MALONE -A hearing on the lawsuit filed by the Adirondack Rail Preservation Society against the state Adirondack Park Agency and departments of Environmental Conservation and Transportation has been postponed from Wednesday until Nov. 2 at 10:30 a.m. The hearing will be held at the county court house in Malone.

The lawsuit, which challenges the DEC and DOT plan to turn 34 miles of rail corridor between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid into a multi-use trail, was filed earlier this summer. The Rail Preservation Society is the parent company of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad which operates tourist trains between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.

The lawsuit was filed in state Supreme Court in Franklin County and will be heard by the honorable Judge Main.

The suit alleges that DEC, DOT and the APA failed to account for historic preservation and land use laws. Originally, DOT was not included as a defendant in the suit, but ARPS amended the lawsuit in July to include the DOT. DOT maintains jurisdictional oversight of the corridor, which stretches from Lake Placid to Old Forge.

The court clerk in Malone did not give a reason for the delay, but a press release issued by ARPS Thursday morning says that the state asked for the delay “because the Department of Transportation discovered that the State does not own fee title to all of property constituting the Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor.

“Bill Branson, President of the Adirondack Railroad, questioned how the State was able to approve the UMP, which calls for the removal of the track along a portion of the Corridor in favor of the construction of a recreational trail, without being aware of these title issues.”