Selkirk Yard is a large

freight railroad Rail freight transport is the use of railroads 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) haule ...

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ...

located in

Selkirk, New York Selkirk is a hamlet in the town of Bethlehem, Albany County, New York, United States. It is located south of the city of Albany and is a suburb of that city. A major freight railyard operated by the Selkirk Subdivision of CSX Transportation ...

, about south of Albany. The yard is owned by

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

and is its major

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

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

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

, including

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is situated just west of the

Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge The Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge is a railroad bridge spanning the Hudson River between Castleton-on-Hudson, New York, Castleton-on-Hudson and Selkirk, New York in the United States. The bridge is owned by CSX Transportation and was originally ...

on the railroad's

Castleton Subdivision The Castleton Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs from Schodack northwest to Selkirk along a former New York Central Railroad line. At its southeast end, it junctio ...

, and is the eastern end of the

Selkirk Subdivision The Selkirk Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs from Selkirk northwest to Amsterdam along a former New York Central Railroad line. At its southeast end, at Selkirk Yard, the Se ...

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 and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

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 Alfred Edward Perlman (November 22, 1902—April 30, 1983) was a railroad executive, having served as president of the Penn Central Transportation Company and its predecessor, the New York Central Railroad. Early career Perlman graduated from ...

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 General Electric Company (GE) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York (state), New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated ...

Recent improvements

Improvements in 2011 included an automobile

transload Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped in ...

facility and a genset switching locomotive, to improve

air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

by reducing emissions from yard operations.CSX introduces GenSet at Selkirk Yard
Sophia Sofferman, WNYT Web Producer, June 30, 2011 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