Amsterdam and its railroads

By Bob Cudmore

          It was in 1836 that the first train of the Schenectady & Utica Railroad arrived in Amsterdam, according to historian Hugh Donlon.

          For three decades after that, there was no Amsterdam train station.  Passengers waited for trains at the Railroad Hotel at the end of Railroad Street, just west of where Route 30 crosses East Main Street in Amsterdam today.

          A train station for passengers and freight was built there on the north side of the tracks in 1867, a year before the New York Central Railroad was formed.  Carpet maker Stephen Sanford contributed an ornate fountain that beautified the site for some 30 years.  The fountain was later moved to St. Mary’s Church but removed in the 1940s.

          In 1898, a more substantial passenger train depot was built on the south side of the railroad tracks for $60,000.  Vehicle access was provided by a ramp built between an overhead railroad crossing and the Mohawk River bridge that at the time connected the north and south sides of the city.  That station was demolished in 1970 as part of urban renewal and the current Amtrak station built in the West End of Amsterdam.

          During the peak of rail travel, 27 trains a day stopped in Amsterdam.  Soldiers left for two World Wars from the station.  Joe DiMaggio and the New York Yankees arrived there in 1942 to play their farm team, the Amsterdam Rugmakers.

          Pedestrians could reach the train station through a tunnel under the tracks at the foot of Railroad Street.

          That leaky and often foul-smelling tunnel became an icon itself in the 1950s.  I remember rushing through the underground passageway with my mother on nights when we expected my sister to arrive for home visits from college in Potsdam.  The tunnel was like an Amsterdam version of the catacombs. 

Fascinated by trains, I was in awe of the old station that usually was not very crowded.  In winter, its radiators hissed in the middle of the floor.

WEST SHORE

          Starting in 1883, there was competition to the New York Central from the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railroad.  The West Shore was so named for the side of the Hudson River on which it operated.  In the Mohawk Valley, the West Shore tracks were on the south side of the Mohawk River.  The West Shore had its own passenger depot on Amsterdam’s South Side near Bridge Street, although its passenger traffic was never as brisk as that of the New York Central.  The West Shore did transport thousands of pilgrims to the Auriesville Shrine west of Amsterdam in the summer months.  The West Shore’s Amsterdam passenger depot was torn down in 1936.

RAIL FREIGHT

          A few years after the New York Central built its Amsterdam passenger station in 1898, the railroad spent $1 million to expand the freight house at the foot of Hamilton Street, according to historian Donlon.  Railway Express freight service was offered just east of the passenger station.

          Amsterdam also boasts its own railroad short line, the Amsterdam, Chuctanunda & Northern, begun in 1879.  This rail spur about a mile east of the city limits is still in operation today, according to the Amsterdam Industrial Development Agency.  A good part of the line has been abandoned but the remaining section is used to take freight to the Edson Street Industrial Park.

          Donlon said the little railroad did a lot to save wear and tear on Amsterdam streets.  At its peak in 1910, the rail line could take freight cars to the former Mohasco Carpet upper mill complex, Bigelow Sanford’s carpet mill and the Kelloggs & Miller linseed oil plant on Church Street.

Tomorrow

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