Railroads of the Adirondacks

A History

by Michael Kudish

Purple Mountain Press is pleased to announce the publication of Michael Kudish's eagerly awaited, definitive history of the railroads of the Adirondackks from earliest times until the present. The result of the author's twenty-five year study of Adirondack transportation and industrial history is our 496-page, large-format hardcover with more than 200 meticulously drawn maps and 60 pages of historic photographs. Railroads of the Adirondacks: A History is a completely new work with three times the detail and more lines and branches treated than the author's earlier book, Where Did the Tracks Go, which was published in 1985 and is now out of print. This is a book for anyone interested in the Adirondacks, its history, forestry, mining, hotels and railroads.

Railroads of the Adirondacks: A History, 496 pages, 8.5 x 11, illustrated, hardcover, $55.00. Write: Purple Mountain Press, Ltd., P.O. Box E3, Fleischmanns, NY 12430 or call toll free: 1-800-325-2665 or fax: 914-254-4476, or go to their web page. Free catalog of hard-to-find books about New York.

Unfortunately, the book is now out of print. It may be found on various used book websites for approximately $100. Kudish retired from Paul Smiths College in June of 2005 and is now writing full-time. He has already completed one book published in June 2005 by Purple Mountain Press.


A Review of RotA

By Russell Nelson

If you're the type of person who likes railroad history, or tracking down tracks, then this book was written for you. It's the complete reference to railroads in New York State's Adirondack Mountains. The follow-on to his earlier Where Did the Tracks Go?, it has more depth, more branches, more lines, more maps, and more photos. The price is daunting, yes, but there is easily $55 worth of information in the book.


Mountain Railroads of New York State

By Michael Kudish

Review by Russell Nelson

Railroads of the Adirondacks is back in print! Well, sort-of. The author of that volume, Michael Kudish, has retired from his professorship at Paul Smiths College, and is writing full-time. Since ROTA was published in 1996, he has gathered volumes of information; four volumes in fact. ROTA was a fairly thick book; too thick, in fact, to easily carry around for field work. Mountain Railroads of New York State will be published in four volumes. The older work, ROTA, will be split into three volumes with added information on each railroad, and the fourth volume will be entirely new coverage of the railroads of the other mountain range of New York State: the Catskills.

The first volume, published June of 2005, is entitled Where did the Tracks go in Western New York?. It consists of material recycled from Railroads of the Adirondacks (frankly, when you're the expert, sometimes the best thing to do is steal from yourself), with corrections, additions, and deletions of things that didn't work. In particular, the strip maps just weren't that clear, so Kudish replaced them with to-scale maps. Two new railroads were added: The Glenfield and Eastern, and the DeGrasse Paper Company Railroad (into Pyrites).

If you have any interest in New York State mountain railroads, you should plan to purchase all four volumes of the set. Kudish's prose is careful and compelling, practically begging you to get out there and see the remains of New York State's industrial past.

Related links