BELOW: Canadian Pacifi c 5966 and 5926 cross the Mohawk River bridge at Cohoes, N.Y., on November 6, 2012. Today’s train has the VTR interchange picked up at Whitehall as well as the “gas train” empty tanks heading for the Port of Albany at Kenwood Yard as they make their daily cycle from Burlington, Vt., for re- fi ll. JOHN CULLINAN BOTTOM: Canadian Pacifi c train No. 608, a loaded crude oil train, passes XO Tower in Mechanicville, N.Y., as it heads south for Albany on May 4, 2013. Once respon- sible for controlling movements in and out of the old Mechanicville Yard as well as guarding the junction of the Boston & Maine and the Delaware & Hudson, XO Tower is being refur- bished by the city as a tourist center. One of the goals for the project is to turn the upstairs into an observation deck for railroad enthusiasts. TIM STOCKWELL
Gateway” partnership. Once that train arrives from Whitehall at Rutland it will be split into two “halves” and forwarded east to Bellows Falls (and beyond). Returning empties travel as one train westbound. Further south in Albany, access to Kenwood Yard is restricted, but most operations are viewable in the afternoon from the shoulder of I-787. Whitehall provides the location nearest to the convention base to shoot photos of the CP. To the north of the village is the causeway on the lower end of Lake Champlain, and Route 22 follows the track in a roundabout way north as the mainline tends to hug the shoreline. Ticonderoga, Port Henry, Willsboro (the “Red Rocks”), and Plattsburg all have access trackside. To the south of Whitehall lie the communities of Fort Ann, Fort Edward, Saratoga, Mechanicville Yard (with “XO” tower), and Mohawk Yard outside Schenectady (which has no access but does have other
nearby photo spots). Another CP option in the region is the small yard at Fort Edward. This is the base of operations for a local that services the paper mill in nearby Glens Falls. Train speeds on CP can be quite a challenge to keep up with in a car due to the geography of the contiguous highways, so it is best to plan your shots ahead of time if possible.
Pan Am Southern Pam Am Southern is a partnership
formed in 2009 with Norfolk Southern and is operated by Pan Am Railways. PAS interchanges normally with the VTR at North Bennington via Hoosick Junction (the southern terminus of the “extended” B&R subdivision owned by the State of Vermont). As traffic warrants either railroad (or both) may be seen exchanging cars at Hoosick Jct. instead of North Bennington to effect an easier transfer. One highlight of this branch is the high deck truss bridge over the Walloomsac River near the intersections of Routes 22 and 67. While access to Hoosick Junction can be difficult, runaround moves often extend to the end of the long passing track at Eagle Bridge, N.Y. Mainline traffic on the west end of the railroad between North Adams, Mass., and the Albany area can be sporadic. A mix of road power in old Guilford gray- and-orange paint and new Pan Am “dip blue” can be found on trains, as well as a number of leasers and Norfolk Southern units. Maximum track speed is 40 m.p.h. in many areas, which can make chasing from parallel two-lane highways a challenge. Within reasonable driving distance
from Rutland is the major classification yard in East Deerfield, Mass., and the recently renovated intermodal yard at Mechanicville, N.Y. There is no public access to Mechanicville Yard, though most of the action can be safely viewed from the old-D&H “XO” tower anchoring the diverging PAS and CP mainlines.
Batten Kill Railroad
The Batten Kill Railroad is a colorful shortline operation located near the New York-Vermont border. This bucolic shortline can trace its roots back to the original Greenwich & Johnsonville Railroad, which became a subsidiary of the D&H in 1900. Ron Crowd’s Mohawk- Hudson Transportation purchased the G&J and a portion of the D&H Washington Branch in 1982, forming the Batten Kill Railroad. In 2008, ownership passed to Bill Taber, who purchased the railroad from the Crowd estate. Headquarters and offices for the
BKRR are situated in Greenwich (pronounced “GREEN-wich”), N.Y., where the engine house is home to a pair of active Alco RS3 dinosaurs that have
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