretty much anything replaceable. Plus, they’ll be five guys trying to help you fix whatever’s busted.”

From far and near

After coffee and donuts at the Remsen Station, I’m assigned to ride with Dan Willey in his Woodings, a Canadian-built car with an enclosed cab designed for the colder, northern climate.

According to Sopchak, most of the cars on the excursion were manufactured by Fairmont Railway Motors in Minnesota, but other companies are represented including several custom and scratchbuilt vehicles.

For an afternoon excursion to Beaver River, I’m paired with Brad Mangan of Dunlap, Illinois, who is on a mission to ride in every state. He showed me a US decal map on the back of his 1976 Fairmont MT-19.

“I’ve been to runs in all these states. I just put the New York sticker on yesterday.” 

Nebraska is the only state without ridable rails.

Also known as a pumpkin car because of its appearance, Mangan removed the cab. “I wanted an open car, and someone said, ‘Why don’t you just take your cab off?’”

New recruits

Mangan only began participating in 2021 and does over a dozen runs every year. “I didn’t know anything about it until my wife said, ‘You got to see what your friend’s doing on Facebook.’ She showed me a video, and I said, ‘Oh my God, I want to do that.’ Within a month, I bought it.”

I pointed out the highest station east of the Mississippi at Big Moose, and then the summit elevation just north at 2,040 feet. Less than two miles further is the site of the last spike, pounded in on October 12, 1892. Beyond that is the Twitchell Creek Bridge, the highest trestle along the line with a 42-foot drop to the waters below and a striking view in both directions.

After the cars are turned at Beaver River, I’m hooked up with Thompson and his 1958 Fairmont M-19 AA popper, and just like an antique car, it too has a crank start. The slow popping accelerated before settling into a groove. 

Thompson entered the hobby in 2017. “Growing up, I’d see them out on the prairie in Kansas scooting around every now and then. I happened on the NARCOA website. One thing led to another, and I bought a speeder.”

Thompson enjoys “being helpful when something breaks and seeing the industrial underbelly of big cities.” He does 16-18 excursions a year.

Rain and rails

Once we set out, the noise level increased. Thompson loaned me a pair of headphones. “It will be 108db going down the rails, and that’s like a loud rock concert.” 

Thompson has four cars, including a narrow gauge in the back of his truck that he will be taking to the East Broad Top in Pennsylvania for a Monday ride with Brad Mangan. 

Sunday it was raining, so the pre-ride safety meeting focused on leaving sufficient space between the cars – it takes longer to stop on wet rail. Keith Knowlton, the EC (Excursion Coordinator), educated the riders about specifics for the trip to Tupper Lake and back. He also reminded everyone to be cautious at “the little dirt crossings” north of Horseshoe where an accident occurred in 2002 between a speeder and truck at a crossing to a private camp. A Life Flight helicopter was required to transport one of the injured.

Mangan layered up in his all-weather gear, excited to be facing nature head on. He sprays Rain-X on a face mask so the water will roll off. “I’m here to experience whatever God throws at us,” he said.

The Adirondacks through new eyes

I rode with Sopchak in both directions. It was cozy inside his enclosed cab. I brought photocopies from pages of Michael Kudish’s “Where did the Tracks Go in the Central Adirondacks? I pointed out the history – especially as we passed the remains of William Seward Webb’s private station at Nehasane (Lake Lila) and Horseshoe where the consist stopped for a bathroom break. Everyone was again reminded of a lower speed limit past the private camps along Eagle Crag and Mount Arab Lakes. In Tupper Lake, a box lunch was supplied inside the station before the cars were turned and we headed back south.

But the highlight of the weekend was a night ride on Saturday from Thendara to Beaver River and back. I joined Mangan in his open car. As the sun set and dusk advanced, the vistas narrowed and darkened. The beams of light in front of his car reflected off the rails as we rolled down the tracks.

Mangan’s car is quiet because there’s no cab for the noise to bounce around in, and I heard peepers. The breeze was on my face. The cool, spring, Adirondack air enveloped me, and the frogs made time above the clatter of the track – a cacophony of nature over man.

More to Explore: Angela Virsinger, a Graphic Artist for ABC/ESPN and member of NARCOA, produced a 35-minute YouTube video highlighting the route from Utica to Tupper Lake as traveled in 2022.