ALBANY -- We've been here before. More than a century ago, the Capital Region played a central role in developing an efficient passenger rail system.


Now, policymakers again are turning to rail to solve a litany of problems -- from global warming and an unhealthy dependence on oil to dwindling air service, growing traffic congestion and concerns about sprawl -- and as a way to stimulate the region's economy.


Earlier this week, industry and elected officials gathered in Albany for the New York State Rail Summit, a daylong event that touted just how important high-speed passenger rail could be to New York.


It reminded some of that earlier era.


The rail industry's impact on the Capital Region economy "was huge," recalls Dick Barrett, a rail historian and resident of Colonie. "Prior to and just after World War II, railroads were the real employer in this area."


Albany, said Barrett, in its early years was the headquarters of the New York Central System.


The company's massive West Albany yards, plus Union Station downtown and other facilities in Rensselaer together employed nearly 10,000 people.


In the 1920s, the West Albany yards would be replaced by a new railroad classification yard, as it's called, in Selkirk.


Perhaps the first high-speed passenger train in the United States had its roots in the West Albany yards.


There, workers built Engine #999, capable of operating above 100 mph, and setting a world speed record in 1893 of 112 mph.


While the New York Central eventually moved its headquarters to New York City, another railroad, the Delaware & Hudson, now part of Canadian Pacific Railway, built its own headquarters in downtown Albany. It also had rail yards just west of the Watervliet Arsenal.


That ornate building is now occupied by the State University of New York.


The New York Central built many of its engines and rail cars in the West Albany yards. Meanwhile, other companies set up their own manufacturing operations locally. American Locomotive occupied several buildings along Erie Boulevard in Schenectady, while Gilbert Car Co. built long-distance and rapid-transit coaches in Green Island, where it moved from Troy in the late 1850s, according to P. Thomas Carroll, director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway.


The industry created thousands of jobs. Gilbert had as many as 2,000 employees at its peak, said Don Rittner, Schenectady city and county historian.


Another local manufacturer, Jones Car Co. of Schenectady, employed at its peak about 500 to 600 people, Rittner said.


American Locomotive employed 6,000 to 7,000 people, a figure that peaked at 15,000 during World War II, Barrett said.


For awhile, Alco, as the locomotive maker also was known, worked closely with the nearby General Electric Co., which provided some of the equipment for the diesel-electric locomotives the company began producing in the 1930s. GE would eventually launch its own locomotive manufacturing division, now based in Erie, Pa.


Inventor Frank Sprague worked with Thomas Edison developing electric traction motors, used on the streetcar and rail systems of numerous cities.


When GE was formed in 1892, it was in the electric traction business "pretty much right from the day it was formed," said Chris Hunter, curator at the Schenectady Museum and Suits-Bueche Planetarium.


Meanwhile, George Westinghouse Jr. was busy in Schenectady inventing the air brake, Rittner added.


Entrepreneurs with ties to the Capital Region undertook perhaps the most sizable railroad construction project of its time, the transcontinental railroad.


The engineer who dreamed up the scheme, Theodore Judah, was raised in Troy and attended what is now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.


He enlisted four California businessmen, all with upstate roots, to invest in the plan, founding the Central Pacific Railroad.


The four were Watervliet native Leland Stanford, Troy native Charles Crocker, Hollis Huntington, who began his business career in Oneonta, and Mark Hopkins, a native of Henderson in Jefferson County.


One of the two engines taking part in the Golden Spike ceremony marking the railroad's completion was manufactured at Alco in Schenectady, according to the late historian Stephen E. Ambrose, who described the rail project in his book "Nothing Like It In the World."


And a key player in the Union Pacific Railroad, which started from the Mississippi River and built west to meet the Central Pacific, was Dr. Thomas Durant, a Lee, Mass., native and graduate of Albany Medical College.


He taught at the school before going to work for his uncle's grain business in New York City, a move that led to his railroad career.


Durant and Stanford also teamed up to build the Adirondack Railroad from Saratoga Springs to North Creek, and Durant retired to North Creek, where he died in 1885.


The Capital Region still plays an active railroading role. Amtrak has a maintenance center in Rensselaer, while the Selkirk railyards continue to operate, and are now owned by CSX Transportation.


Norfolk Southern and Pan Am Railways plan a new intermodal yard on the site of the former Boston & Maine railyard in Mechanicville.


The eastern terminus of an innovative effort by Railex to move fresh produce across the continent is in Rotterdam.


GE's new battery plant planned for Schenectady would make storage devices that will be used in the company's most advanced locomotives.


And the high-speed rail network envisioned in a recent study for Siemens AG would have Albany as a regional hub.


Much remains to be done, and the tab for a revitalized passenger rail system will be large.


Whether proponents can deliver on their vision remains to be seen.


Eric Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.





Local innovations


Dozens of rail innovations came out of the Capital Region in the 180 years since the first area passenger train operated between Albany and Schenectady.


Among them:


In 1893, a steam locomotive built in the West Albany yards by the New York Central Railroad set an unofficial world speed record of 112 mph.


Frank Sprague, who was working with Thomas Edison in Schenectady, invented multiple-unit electric traction motors, installing some on Chicago's early rapid transit cars in the late 1890s. The technology also was used in Boston and New York City transit systems.


George Westinghouse developed the air brake in 1869 in Schenectady. He moved to Pittsburgh to establish a manufacturing plant that would produce the new brake systems, said Chris Hunter, curator at the Schenectady Museum and Bueche Planetarium.


Several businessmen and at least one engineer involved in the building of the transcontinental railroad had roots in upstate New York. They include Theodore Judah, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate who conceived of the plan, and Leland Stanford, originally from Watervliet, and Troy native Charles Crocker.


American Locomotive Co. and General Electric Co., both in Schenectady, worked together to develop the diesel-electric locomotive in the mid-1930s.





Coming Sunday


Can railroads thrive again? Will plans for high-speed rail ever leave the station?