December 30th, 2005
We slept in Schenectady, New York on our way home, hoping to wake up to find some Deleware and Hudson (CP) trains in the area. We did find one, parked inaccessibly in the distance. We found the overpass of the CSX and the D&H trackage at South Schenectady, shooting one manifest freight at a nearby grade crossing on the CSX. We then proceeded along our main goal of getting home, stopping at Utica to see (kind of) the NYSW and at Geneva to see the Finger Lakes Railway before stopping at Lyons to see some CSX trains before hitting the road as bad weather rolled in. On our way to Geneva, we passed a Finger Lakes train going the other way through Woodstock, New York, and pursued it West to nearby Seneca Falls. Its EOT sounds different from most and broadcasts on 160.205, so we didn't recognise it until we saw the train pass. CSX, for its part, mostly gave us intermodal trains with big GEs for power, reminding me somewhat eerily of CP! This concluded are 2 week travelling adventure ostensibly to see family for the holidays.
Utica, New York
(map) Utica is the home of the New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railway shops, a scenic railway, the CSX, and at least one more shortline operator, situated about an hour West of Albany.
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A CSX intermodal train runs through the Amtrak station at Utica.
December 21st, 2007
We started out in Oneida and headed straight for Reber Rd outside Rome in the community of Stanwix, New York to watch CSX trains while waiting for the daily run of the Mohawk, Adirondack, and Northern. It came after a couple of hours and we spent a few minutes chasing it in Rome after spending a lot more minutes trying to find it again. After that we returned briefly to Reber Rd., found the tracks dead, and proceeded to Utica. We went to see the NYSW dead line but found it completely obstructed by a long cut of high gons. We went back to the Amtrak station and shot a considerable rush, punctuated by the return of the MWHA with its lone C424 and 5 cars.
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CSXT Q109 heads west through Utica Amtrak station.
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A westbound CSX rack train passes Utica station.
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CSXT Q366 passes Utica station.
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CSXT Q157 passes Utica station.
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CSXT Q165 heads west through Utica.
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Amtrak 48 enters Utica station followed shortly by Mohawk, Adirondack, and Northern's Rome job's return to the yard.
December 1st, 2008
Laura took a few photos out of the window of Amtrak 463 at Utica station on her way back from visiting family.
February 17th, 2009
We left Brattleboro on the morning of the 16th and went to NMH, where I caught up with some of my old teachers and classmates for most of the day. In the late afternoon, we cut across Mass. to the Hoosac tunnel in Florida, but the Guilford gods did not love us and no trains were forthcoming, although a local railfan reported a Bow coal empty was supposed to be on its way. We slept in Utica that night and on the 17th we started the day there, shooting the Mohawk, Adirondack, and Western and an NYSW unit from afar that came in by surprise. We chased the MHWA to Rome, where we followed the wrong spur and took a while to find it out in the industrial park on the east side of town. From there we chased CSX Q091, the ultra-high priority vegetable train to Lyons, catching it only once at Syracuse yard, and there only barely. From Lyons, where we missed Q091 by about 7 minutes, we headed up to Geneva to see what we could find on the FGLK, and chased the Lyons job back to Lyons before heading out to the Rochester and Genessee Valley Railroad Museum south of Rochester and finally completing our trip by getting back to Guelph a few minutes past 10pm.
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MHWA 805 switches Utica yard as an NYSW unit briefly sticks its head out and CSXT Q135 passes through. We chased it to Stanwix, where it met Q626, and into Rome where, after losing track of it by following the wrong spur, we found it switching an industrial park on the east side of town.
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CSXT Q135 passes through Utica Amtrak station followed immediately by MHWA 805's departure from its yard.