21-03-26 PHOTOS: Hudson Line Cleanup

For many years I have been taking trips to the New York Capitol Region around Albany as I have good friends that either went to school there or have family there. Typically I would take Amtrak's Empire Service to and from as I would have access to a vehicle at the far end to carry out the various cultural and outdoor activities that we had planned. However in recent years this vehicle access went away and while a rental filled the gap in 2019 and 2020, the COVID pandemic in the spring of 2021 made rail travel somewhat less attractive and my friend and I decided to drive up instead. The silver lining was that I would be able to visit a couple of signal locations on Amtrak's Hudson Line that were in danger of replacement by the creeping re-signaling project, specifically ones I had missed on my two previous Hudson Line signal documentation trips based out of Westchester country. You can find the full set of these photos here ( mirror ).

As all of the signaling worth seeing is north of Poughkeepsie, I would take the Thurway to US 44 and cross the Hudson via the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Of course this would require a stop at the Walkway Over The Hudson and despite the rather meh weather, I managed to score a photo of an northbound train of autoracks on the former Conrail River Line hauled by a single CSX AC4400, #474.

The fact that a single unit can manage such a long train belies the relative low weight density of motor vehicles compared to other freight.

The Hudson Valley Rail Trail, running over the old Bridge Line to Maybrook Yard, has parked an ex-PRR N5 caboose at the west end of the Hudson Walkway, despite the fact that the line was a major New Haven route.

North of the Amtrak/Metro North division post at CP-75 in Poughkeepsie, traditional New Yok Central / Conrail signaling is still in service with many classic signal bridges over what used to be a 4-track right of way. The Milepost 83 automatic signal is co-located with the Conrail, Staatsburg, New York defect detector and a grade crossing. Linespeed here is 95mph, but in the pre-PTC days it was not uncommon for engineers to get a little bit more with the fastest speed I observed on the detector readout being 103mph.

I was on hand for the appearance of a northbound Empire Service train led by Amtrak P32AC-DM #706.

The remains of the Staatsburg Station, closed in 1981, were still on display with a pair of decaying platforms and a track underpass.

At the cab signal code change point about half a mile north of the signal and station I discovered this cute animal art crime on the Conrail era CotTen steel relay hut.

Next stop was the site of the old Barrytown station. Also closed in 1981, one of the NY Central cast iron station signs had been transferred to the old post office and general store building situated on private property adjacent to the tracks.

Barrytown is located at the northern end of the old 4-track right of way and featured a manned interlocking tower into the 1960s. Although the 4-track is long gone, the interlocking remains in the form of CP-94, the northern end of a "main line siding" that runs between there and CP-89 in Rhinecliff. CP-94's real party piece is a surviving NY Central bracket mast for northbound movements, backed by a vintage truss bridge that connects the Rokeby estate with the Hudson river.

I had managed to get in position for the next scheduled northbound Amtrak Empire Service train pulled by P32AC-DM #708.

Even better, after completing my photo work I was just in time to catch a southbound Empire Service train drop the southbound Clear searchlight indication on track #2.

Up in the Capitol region I was mostly confined to non-rail activities, but my travels did manage to take me under Fuller's Flyover on the former Conrail Selkirk Branch where it crosses US Route 20. In its 4-track heyday, the New York Central ran in a 2+2 configuration with freight trains on its own pair of tracks north of passenger trains as all yard access was located on that side. To mitigate the change of a freight derailing in the path of an opposing passenger train, the fright tracks swapped directions so that eastbound trains would on the inner tracks and westbound trains on the outer.

I also encountered the former Delaware and Hudson station in Altamont on the former Albany branch. The station is 125 miles from Binghamton and 17 miles from Albany.

Although almost all the former Conrail signaling on the CSX controlled trackage in the Albany area had been replaced a decade or more ago, this pair of searchlight intermediate signals were still up on the old Carman branch that connected the Selkirk Branch and the Hudson Line between Albany and Schenectady. This branch is how CSX access the local freight terminal located at the top of the West Albany Hill around Milepost 148.

Well that's it for this trip. Next time I'll be making a visit to the Seabrook, Maryland MARC station.