Having Grown up in upstate NY, the Albany union station was always a building I found interesting, despite never seeing trains at the station myself. The building was constructed in 1899-1900 and designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the successors to the firm of H.H. Richardson and the designers of the South Station in Boston and Union Station in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The station served primarily NYC but also the Delaware and Hudson Rail Road. Daily departures began in 1900, and ended in 1968, when the passenger service was moved across the Hudson river to Rensselaer, where a small station was built to service Penn Central and later Amtrak. The construction of a new high way in Albany would be built through the passenger yards, prompting the relocation. That small station was replaced in 1980, with an equally non-descript station, and finally in 2002 a new much improved station was constructed. When I lived there, I used the 1980 version station frequently, mostly to commute in and out of NYC for business. The service was generally pretty good. I moved to Cincinnati in late 1999, so I just missed the new station.
Early photos of the station
Albany Union Station Today – It has been some form of Bank since 1986, and multiple occupants now. The 1986 opening was after a significant multi million dollar historic renovation by then Northstar Bank. There was another multi million dollar renovation in the late 1990's
Since I started the updated and expanded version of my layout about 10 years ago, I wanted to add the Albany Union Station, I always thought it was a interesting building, and that in fact it could work in a lot of difference cities. When I owned Korber Models, I thought it might be a good model to turn in to a kit, and I made some designs and had a few test cuts completed, but never really had the time to finish the project. So the idea sat on a shelf so to speak for about 7 years.
In the fall of 2019, I restated my concept for the station, but decided that I needed to enlist some help to get this project done, and turned to Richard Segal at Right On Track Models. I came across Richard a few years earlier, and really liked his unique, highly detailed model structures, and added several to my layout. I even had Richard create a custom Kroger grocery building from the 1940’s for me – which came out great.
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I shared photos, and the earlier drawings I had done on the project with Richard, and by January agreed to move forward. With the pandemic and some other commitments, we got stated later in the spring than planned, but we are underway.
Richard prepared some detailed drawings to get things moving, and we exchanged notes to dial in the details
Here is the first pass drawing of the front.
After some back and forth Richard added much more detail.
I am excited about the project, and will share more as we progress, things are moving quickly now.
As always questions and comment welcome, I will post more updates I get them together.
