 Westport, NY | Adirondack | Ticonderoga, NY  |
Port Henry is a stop on the Adirondack that has had train service in the Amtrak era since some point between the June and October 1976 timetables. The station is located in the small Village of Port Henry in the Town of Moriah, right along Lake Champlain, which is hidden directly in front of the station by some trees. On the current (2012) timetable the stop is the farthest north you can ride on a day trip on the Adirondack from New York City and other points south. It is the most northern point that the Trails & Rails volunteers ride with their narrations so they can head south and return home on the very same day with just a 25 minute scheduled layover if the southbound #69 (in particular, it's often delayed at the boarder) is on time. I visited the station on a same-day layover and turn to ride the VIA cars including Park cars Amtrak was borrowing on the Adirondack after Superstorm Sandy for 7 days over Thanksgiving 2012. There were a bunch of other railfans doing the same trip, hence all the people in of my photos of this station. The depot is in the Romanesque Revival style built in 1888 for the Delaware & Hudson. The depot is presently the Moriah Senior Citizens Center and claims to also have a waiting room but this room was occupied by a bunch of seniors watching daytime television. The seniors were not all that friendly when I tried to go inside and get some photos and get out of the cold. There is also a kitchen used for cooking the meals that are a major service preformed by senior centers. Inside the (waiting room) TV room there are a few railroad decorations include a mannequin dressed up as an Amtrak Policewomen. Between the station and the tracks is a concrete parking lot (making this station one with drive-up access to trains) with gravel driveways at each end (there is no way to reach the station without gravel) and behind the stone depot, this driveway/street wraps down the hill from Main Street (NYS-22) at each end of the station and is called Park Place. There are a few benches outside the depot, a tiny information panel and a small sign with the new Amtrak logo beneath a sign for Port Henry, NY. Railroad Station Built 1888.
In 2010-2011 the station became ADA complaint. It received a tiny twenty foot long platform with tactile warning strip on a new section of blacktop (where gravel once was) just south of the historic depot. This also includes a blue striped crosswalk that leads to two accessible parking spaces (the only striped parking spaces at the entire station) and also a cream colored wheelchair lift enclosure at the southern end of this tiny station area. Two modern tall lampposts were built on and near the little platform. Four modern silver signs were installed: one on the platform, one on a grassy lawn just south of the station and another north of the modern platform directly in front of the depot making it harder to drive around it. A final sign is just north of a now overgrown extended slate sidewalk platform that extends for about 150 feet from southern end of where the modern platform (that no longer requires stools) descends to below track level. There is another, small blue Port Henry sign across the tracks from the depot. There is also an ADA braille sign at the northern corner of the stone depot. Along the track opposite the platform is a small, vertical Port Henry sign.
On the grassy hill between Park Place and main street (where there are also a few simple buildings), just above the station is a small section of track that connects to nothing. On this track are three train cars all painted in the black with yellow livery of the Lake Champlain and Moriah Railroad. The head car is ex-CP ALCO RS-18 1801 painted as L.C. & H #20, although never used by that railroad. The middle car is an ore car # 320, and the Caboose is #5. These cars were actually used by the railroad, built to haul iron ore. The only attraction within walking distance of the station is the Lakes to Locks Passage Iron Center.
