16-02-06 PHOTOS: Empire State of Mind

The month of February has been an opportunity to travel to the NY Capitol Region for an extended weekend of skiing, college hockey and railfan activities. This year, due to atypically low snow levels in the Adirondacks, I was only able to peruse two of those three, but I didn't mind since that meant more time to railfan ;-)

Most of the pics involve Amtrak's Hudson Line used by the Empire Service trains. There is a general reconstruction project taking place at the Albany-Renssalaer terminal complex to increase both speeds and the number of tracks. I also captured some of the work on the double track project between Albany and CP-169 west of Schenectady. You can view the full set here.

We begin with my last ride behind an AEM-7 in Amtrak service as #915 shows up with my early morning Regional train in Baltimore.



My Empire train suffered an initial terminal delay of about 20 minutes because of work at the INWOOD movable bridge that rendered the switch there non-functional and the Empire Line effectivly a single track railroad.

At Poughkeepie I caught heritage painted P32AC-DM #704 hauling Empire train #242.

Classic New York Central signal bridge at MP 79.

CP-114 at Hudson, NY with a CSX geep in the yard.

Attention Amtrak, I found where all your missing platform stools had wound up.

The Alfred H. Newman Smith Bridge spanning the high speed section of Amtrak's Hudson Line. North of CP-125, where CSX freight traffic departs via the Schodak Branch, speeds increase to 110mph from 95. Prior to Amtrak's lease of the entire Hudson Line from CSX, this section had also been maintained by Amtrak. 

The rebuilt CP-142 at Albany-Rensselaer. LED searchlights have replaced the GRS SA electro-mechanical models. 

Amtrak P32AC-DM #706 headed into the yard at Albany-Rensselaer. Note the new platform extension work as well as the rebuilding of CP-143.