Selkirk Yard is a large

freight railroad Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English units, English unit of length in both the British imperial units, imperial and US United States customary units, customary systems of measurement equalling 3 foot (unit), feet or 36 inches. Sinc ...

located in Selkirk, New York, about south of Albany. The yard is owned by

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

and is its major

classification yard A classification yard (American English, as well as the Canadian National Railway), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, and Australian English, and the former Canadian Pacific Railway) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway y ...

for the northeastern United States and the gateway to points east of the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

, including

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It is situated just west of the Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge on the railroad's Castleton Subdivision, and is the eastern end of the Selkirk Subdivision.

History

Selkirk Yard was built in 1924 by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

on a site. Initially, it had two hump classification yards with a capacity of 11,000 cars and typically handled 8,000 cars per day.

1968 rebuild

The facility was rebuilt in 1968 as the Alfred E. Perlman Yard, on an expanded site of . It features a 70-track classification hump yard, several support yards and servicing facilities. The yard can process over 3,200 cars per day, using computerized controls that originally employed a GE PAC 4020. Selkirk Yard from the air

Recent improvements

Improvements in 2011 included an automobile transload facility and a genset switching locomotive, to improve

air quality Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

by reducing emissions from yard operations. Since 2017, Selkirk features a two-track mainline that runs east to west on the south side of the yard, allowing many run-through trains to swap crews more quickly and easily. Before, these trains ran through the body of the yard.

References

External links

Photos of Selkirk Yard from the Conrail era
{{coord, 42.55256, -73.83498, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title CSX Transportation Rail yards in New York (state) New York Central Railroad Transportation buildings and structures in Albany County, New York 1924 establishments in New York (state)

History

1968 rebuild

Recent improvements

See also

References

External links