brward wrote:To my knowledge and from talking to the Bates family there was never a wye there, let alone anywhere else on the branch.
Yep, I hear ya. Still, I've been looking at railroads on aerial photos for a dozen years now, and this is exactly the kind of thing you see in a field. Not much, just a shadow, but you can bet your bippy that a wye was there. I found a wye in a similar way very close to me, about 5 miles away. Went out there with an old NYCentral employee, and we *definitely* found traces of an embankment. Have never found it on a map or in any prose description. My speculation is that it's left over from the Potsdam and Watertown days -- when the railroad used to terminate in Potsdam Junction (a former name for Norwood) for 18 years before it was built out to Massena and thence via CP to Montreal. And if so, then it's 130 years gone.
It's right here:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=44.75839,-74.97154&z=17&t=N -- in order to get the best view of it, you need to look at it on the infrared imagery that you have to download from New York State. But, you can still see the eastern leg on the visible-light color imagery.
BTW, just south is the New York Central Yard, and below that is the Rutland Railroad. They had a few tracks to help with interchange, but Norwood yard was mostly NYC. Oh, and the curved track between them is the "Ice House Track". And the railroad that heads north a bit to the west is the Norwood & St. Lawrence, now the New York & Ogdensburg.