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    Railroads of Rensselaer
    Railroads of Rensselaer
    Railroads of Rensselaer
    Ebook166 pages31 minutes

    Railroads of Rensselaer

    By Ernie Mann

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    About this ebook

    Rensselaer was once a classic American railroad town, and like most cities and towns of its type, it was part of an important junction of several destinations. From the 1840s to today, trains have rolled to the four principal compass points from town. Located across the Hudson River from Albany, Rensselaer has seen a rich array of locomotives, structures, and notable trains, all helping to establish Rensselaer's rail prominence and the industry's importance to and involvement in the community. Today Rensselaer hosts the Albany Amtrak station, which sees an average of 775,000 passengers annually and is ranked as the country's 10th busiest station. Using images of rolling stock, buildings, maps, documents, and memorabilia, Railroads of Rensselaer is a visual trip through the years.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 19, 2009
    ISBN9781439637432
    Railroads of Rensselaer
    Author

    Ernie Mann

    Ernie Mann has had a lifelong interest in rail history and worked his way through college in locomotive service. His father and grandfathers worked a total of 123 years on local railroads. He had a long career as a teacher and many years as a city fire chief.

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      Book preview

      Railroads of Rensselaer - Ernie Mann

      Whitbeck.

      INTRODUCTION

      Rensselaer, New York, and the surrounding Capital District is an area that was a natural birthplace for transportation routes. The Hudson, Mohawk, and Champlain Valleys encouraged travel to the south, west, and north. The gradual slopes, passes, and river valleys of the Berkshires made eastward passage to the Atlantic Ocean achievable also. Routes originally marked by Native American trails became roads, canals, highways, and railroads. In later years, the Albany area was touted by the Vanderbilt system—the New York Central Railroad and its lessee, the Boston and Albany Railroad—as the Albany Gateway, a busy portal to many destinations. Rensselaer could legitimately be called the threshold of that gateway.

      From 1841 when the Albany and West Stockbridge Railroad came over the Berkshires and into Greenbush (now Rensselaer) to the fast and powerful Amtrak diesels of today, Rensselaer and its predecessor villages have witnessed a vast array of trains and rail activity. The next local line to emerge was the Troy and Greenbush Railroad, which ran north to the burgeoning industrial city of Troy, beginning in 1845. By 1851, the Hudson River Railroad had completed the rail line to New York. East Albany and Greenbush in the next decade saw the construction of roundhouses, freight houses, docks, wharves, coaling towers, machine shops, car repair facilities, and the like.

      From these early years to current times, Rensselaer’s strategic location has facilitated the passage of a myriad of notable and important trains. In 1861, the inaugural train of U.S. president elect Abraham Lincoln made its way down from Troy and passed through Bath-on-the-Hudson, East Albany, and Greenbush—the villages that later evolved into Rensselaer—on its way to New York. Four years later, what was unquestionably the most famous train ever to visit made its arrival around 11:00 p.m. on April 25, 1865. Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train was making the long, somber trip from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois. Historians tell us that huge crowds filled the Greenbush-East Albany railyard. Village church bells and cannon salutes from the heights to the east added to the solemnity. The Hudson River Railroad had put over 600 workers on overtime from New York to East Albany to ensure the seamless operation of this train.

      Many other notable trains stopped or passed through in later decades, especially during the four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Not only his frequent presidential specials, but trains carrying Prime Minister Winston Churchill and even the king and queen of England in 1939, passed through Rensselaer. Some 30 years later, crowds witnessed a service stop for the Golden Spike Special, which commemorated the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The cross-country train of the popular television show Real People drew an enthusiastic throng in 1983. The Good Morning America television show took the country’s pre-election political pulse in 2008 with a special train, which had a long stop at Rensselaer, where the cast met the local folks on the platform.

      Besides the prominent or glamorous specials, Rensselaer was notable for its sustained service to some of the most celebrated regular trains of the New York Central Railroad’s Great Steel Fleet. Locomotives that hauled the Empire State Express, Commodore Vanderbilt, New England States, and the greatest of all, the 20th Century Limited were routine visitors to Rensselaer’s engine house.

      From the earliest years to the present time, Rensselaer became and remained a railroad town for a century. In between these chronological parameters, American railroads expanded, helped win several wars, weathered times of prosperity and depression, and were centers of much of the activities of the labor movement. The size, scope, influence, and importance of the railroads at their height is difficult to imagine for most citizens today. As in all railroad towns, the specter of the industry was pervasive and never out of sight. Walking down any local street in the first half of the 20th century, one would pass house after house where engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, timekeepers, clerks, towermen, machinists, and others lived. These, in most cases, were steady, comparatively well-paying jobs. Their existence added to the vibrancy and prosperity of the city in many ways. Railroaders and their families patronized and supported local grocery, hardware, clothing, appliance, tavern, and restaurant establishments. They became pillars of churches, fraternal organizations, veteran’s posts, labor lodges, volunteer firehouses, and political parties. So important was the presence of the railroad that the city council for decades had a railroad committee, as it had for other crucial concerns such as public safety, streets, and schools. Most resident railroaders worked for the New York Central Railroad or the Boston and Albany Railroad, fewer for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.

      The good years of nationwide rail fortunes were graphically reflected in the good fortune of railroad towns, such as Rensselaer. This was clearly revealed in the peak years from 1890 to World War I. Rail employment grew exponentially

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