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I have a few questions: I believe Metro North owns the Amtrak tracks along the Hudson from NYC to Poughkeepsie, right? And then CXS to Albany & west? And north of Albany, is that CN?
Also, do freight trains use the track much on the east side of the Hudson between Albany and NYC? I don't recall ever seeing any. Also, if they use them, do they go all the way to NYC and pay Metro North a fee? And where do they wind up--Queens? (I know they don't go into Penn Station) Or do they turn off someplace further north and head into Connecticut or what?
Thanks!
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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Ms. Sojourner, save your likely transposition of CSX vice CXS, you are correct about the ownership of the New York Central Hudson Division. North of Albany the Delaware and Hudson, route of the Adirondack, is now property of a Canadian Pacific US subsidiary.
Westward of Albany, as you correctly noted, the NYC is now owned by CSX.
Freight traffic, other than that to serve on line industries is routed over the West Shore Line. Circuituous as it may seem, traffic is handled from an on line Hudson Div industry Northward to Selkirk.
The closer you get to New York, other than the freight only West Shore, the more the infrastructure is devoted to handling passenger traffic.
dns8560 Member # 15184
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The CSX River sub on the west shore between Selkirk, NY and North Bergen, NJ is fairly busy. Iona Island near West Point is a good place to railfan.
On the east shore. in the wee hours, a couple of freights travel the ex-NYC Amtrak/CSX/Metro-North Hudson Line. They mostly go to Oak Point Yard in the South Bronx. Some trains may continue across The Hell Gate Bridge to Queens and Brooklyn. In recent years a new roadbed was built along the Harlem River to avoid the tight turns at Mott Haven and Melrose. It may also have been built to allow containers.
The Waste Management garbage train travels this route. I'll tell you, when it passes, the air stinks for a long time afterward!
20th Century Member # 2196
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Service was temporarily suspended until noon today due to flooding on the Hudson line. CSX needed to check the signals,etc. to see if everything was working properly before reopening the line. This is posted on Amtrak's site.
rresor Member # 128
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The line from Grand Central Terminal to MP 75.8 (just north of the Poughkeepsie station) was acquired from Penn Central by the state of NY in the early 1970s. The West Side line from Spuyten Duyvil to Penn Station (the route used by Amtrak trains) is owned and maintained by Amtrak.
North of MP 75.8, the Hudson Line is owned by CSX to CP ("control point") 125 (at about MP 125, south of Albany. From there through Albany (MP 142) and on to Amsterdam (MP 169) track is owned by CSX, but leased to and maintained by Amtrak. West of CP 169, track is once again owned, maintained, and dispatched by CSX.
CSX operates a pair of daily freight trains from Selkirk Yard (near Albany) to Oak Point in the Bronx. Conrail formerly operated the train through to Fresh Pond, on Long Island, but the train was cut back to Oak Point a number of years ago. There is still local freight service from Oak Point to Long Island.
Freight trains bypass the busy Metro-North junction at Mott Haven by using the Oak Point Link, a single-track route constructed at considerable expense in the 1980s by the state of NY. Due to constraints imposed by tides on the Harlem River and clearance under overhead bridges, the Oak Point Link does not have sufficient clearance for double-stack containers. This limits its usefulness for moving freight to and from NY.
Canadian Pacific Railway has trackage rights into Oak Point, and runs trains two or three times a week.
sojourner Member # 3134
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Thanks all so much for this info. RResor, I am a little confused by what you are saying--do the freight trains to which you refer all travel on the east side of the Hudson River on the same track as Amtrak? I had no idea there were so many; I thought most of the freight trains to the NYC area went down the west side of the Hudson River.
rresor Member # 128
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Yes, you're correct. Read what I wrote a bit more carefully. One pair of daily CSX freight trains, and a few CP trains a week, are the total freight traffic on the east side of the Hudson River. The line on the west side, the former Conrail River Line, carries probably two dozen freight trains a day to and from Selkirk Yard outside Albany, and no passenger traffic.
sojourner Member # 3134
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Thanks, RResor. I actually still think that's a lot compared to what I thought, which was a couple of trains a week!!
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