Conrail’s Selkirk Branch West to Amsterdam

Long before Conrail and now CSX, Albany, New York has long been a congested railroad “hot spot” for freight traffic. In New York Central says, freight traffic from the south was forced to run through the congestion of the city of Albany. To alleviate this situation, a shortcut was constructed to allow a more direct route for this traffic as well as traffic from the Boston & Albany in the east. This routing required a new bridge across the Hudson River. The “Selkirk Branch” connected to the big yard at Selkirk and continued west through Feura Bush, Voorheesville, Guilderland and Amsterdam. When this footage was taken, in the late 1980s, freight traffic was quite heavy on Conrail’s northeast lines – including the Selkirk Branch.