TUPPER LAKE – Inside the Blue Line, there are few issues as divisive as the debate surrounding the Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor unit management plan.

Opinions on the future of the corridor range anywhere from “The rails are the most important thing that ever existed in our community and only expanded rail service will save us all” to “Replacing the rails with a trail will single-handedly turn us into a tourism-fueled engine of economic prosperity.” Advocates have dissected this issue much more thoroughly than the scope of this article allows, and until the state makes a final decision on its plan for the corridor, the debate will no doubt continue to rage throughout the region.

One community sits literally and figuratively at the heart of the debate: Tupper Lake. The “Crossroads of the Adirondacks,” as it calls itself, it lies at the center of the state’s so-called compromise plan proposed by its departments of Transportation and Environmental Conservation. To put it briefly, DEC and DOT want to tear up the rails and put in a multi-use recreational trail on the 34-mile stretch between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid, and upgrade the tracks to expand train service on the 45-mile section between Big Moose and Tupper Lake. The tracks are already upgraded south of Big Moose, allowing the Adirondack Scenic Railroad to carry visitors up from Utica.

From one end of Tupper Lake’s rebuilt railroad station would come train riders from Utica and Old Forge. From the other would come bike riders from Fish Creek and Rollins Pond campgrounds, as well as perhaps from Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, in the summer and more snowmobilers in the winter.

Tupper Lakers have various thoughts about what the compromise plan could mean for their future.

“I think, strategically, you don’t take rail lines out when you’re talking about Olympics and other things,” village Mayor Paul Maroun said. Nevertheless, he added, “I think it would be great for Tupper Lake.

“Trains would come in from the west, and we would put packages together to get people from New York City into the heart of the Adirondacks. And then from Tupper Lake there would be, I would assume, shuttles and car rentals going to Lake Placid because that is the biggest name in the area. … People that want to experience the Park all the way up through the most wild parts of it, they could take a train out of Remsen. There could be drop-off points along the way where you could get off with your kayak, your guideboat or just camp along the route, and then know that a train would be coming back one way or the other. And then if you wanted to come into Tupper Lake for the night or stay a couple of days or go on to Lake Placid, you could, or you could go the other way and head back down to Rome and Utica.

“I think it’s going to be a plus for Tupper Lake whichever way it goes, but I think really, for the good of the whole North Country, and if we’re seriously talking about an Olympics, I think it’s a bit foolish to take the only multi-source of transportation where many people can come in at one time to an area, and eliminate it.”

Town Supervisor Patti Littlefield thought differently.

“I think it’s a great option for Tupper Lake,” she said. “Maybe, in our rose-colored world, they’ll say it’s so great that they’ll reconsider taking the tracks up between Tupper Lake and Big Moose so they can encourage more snowmobile traffic this way. That’s still going to be a challenge, getting the snowmobilers to Tupper Lake from that direction. As for the other direction, it’s going to be fantastic. It’s a win-win for Tupper Lake, no matter how you think about it.”

Littlefield said Tupper Lake could possibly become the new home of the popular Rail Explorers rail bike excursions, a company whose current area of operations would be displaced by the recreational trail component of the compromise plan. The company’s owners, however, are pushing to keep the tracks, and their operations, in Saranac Lake and Lake Clear.

“(Rail Explorers) is already proving that people want to be on the corridor,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be a nice opportunity for (it) to relocate and go down the existing tracks that are supposed to stay?”

Littlefield said the compromise plan would bring increased economic opportunities to the Junction part of town, named for where a railroad to Ottawa once connected with the one that still exists. She noted that the neighborhood has been improved by the rebuilt train station, which hosts events, plus the new Junction Pass Trail that includes part of an abandoned Ottawa and New York rail corridor as it connects to The Wild Center nature museum and its popular new aerial attraction, the Wild Walk.

“That was a fantastic plan that came to fruition, so the two together, I could see some businesses popping up,” she said.

Village Trustee Rick Donah, who manages P2’s Irish Pub in the Junction, is skeptical of the state’s plan.

“If they’re going to restore train service to Tupper Lake, I think that’s wonderful,” he said. “I don’t believe it. I want to see the state put the money in the budget to do it, and then when I see that, maybe I’ll believe it. They’ve left that corridor to rot over the last 50 years. Nostalgia only gets you so far.

“Those tracks are dangerous. They’ve been abandoned, as far as I’m concerned, and nobody can use them, not even the people that want to use them. I think the best alternative is to pull them up and create a trail because the economics of it from a Tupper Lake standpoint would allow us to capitalize on a full snowmobile season instead of two weeks in the highest snow count of the season. There is a huge difference when there is enough snow to cover those tracks. Can you imagine what it would be like if we had a flat surface for these people to snowmobile on all (winter long)? We would probably have, I would say, no less than a half million or a million dollars more in snowmobile tourism business alone in the wintertime.”

Donah said expanding the recreational trail the length of the corridor would create new tourism opportunities in the summer months as well.

“What better way to access this wonderful park we have than a hundred-mile rail trail?” he said. “That type of rail trail would be a world-class attraction. People love the Adirondacks – give them access to it.

“I think people would bike from Lake Placid, Saranac Lake to Tupper Lake and vice versa. I think Fish Creek is a huge opportunity for us. There are 100,000 campers there every summer. It’s the biggest campground in New York state, and it’s 5 miles from Tupper Lake. It would be a perfect ride for families. All those people could come in. They would be able to connect to the rest of the village through the Junction Pass rail trail that we just created, and there is an economic win for everybody.”

Village trustee-elect Ron LaScala, the owner of ADK Appliance Repair who defeated Donah in Tuesday’s election, agreed.

“We, as a community, will see a benefit,” he said. “If the train comes, people will ride that train. Do I think that we’ll see as big a benefit from train riders that I think we’ll see from hikers and bikers and snowmobilers? I don’t.

“You get a train from Big Moose to Tupper Lake, that’s fine, but how many people are going to ride that train? Rail trails are proven economic drivers. Property sitting close to that trail raise in value. I don’t see that with a train. I don’t. I don’t know what we could do with a train from Old Forge to Tupper Lake because it’s not going to run in the winter. Once that weather turns and you look at sales tax receipts in the Adirondacks, the highest sales tax receipts in the winter are down in the snowmobile mecca, Old Forge. If the tracks were out, we would benefit 100 times better than we would having them there, and I think that 400 businesses (that signed a petition by Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates in support of a recreational trail) in every town the tracks run through have asked for the tracks to be torn out. Personally, I hope the (state Department of Environmental Conservation) plan doesn’t go through because I don’t think it’s a great deal for us. We’re stuck. Yes, we’ll get the bikers to come on through, and yes, we’ll get the snowmobilers, but we’re missing the boat.”

Jim LaValley, the owner of LaValley Real Estate and a partner in Big Tupper Brewing, said the compromise plan would be good for the community.

“I think Tupper is in a win-win position because you’ve got train coming to Tupper and then trail from Tupper going out,” he said. “It seems as though Tupper is sort of the beginning and the end of both ends of that issue. I think that’s great.”

Maggie Ernenwein, the owner of the Park Motel, didn’t think the compromise plan would change much at all.

“Most of the snowmobiles coming into town are coming the other way, from Cranberry (Lake),” she said. “That’s the track that stops them from coming when they don’t have enough snow coverage, so I don’t see it helping.

“As far as (trail supporters) saying there would be hikers and bicycles coming down that trail, I just don’t see it having a huge impact. Somebody at one meeting said they’d come in for dinner and a movie; I said, ‘Yeah? Is that trail lighted? They’re going to go back on a dark trail? I don’t think so.’ Who is responsible if somebody gets hurt out on that trail? Do we have the apparatus to go out and pick somebody up if they’re injured out there? Who is liable? Is it the state? Is it the railroad? Is it us? Is it the county? I don’t know.

“If they want to repair the track, they ought to repair the whole thing and use it to get freight in and out of here.”

The state Adirondack Park Agency is expected to discuss the rail-trail plan soon, possibly at its November meeting this week.