20 years in Albany

On Saturday, August 14, 2004, I left my hometown of Rochester for my new city of Albany where I was attending law school. I had full intentions of returning to Rochester upon graduation, but during the next three years things such as the retraction of the local economy (caused in large part by the collapse of Kodak and Xerox) and the offering of a good job in Albany caused me to stay here. I was so sure it would be temporary that I never changed my Rochester-based cell phone number (and I still haven't 20 years later!)

It wasn't my first time in Albany, though. Here I am in September 1989 at the ripe old age of 7. Who would have thought that decades later I would be working within seconds of where this was taken?

The first railroad tracks I explored were the concrete canyon just north of Kenwood Yard where the tracks snake through and around Interstate 787. It was night, I was naive, and there were absolutely no trains running at the time. 

A few weeks later, I used a paper road map I bought at a gas station to head to Pattersonville, NY, where there were no train tracks at all. I learned later they had been torn out only a year or so before. The map hadn't been updated, leading to my dilemma. Oddly, though, I could hear trains even though the rails had been pulled up. Turns out I was hearing trains just across the Mohawk River (which I couldn't see because of the trees). I later started railfanning in Amsterdam, NY. Here are some recent pictures taken right outside of Amsterdam.

My first real adventure was to Colonie Yard shops the following April, followed by other places. It is a great area to railfan, and I love Albany. We have taken Harrison downtown to the NYS Museum several times already. I will need to see if this knight is still on display and try to take a similar picture.