Micron - Let’s try this again

[Otto2000]

What? I’m a CNY lifer and want nothing more than for economic revitalization and a reversal of decades worth of poor policies. I’m just being objective and also defending our Orange Texans whom you seized the opportunity to score political points with

Nah. You’re just being weirdly sensitive.

We’ve got solid electricity and tons of water. That’s why this area is attractive for this company.

You weirdly took offense, and I don’t care. CNY wins and I’m happy. I’m not walking on eggshells for you weirdos.

Those resources help no doubt, especially the water. But brass tacks it almost always boils down to the financial incentives

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I think they said they lost out on the Taiwan mega fab because the site at the time wasn’t big enough.

Waxing a bit here… I think there will need to be a significant population influx to make this work. I know they’re talking about training the local unemployed workforce but how realistic is that? Doesn’t this kind of skilled labor require 4 year degrees? Just asking…

You might see some repatriation of folks who went elsewhere for good paying jobs. Who knows.

 

[rocklloyd]

My family thinks i’m crazy, but i’ve been saying the ample supply of water will be the second revolution for this area. Our area currently draws 20m gallons of water per day from Ontario. Believe it or not, mircon will require another 20m per day and our water treatment facilities can handle up to 70m.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Those resources help no doubt, especially the water. But brass tacks it almost always boils down to the financial incentives

Billions (with a B) of dollars in incentives. That made them look seriously. The other stuff, water, electric, land, made it good for the business. The topper is that if you have good employment, this can be a really good place to live. (Initial housing costs are low, good-great schools, good public colleges and good-great private ones, 4 seasons of activities, 6 hours away from 8 major metropolitan areas, etc.). This will be like the movies where the cool kid figures out that under all of the outer layers, the weird girl is really attractive. Then everyone else becomes interested.
A huge, huge win for CNY. Regardless of their political stripes, the powers that be got together and gave what they needed to give to land this deal. (49 year PILOT is the longest I have ever heard of). There was no line in the sand by anyone. No worries about who gets credit. I am sure that models have been done, but the economic ripple effect that this will have is probably ten-fold, at least.
Those are three huge give always by the Governor/local governments in the last couple of years that have benefited central (Amazon) and western (Bills stadium) NY. It's nice to see that we count, too.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

My family thinks i’m crazy, but i’ve been saying the ample supply of water will be the second revolution for this area. Our area currently draws 20m gallons of water per day from Ontario. Believe it or not, mircon will require another 20m per day and our water treatment facilities can handle up to 70m.

Absolutely, but everything else has to be equal, or close to it. Water (also education, infrastructure, etc.) will be the difference if we can align the economics.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

My next three projects for the area:
1) Find a place for Crucible Steel to relocate and give them what they need to build a state of the art, competitive factory. Then redo that area at the Fair Grounds.
2). This will never get done: the logistics would be hard and the eminent domain costs would be huge, but move 690 and Onondaga Lake Parkway, the eye-sore businesses, etc., to turn the whole lake front area into year round area for open air markets, hiking, biking, X-country skiing, boating, sailing, (eventually) swimming, a local light rail to get around the lake.
3) Rail system (monorail maybe) connecting SU/downtown/inner harbor/mall/ transportation center/airport.

 

[FrancoPizza]

My next three projects for the area:
1) Find a place for Crucible Steel to relocate and give them what they need to build a state of the art, competitive factory. Then redo that area at the Fair Grounds.
2). This will never get done: the logistics would be hard and the eminent domain costs would be huge, but move 690 and Onondaga Lake Parkway, the eye-sore businesses, etc., to turn the whole lake front area into year round area for open air markets, hiking, biking, X-country skiing, boating, sailing, (eventually) swimming, a local light rail to get around the lake.
3) Rail system (monorail maybe) connecting SU/downtown/inner harbor/mall/ transportation center/airport.

While we’re at it let’s remove the waste beds under 695 and ship all that dirt to rebuild the barrier islands in Florida.

 

[jonibob]

My family thinks i’m crazy, but i’ve been saying the ample supply of water will be the second revolution for this area. Our area currently draws 20m gallons of water per day from Ontario. Believe it or not, mircon will require another 20m per day and our water treatment facilities can handle up to 70m.

Studies show that Texas faces water shortages in the future. It is currently in a drought period.

 

[Jake]

I love this idea.

It's a rarely-used freight line and does run past Fort Drum (I remember during Desert Storm when I was very young that trains on that line would run past with tanks and heavy trucks on flat cars.)

There are several obstacles in using it as passenger trackage:

1) It's single track the full distance without any significant sidings, which means one train at a time and only in one direction. CSX, who owns the trackage, already hates having to deal with passenger rail.
2) Because it's single track, that means a bottleneck at the vaunted Onondaga Lake Parkway bridge.
3) NYSW operates on the trackage within the city limits (including downtown) independently of CSX. CSX trackage runs west/east once it reaches the mall, where the spur line in question meets it.
4) OnTrak came into existance because it was a joint partnership between the county and the much smaller NYSW, which operated the service. CSX woud not be interested in passenger operations, meaning it would need to allow a small, independent body to operate on its trackage - and passenger traffic takes priority over freight by rule. So that would be a huge hoop to jump.

^^^^^^^
This.

CSX is the most obstinate organization on the planet. If it doesn’t meet their need, then it’s “NO SOUP FOR YOU”!!!

And passenger rail not only doesn’t meet their need, it hinders their primary mission.

Can’t see it happening unless extreme pressure, like never seen before, is placed on them.

But if you want to make it easy and efficient, you build a boarding platform and run a very short rail line from behind Store America on Henry Clay to another platform where the tracks cross Coughdenoy road.

It essentially becomes a rail park n ride.

It’s still bottlenecks CSX operations, but if it only runs during shift changes, it might be doable.

 

[kcsu]

My family thinks i’m crazy, but i’ve been saying the ample supply of water will be the second revolution for this area. Our area currently draws 20m gallons of water per day from Ontario. Believe it or not, mircon will require another 20m per day and our water treatment facilities can handle up to 70m.

Water was one of three keys to the deal and without it this doesn't happen. Deals like this are once in a lifetime. Everything has to be perfect.

Water, land, economics, and relationships. The local State and federal government all did their parts or this doesn't happen. This is a Grand Slam and will forever change CNY in a very positive way.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Water was one of three keys to the deal and without it this doesn't happen. Deals like this are once in a lifetime. Everything has to be perfect.

Water, land, economics, and relationships. The local State and federal government all did their parts or this doesn't happen. This is a Grand Slam and will forever change CNY in a very positive way.

Not just water, but the reliability of our electric grid and price of electricity delivery overall compared to other states.

 

[sutomcat]

^^^^^^^
This.

CSX is the most obstinate organization on the planet. If it doesn’t meet their need, then it’s “NO SOUP FOR YOU”!!!

And passenger rail not only doesn’t meet their need, it hinders their primary mission.

Can’t see it happening unless extreme pressure, like never seen before, is placed on them.

Makes a lot of sense.

That said, talking about accommodating trains that run short loops for little money for a handful of SU football and basketball games fans is one thing.

If you have a thousand workers who want to use the train every day to get back and forth to work, that is another thing. With the price of gas, the demise of I81 going directly to downtown, and the cost for parking downtown, I could see this thing also getting embraced by a lot of people who live close the line in the northern suburbs and work downtown.

I live close to this line. There isn't much traffic on it. Just a couple trains a day as far as I can tell.

The line splits as it heads north between Buckley and Wetzel. The right fork goes north to Watertown and beyond. The left fork goes to Phoenix, Fulton and ends in Oswego (actually Nine Mile Point).

If this is really a big issue, maybe the state could build a spur from some point on the more western line (probably near Fulton) to join up to the line that heads north to Watertown north of Central Square. There is nothing going on up there.

But with the traffic on the line, I think it is crazy to have to do this. The public good needs to come into play sometimes. CSX would not be affected in any big way if this came to be.

 

[0.2 YNdeeR]

I love this idea.

It's a rarely-used freight line and does run past Fort Drum (I remember during Desert Storm when I was very young that trains on that line would run past with tanks and heavy trucks on flat cars.)

There are several obstacles in using it as passenger trackage:

1) It's single track the full distance without any significant sidings, which means one train at a time and only in one direction. CSX, who owns the trackage, already hates having to deal with passenger rail.
2) Because it's single track, that means a bottleneck at the vaunted Onondaga Lake Parkway bridge.
3) NYSW operates on the trackage within the city limits (including downtown) independently of CSX. CSX trackage runs west/east once it reaches the mall, where the spur line in question meets it.
4) OnTrak came into existance because it was a joint partnership between the county and the much smaller NYSW, which operated the service. CSX woud not be interested in passenger operations, meaning it would need to allow a small, independent body to operate on its trackage - and passenger traffic takes priority over freight by rule. So that would be a huge hoop to jump.

I'll defer to you and Jake on the obstacles (including CSX's profit motives). But working with the company to permit its freight lines to become dual-use (freight/passenger) in a few areas could provide a huge economic boost for the CNY region ... creating corridors for tourism and giving Central New Yorkers access to points North, East and West. I heard the same list of excuses and complaints when the Empire Express was cancelled.

Whatever the solution, clearly with all the money flowing around, our state and federal legislators could free up some $ to improve passenger rail options in NY. Along the freight line Tom mentions, spurs could be built and sidings constructed to avoid conflicts at key points. CSX has to be incentivized to do this or things will only get worse. It's a crying shame more is not being done.

 

[rocklloyd]

Studies show that Texas faces water shortages in the future. It is currently in a drought period.

Right, I just spent a week in Vegas. Lack of water (and levels in lake mead) dominate the headlines

 

[sutomcat]

Looks like most of the rail line we are discussed was purchased by CN (Canadian National Railway) in 2019.

If this article is right, CN owns the line from Woodard north to Montreal. I believe Woodard is just north of Buckley, where the line splits.

So while this gets CSX out of the picture for part of the line, it introduces a second company that needs to be dealt with.

CN to buy CSX line linking Montreal and Syracuse, N.Y. (updated) | Trains Magazine

Trains magazine offers railroad news, railroad industry insight, commentary on today's freight railroads, passenger service (Amtrak), locomotive technology, railroad preservation and history, railfan opportunities (tourist railroads, fan trips), and great railroad photography.

www.trains.com

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

Looks like most of the rail line we are discussed was purchased by CN (Canadian National Railway) in 2019.

If this article is right, CN owns the line from Woodard north to Montreal. I believe Woodard is just north of Buckley, where the line splits.

So while this gets CSX out of the picture for part of the line, it introduces a second company that needs to be dealt with.

CN to buy CSX line linking Montreal and Syracuse, N.Y. (updated) | Trains Magazine

Trains magazine offers railroad news, railroad industry insight, commentary on today's freight railroads, passenger service (Amtrak), locomotive technology, railroad preservation and history, railfan opportunities (tourist railroads, fan trips), and great railroad photography.

www.trains.com

View attachment 220766

Good catch, Tom. So CSX still owns the line that goes up to Oswego and Fulton. So to make matters more complicated, a hypothetical Route 31-Downtown passenger route would have to interchange upon 3 railroads in the space of what, 6 or 7 miles? That does not sound ideal.

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

I'll defer to you and Jake on the obstacles (including CSX's profit motives). But working with the company to permit its freight lines to become dual-use (freight/passenger) in a few areas could provide a huge economic boost for the CNY region ... creating corridors for tourism and giving Central New Yorkers access to points North, East and West. I heard the same list of excuses and complaints when the Empire Express was cancelled.

Whatever the solution, clearly with all the money flowing around, our state and federal legislators could free up some $ to improve passenger rail options in NY. Along the freight line Tom mentions, spurs could be built and sidings constructed to avoid conflicts at key points. CSX has to be incentivized to do this or things will only get worse. It's a crying shame more is not being done.

I am all for enhanced rail travel in Upstate NY. Unfortunately, in my not-all-that-educated-opinion, the best bet is to build lines owned and operated by Amtrak (or some other entity) that CSX/Norfolk Southern don't touch. It's one of the reasons the NE Corridor is so efficient and viable.

 

[Jake]

Good catch, Tom. So CSX still owns the line that goes up to Oswego and Fulton. So to make matters more complicated, a hypothetical Route 31-Downtown passenger route would have to interchange upon 3 railroads in the space of what, 6 or 7 miles? That does not sound ideal.

But if it only connects Liverpool to brewertom, it’s one carrier

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

But if it only connects Liverpool to brewertom, it’s one carrier

Yeah, but unless this project means a housing boom for the Central Square district, exclusive of B-ville, Phoenix, CNS, etc., the population density doesn't justify that. (I'm very much enjoying this thought exercise).

 

[orangefog]

SUNY IT in Marcy has had this major for a few years now in conjunction with their own local projects, so some of the colleges and universities already have this pipeline running.

It's SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) now. I believe they are required to change the name every 10 years or so. SUNY Tech-->SUNY IT-->SUNY Poly

 

[javadoc]

Yeah, but unless this project means a housing boom for the Central Square district, exclusive of B-ville, Phoenix, CNS, etc., the population density doesn't justify that. (I'm very much enjoying this thought exercise).

This is a great thread.

 

[Bayside44]

Just received an email from SU on what this could mean for prospective students.

 

[texascpa]

Right, I just spent a week in Vegas. Lack of water (and levels in lake mead) dominate the headlines

Yeah, but isn't that because Los Angeles sucks water from there? That's a big part of Lake Mead's problems.

 

[sutomcat]

Yeah, but unless this project means a housing boom for the Central Square district, exclusive of B-ville, Phoenix, CNS, etc., the population density doesn't justify that. (I'm very much enjoying this thought exercise).

Just to expand things a bit more, I agree with Capt. Tuttle that this rail line is really poorly located.

Why someone thought it would be a good idea to put rail lines on both sides of Onondaga Lake so long ago is beyond me.

The line has to connect to the main east-west line that runs through Syracuse. It you could move it now, the best place to run it would be alongside I81 from the east-west rail line, near the new train station, then follow I90 all the way up to just before Vine St, where it could attach to the existing line.

Run it on the edge of the largely vacant Lockheed property. Following the I81 right of way and the I90 right of way makes this relatively easy.

This would re-capture the shoreline on the east side of Onondaga Lake, allow for the path around the lake to be completed and make the awful bridge/accident waiting to happen finally go away.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Love this quote from the County Exec:

"They’re making their biggest bet they’ve ever made in their history on us, on our people, and that validates our community. It validates our values and most importantly, it validates our people. And our people need to get the chip off our shoulder that we’ve had on for three decades. It’s a new day. The future of this country is right here in our county."