from the west comes in over the Selkirk Subdivision. The east end becomes the Castleton Subdivision, extending a mere five miles before rains fan out to Albany on the Port Subdivision, to New England over the Berkshire Subdivi- sion, to New Jersey over the River Sub- division, and to points south on the east side of the Hudson River on the Schodack Subdivision, which connects to the mostly passenger Hudson Subdi- vision.
CSX Operations Throughout the Capital District,
CSX offers three styles of operations. There is Monday-through-Friday local service, Tuesday-through-Saturday in- termodal trains, and daily all of the above. You can select what you want to shoot based on personal preference, but due to the frequency of trains it is quite possible to photograph many different aspects of its operation in one day. CSX maintains local crew bases in
South Schenectady (Selkirk Sub) and West Albany (Hudson Sub). At West Albany, the locals operate Monday through Friday as trains B758 and B763. The West Albany Yard is not a location to stroll into with the camera and can be best viewed as a passenger in a car rolling along on Alternate I-90 eastbound. On the plus side, though,
B763 is a traveling switcher that will operate eastbound to the Port of Rens- selaer to switch local industries such as Gorman (liquid asphalt) and Rensse- laer Iron & Steel, with plenty of loca- tions along the way to photograph the action. At press time, this generally happens on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, while Wednesday and Fri- day there is usually operate a turn to South Schenectady. Moving over to the South Schenec-
tady base, the same obstacle pattern occurs as the crew base is within the Rotterdam Industrial Park limits and does not have public access. However, locals B760 and B761 both have travel- ing assignments which provide photo opportunities. B760 will operate west- bound to Little Falls once a week (gen- erally Monday) and westbound to Ams- terdam to service industries on the Kellogg Industrial two to three times per week between April and November. The B761 operates Monday through Friday over the Carman Subdivision to the Hudson Subdivision to the Troy In- dustrial Track usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday, primarily to serve Interstate Commodities in Troy, while operating to West Albany with freight transfers on Tuesday and Thursday. Both locals open the door to many public photo opportunities, and
all West Albany and South Schenec- tady based locals traditionally host GP40-2 standard-cab locomotives. Moving over to Selkirk, the most con-
sistent local base is the three ’round- the-clock locals that traverse the Port Subdivision from Selkirk to the Port of Albany. Locals Y-122, Y-223, and Y-322 usually spend eight hour shifts just moving freight back and forth for their ethanol customer and inter- change traffic to the Albany Port Rail- road and Canadian Pacific. This is a daily operation that generally sports a pair of SD40-2 locomotives and offers a variety of branch line views along sev- eral side roads that stem off Route 144. Also at Selkirk is the weekday local, Y- 123, which handles local deliveries to Sabic Innovative Plastics (seen from Creble Road in Selkirk) and switching for Owens-Corning which can be seen from a distance from Route 32 (Feura Bush Road). This local also usually has an SD40-2 assigned. CSX has a dedicated turn job which operates between Selkirk and Rotter- dam Junction to cover the basics of the Selkirk Subdivision, the Q633. This train generally operates northwest in the morning and handles set-off and pick-up interchange for the SMS Rail Lines at Guilderland Center, the same for South Schenectady locals, and in-
TOP: Three Canadian Pacific units lead three CEFX SD40-2s pulling train 414 (now 450) over the Mohawk River into Waterford, N.Y., on the CP Colonie Subdivision on August 27, 2008. LEFT: CSX local train B763 creeps through Rensselaer, N.Y., under the Albany skyline with GP40-2s Nos. 6203 and 6219 on March 27, 2012. A “shoving platform” ballast car is towed behind the units.
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