Castleton cut-off tracks

This is not technically a true New York Central question since I'm inquiring about something done a while after NYC ceased to exist, but here goes anyway. I got to wondering about this on a recent trip from NY to Albany, as we passed Stuyvesant . . .

As a lot of you no doubt know well, there were originally two tracks diverging at Stuyvesant to go up the Castleton cutoff. The (presumably) up-bound track diverged right at Stuyvesant station, and the (presumably) down-bound track diverged a mile, perhaps more, farther north (compass north, railroad west!!) on the river side, and crossed the Hudson main on a flyover. In recent years the longer track was taken up, and what remains today is only the shorter one with the flyover. Does anybody besides me wonder why they took up the track that presumably had the gentler grade? Doesn't seem to make engineering sense.

The grades were not particularly severe on either tracks 3 or 4 on this
line. I think they wanted to feed to track two rather than track one and
keep the freight trains on track two as much as possible.
I remember track three being in use when I was working the LI jobs out of
Oak Point and I think it was taken up in the Conrail era. There were only
one or two trains using it each way for quite a while.
As usual, Conrail in this case was fed up with New York State taxes on
railroad property and took out everything that they did not need.
Noel Weaver

If I remember correctly as told to me by retired PC/CR/ Amtrak engineer, he said part of the track had washed out not bad enough to derail the train he was on but enough to give himself and the crew a good scare.

As for current freight operations trains come off the Schodack sub at CP125 to track two and cross over to one at CP 124. Freight trains do not normally use track two, something to do with a maintence agreement set up with Conrail and Amtrak long ago

Tk. 3 was taken out of service in the mid-1980's after part of the fill (about 60' high, IIRC) it was on collapsed while the OPSE was moving over it. The head end crew did not experience any unusual motion, but the rear-end crew had quite a ride.

Stabilization work was done, but the fill failed under the first train to use it. After samples of the fill material were taken, it was determined that the several raisings of the track over the years had exceeded the support limits for the light cinder material which made up much of the fill. In other words, the base was too narrow to support what was on it.

The alternatives were: (A) dump x-amount of new fill to provide the needed additional support; (B) drive steel piling on both sides for the length of the fill; or (C) to permanently remove the track from service.

The freight traffic consisted of 2 round-trips Selkirk / Oak Point; 1 round-trip Selkirk / Tarrytown; and the occasional grain trains for ADM at Claverack (Hudson). Since the westbound trains were mostly empties which could easily operate via Tk. 4, there was no reason to spend big bucks to keep Tk. 3.

Just a note that 448 & 449 used it to access Albany/Renssalear {I can never spell that right} before the Post Road Branch was put back into service.

You were very close! It's Rensselaer. A fine old Dutch name, as in Rensselaerwyck.

The conductor on 448/449 had to use a back-up hose for that move.

A what you say?

IIRC, the moves of #448 & #449 as well as the Cedar Hill and Long Island freights were long gone by the time the fill failed.

shlustig wrote:IIRC, the moves of #448 & #449 as well as the Cedar Hill and Long Island freights were long gone by the time the fill failed.

Most certainly.

Someone I knew, now long passed on, who grew up around the area while the Cut-Off project was underway, described how they did those fills. They would build a wood trestle, then use mules and carts to haul fill material out on them to dump -- gradually burying the structure in the fill.

Guys, thanks for your stories on this!