Eastern Railroad Discussion > Vorheedale (sp?) NY

Was out and about in the Capital region yesterday, and I came across what used to be a diamond there. When was this torn out, and are the two other ends of the D&H still used?

I noticed that the switch on the north end is permently lined towards CSX, and on the south side, there is a steady red signal.

Grade crossing lights still seem to be maintained. This must have been one really screwed up diamond, as there is that grade crossing basically right in the middle of what was the diamond.

Also, if anyone has the freq's for the D&H (CPR) used west of Albany (towards Oneonta) and GRS in the area, it would be great. I spent the day in the area with the GPS and laptop, but really didn't see much action..

Selkirk was kinda slow, but lots of UP power and a patched SP SD70

I think the town name was Vorheesville. I can't answer the rest of the questions, but that diamond was yanked since the last time I visited (summer 1998).

BobE

That D&H line is known as the Albany main, which splits off the Saratoga main at Delanson NY.

The only real business is the auto ramp at Guilderland/Voorheesville. CP used to serve the auto ramp with a local out of Kenwood yard (from the east), which used to cross the CR diamond. The west end of the Albany main between Guilderland and Delanson was out of service for many years, until a bridge defect forced CP to start using the west end of the line from Delanson to serve the auto ramp. Since serving the line from the west does not require crossing CR, the diamond came out.

To answer all of the questions here.

The diamonds at Voorheesville (CP-VO on CSX's Selkirk Sub) were torn out in June 2000 following heavy rains. These rains resulted in flooding that knocked out the bridge over the Normans Kill (a stream) which is about a mile west of Kenwood Yard on the Albany Main. This bridge has yet to be repaired. Since the diamonds were a hassle to maintain and slowed their trains by 10 mph, CSX tore them out. They are in the weeds on the east corner between the D&H and CSX trackage.

The connecting track was rebuilt (it was OOS) and has been used twice since that summer I believe. The Albany main on the south side is still in service regularly up to Guilderland Industrial Park.

The frequencies for the D&H are 161.100 for the North Dispatcher, 161.475 for the South Dispatcher. The split is in Central Bridge, NY - just south of Delanson, where the Albany Main splits off the freight main to head east.

GRS District 4 (ex B&M) is on channel 161.160.

As for activity, CSX seems to be slow midday, better early. D&H had at least four trains moving on the freight main, and Guilford is out of range down there. You have to go up just north of Schenectady to really start to get Guilford action.

If you are ever in the area again, feel free to e-mail me and I can show you around a bit.

Corey

Around the time of the removal of the V'ville diamonds, there was a semi-persistent rumor that NS/CP was considering the use of the Albany Main as a thru line for Northbd trains, an alternative to going way north to Mechanicville and then back around south again to get to Kenwood. I assume that the bridge washout probably made that idea impractical. This routing would have required such northbd trains to back into Kenwood, which would have been a marginal setup anyway.

I assume the Albany main must have been primarily a passenger line, as it would have allowed direct access to the massive D&H station at Albany without the backup move just mentioned.

Note that the remaining connection to the west end of the Albany main (one reply, above, said it has been used only twice!) requires D&H/CP to run through Selkirk Yard, which I assume they got rights to do from CSX in exchange for giving permission for the removal of the diamonds. That said, I suspect CSX doesn't go out of it's way to make this through-the-yard move easy for CP.

Yes, this line was probably a passenger line mostly. There would currently be one train that would benefit from going over the Albany Main, and that is the 268/269 Intermodal from the NS at Binghamton. However, they have such a large drop/pickup at Mohawk for the GRS MOAY/AYMO that it is doubtful the train would be re-routed even if the diamonds were reinstalled. (This was one of the trains detoured over the connector while the Colonie Main was OOS due to flooding in December of 2000 - unfortunately it was done in the middle of the night.)

CP trains currently run into Selkirk from Kenwood (actually Montreal) so rights on the Albany side of the line already exist. The only rights needed were between CP-VO and the yard itself, less than a dozen miles.

Corey

During the immediate post-Guilford years, the Albany Main was used between Delanson and Kenwood for grain trains headed to the Port of Albany. That stopped when the track west of Altamont got too weak to handle the load. NYSW, the designated operator during the bankruptcy, sometimes ran the empties back west as ALBU's with general freight ahead of the hoppers.

When the bridge was abruptly closed, the west end of the Albany main was impassable from being out of service for so long. The initial detours ran via Kenwood Yard/Selkirk yard.

That traffic came northeast up the D&H main from Binghamton to Delanson, turned north at Delanson to (almost abandoned) Mohawk Yard, ran through Mohawk and turned east at Crescent, headed east to (abandoned) Mechanicville Yard, turned south at Mickey, passing Kenwood Yard, south to SK, where it turned northwest at SK (entering CSX-CR), ran past Selkirk yard, and turned west at VO (leaving CSX-CR) to get on the Albany main in a westward direction.

Talk about your boxcars running in circles!

That traffic passed every damn yard (and ex-yard) in the Capitol region.

Thanks for the replies! Now this ex-Cr track at CP-VO comes off the Chicago line right? Or does that play in from somewhere else?

I am just looking for the highest train density possible when I swing back that way in the near future..

The ex-CR track through Voorheesville is the Selkirk Branch (I presume CSX calls it the Selkirk Branch Subdivision or just the Selkirk Subdivision) and hosts all the mainline freight traffic west from the big yard at Silly-kirk to and from Syracuse and beyond. It joins the Chicago Line at Hoffmans (CP-169) along the Mohawk River. As far as I know, only Amtrak regularly uses the Chicago Line between CP-169 and downtown Schenectady; in Conrail days a local job based at South Schenectady ran over on the Carman branch to reach Chi-Line customers and West Albany Yard.

toledopatch wrote:

> During the immediate post-Guilford years, the Albany Main was
> used between Delanson and Kenwood for grain trains headed to
> the Port of Albany. That stopped when the track west of
> Altamont got too weak to handle the load. NYSW, the designated
> operator during the bankruptcy, sometimes ran the empties back
> west as ALBU\\'s with general freight ahead of the hoppers.
>

That's mostly what the D&H used it for as well as the sporadic container traffic post-Conrail. I've also seen coal moves on the stretch of track, but not sure what their destinations were. I believe the symbols you heard were ABBU.

>When the bridge was abruptly closed, the west end of the Albany main was impassable from being out of service for so long. The initial detours ran via Kenwood Yard/Selkirk yard.

>That traffic came northeast up the D&H main from Binghamton to Delanson, turned north at Delanson to (almost abandoned) Mohawk Yard, ran through Mohawk and turned east at Crescent, headed east to (abandoned) Mechanicville Yard, turned south at Mickey, passing Kenwood Yard, south to SK, where it turned northwest at SK (entering CSX-CR), ran past Selkirk yard, and turned west at VO (leaving CSX-CR) to get on the Albany main in a westward direction.
---------

Hmm, now this is what they did before the washout, with the exception of the routing through Selkirk. So it would follow your routing to Kenwood (maybe Delanson-Saratoga, Saratoga-Kenwood), then take the Albany Main out. The local came from Kenwood to switch GIP, so it was roundabout anyway. As stated, this line saw almost no regular traffic, with the exception of that local. SU-11 handles GIP now from the west end. That changeover was made very quickly.

There is currently only one train that follows the "roundabout" route, the aforemention NS intermodal 268/269. Bingo-Delanson-Mohawk-Crescent-Mechyville-Albany. And as I stated, the interchange with the GRS at Crescent/Mohawk is too good to lose (they get more cars than Albany does) so there is no push to get the bridge in.

Plantman is right. The trains were ABBU's.