That Commodore Vanderbilt feeling

Coincidence? The evening before I begin driving west along the former New York Central, my wife and I taxi down Park Avenue, winding our way around Grand Central Station. There in the spotlight and a spring rainstorm stands that bronzed Dutchman himself, looking proud and a bit vain, I imagine. What a combination of character traits he possessed: intelligence, cunning, stubbornness, resourcefulness, foresight, guile. In his 83 years on earth, Cornelius Vanderbilt (Commodore was a sobriquet) built a maritime empire and then, with his son William, laid the foundation for one of the greatest railroads the world will ever see.

The purpose of my exploration, in company with my friend Mark Hinsdale, is to see what remains of that Vanderbilt railroad between Albany and Buffalo. The New York Central reached its post-World War II zenith about 1950. Then NYC became Penn Central in 1968, which became Conrail in 1976 and is now part of CSX. Along the way, a lot of that magnificent infrastructure was altered, destroyed, or simply disappeared. Four main tracks became two, and the 30 passenger trains each way along the Mohawk River in 1950 became today’s four. Great, cathedral-like stations in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo were abandoned. Freight customers for the most part moved away, went out of business, or switched to trucks. So you are left to wonder: Is the Commodore’s railroad now just another railroad?

To a greater degree than I had thought, the answer to my question is yes. I bring with us a meticulously hand-drawn (by me) track chart showing the four-track Central as it existed in 1950 and employee timetables of that era documenting those 30 passenger trains and the 40-plus interlocking towers (called signal stations) that helped the dispatchers keep trains out of harm's way. By and large, the two tracks to the south were for passenger trains and the two tracks to the north for freights, resulting in stations all being south of the tracks. And first of all, it amazes me that 99 percent of the customer spurs of 1950 are long gone. The hardest thing to find today is a freight car being loaded or unloaded.

When Al Perlman in the late 1950s ordered the freight main tracks taken up and bidirectional centralized traffic control installed on what had been the passenger tracks, it was the right thing to do. He probably saved the railroad. The rail taken up could be used elsewhere, and literally hundreds of jobs running those towers across upstate New York and maintaining the taken-up track could be abolished, harsh as that is to say. But the character of the Central changed completely.

As we arrive at Rotterdam Junction, CSX engineering and signal crews are replacing one of the most endearing elements of the old NYC, the signal bridges and those searchlight signals with their ultra-small reflector heads. Out they will go this year, causalities of positive train control, with which they are incompatible. In their place are coming those ubiquitous tri-light Safetran System signals with their distinctive hoods.

I confess that by day three, I am beginning to think of this piece of CSX as yes, just another piece of CSX. In whatever guise, however, this remains a busy rail route. Some 50 trains a day ply these tracks, making it a candidate to be the railroad's busiest artery. And if you use your imagination a bit, the past comes back at you. More than half a century later, the scar left by those missing two tracks clearly remains, particularly at twin steel bridges, one occupied by rails, one empty. I keep seeing grassy trails that are all that’s left of pieces of the West Shore Railroad, the parallel, would-be competitor to the Central that William Vanderbilt bought in 1887. The enormous, 1914-era station at Utica remains, although its 11 tracks are now down to two. I find the remains of two towers, Signal Station 30, which directed trains on the east side of Utica’s station, and SS 40A on the west edge of Batavia. Between Syracuse and Rochester, the trackage at Lyons, which stands at the north end of the line into Pennsylvania now operated by the Finger Lakes Railroad, looks much as it did 60 years ago. And the signaled sidings every 10 to 15 miles are really the former Track 3, the jointed rail probably having been there since the 1940s or before. By the looks of it, they are still used frequently.

What will probably never change is the superb engineering of the original route. No grades of note, nor sharp curves save Gulf Curve at Little Falls. There’s that cool flyover at Hoffmans, west of Schenectady, that takes Selkirk-bound freights off the Mohawk Subdivision. Through most towns of any size, the railroad is elevated; I’m trying and failing to think of another 300-mile stretch of track outside the Northeast Corridor that is as well grade-separated. The Vanderbilts and those who followed built well.

I’ve saved the best part for last. Mark gets out of the car at Amtrak’s Depew station on Buffalo’s east side to take some photos. Soon he yells for me to join him. For two miles to the east and a mile and a half to the west, we stand beside the four-track New York Central of once-upon-a-time, the only place other than on Metro North Railroad that this is still possible. I look east. I look west. Damn, it feels good. At long last, I have that Commodore Vanderbilt feeling.—Fred W. Frailey

First photo: Amtrak train 63, the Toronto-bound Maple Leaf, darts under the Selkirk flyover at Hoffmans. All photos April 2-4, 2012, by Fred W. Frailey

Second photo: Out with the old, in with the new. Signal bridges and searchlight signals on the eve of replacement near Little Falls. MIA for more than half a century are former freight main lines 3 and 4.

Third photo: A survivor, signal station 30 still stands, long out of service and left to the elements, just east of the Utica passenger station.

Fourth photo: At Chili Junction (pronounced SHY-lie), one of the few remnants of the West Short Railroad juts to the right; it serves as a bypass route around Rochester. To the left, a siding briefly revives former main track 3.

Fifth photo: The intermodal mixing bowl at DeWitt Yard in Syracuse, where blocks of containers and trailers are swapped between trains.

Sixth photo: Eureka! A four-track railroad astride the Amtrak station in Depew, just east of Buffalo. The Commodore would be pleased.