Railfanning the Albany - Rensselaer Station

This is train #238 which begins it's run to NYC from the Albany-Rensselaer station.

Don and I on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018, the weekend of the Albany Expo headed over to the Amtrak station across the river from downtown Albany. The Albany - Rensselaer station as it turned out was a railfan friendly location with a good amount of open area to get some interesting views from above and alongside. A bonus is the Amtrak service facility just north of the sation and within walking distance. Another plus is the parking at the station is free and plentiful. Our only drawback was the rain in the morning and overcast through the afternoon. Arriving shortly before noon we hung around for just over 2 hours and caught 5 trains and of course all the equipment at the service facility. Dunkin's is really close by for us to have a coffee while waiting on the overhead bridge for the arrival of two trains that meet at the station just before 1pm. We also found a great place to pick up some spirits to take home across from the engine service facilities while checking out that area. A real win...George Dutka

The parking lot side of the Amtrak station. Short term parking is free which worked out great for us.

A look inside the station.

As one can see there are a lot of trains scheduled.

Train #281 arrives from NYC on time leaving 15 minutes later after fueling.

At the same time as the arrival of #281  train #284 arrives also on time. We actually caught these two trains meeting under the bridge we stood on at the station giving us many photo options.

All the trains we viewed had a short layover for fueling. At this time there are two trains at the station at the same time and both needing fuel. This gave us a lot of time to take a better look at the equipment. This is WB # 281's power.

The entrance to the Amtrak maintenance facility from the west side.

One can also get a good view from along the road on the east side of facility.

Near the platform on the north side of the station is another entrance to the engineering facility.

Empire Service Crest.

Looking north to the station the sun did peak out for a moment. There is one lone engine to the far right on standby as train #233 arrives. We had just missed it but were in position for the Ethan Allen a few minutes later. Amtrak #233 ends its run at this station.

The last train we saw was the Ethan Allen # 292 departing the Amtrak station for NYC