The Plaster Hills & Western Railway runs from gypsum mines & a gravel pit in the Adirondack Mountains east to connections with the Parsons Vale (Terminal de Montréal/Delaware & Hudson) in Plattsburg, NY.

PH&W locomotive roster (1950-2020)

No	Description	Type	Builder	Purchased	Notes
1	C (0-6-0t)	S	Baldwin	1920	Scrapped 1956
2	C	S	MLW	1925	Scrapped 1956
3	B (0-4-0t)	S	Baldwin	1928	Retired 1976
4	C (0-6-0t)	S	Baldwin	1929	Retired 1976
5	1-C (2-6-0)	S	Alco	1932	Wrecked & scrapped 1945
6	VO 660	DE	Baldwin	1955	Retired 1958 (broken crankshaft)
7	VO 660	DE	Baldwin	1955	Retired 1961 (generator failure)
8	B (0-4-0t)	S	Porter	1959	Retired 1976
9	1-D (2-8-0)	S	Alco	1961	Retired 1976
576	rsc-2m	DE	Alco	1976	Ex-Milw 576
578	rsc-2m	DE	Alco	1987	Ex-B&FJ 5 (formerly Milw 578)

PH&W route map

None of the mines or quarries on the PH&W are hugely productive. A handful of cars are loaded at the granite quarry on Hazeltine Hill, the gravel pit on the ramp down to Altona sees the occasional trainload to hand over to the D&H or TdM, and the Plaster Hills gypsum mine sees 2-3 trainloads a week (the gypsum is processed at a facility just north of the yard and interchange with the D&H at the southeast end of the railroad.)

Despite all this the mainline from the Plaster Hills mine to Plattsburg is maintained to allow 40mph trains, which some of the steam engines are able to make on the way up the mountain, and which all of them are able to make on the way down. (This is thanks to the way the railroad is run; dieselizing was a financial disaster which forced the PH&W into bankruptcy, so the employees bought it out, went back to steam, and are running it as an anarchistic commune. A railroad is much cheaper to run if there are no stockholders or management.)

The PH&W dieselised a second time in 1976 when they replaced all of the remaining steam engines with ex-Milw 576, supplemented in 1987 by ex-B&FJ 5.