The shelter in the photo with Watervliet, Menands, Troy, etc on the sign was at Colonie Yard. on the west side of the main track. The industrial building in the background was Watervliet Arsenal. I don't recall just when the large station at 19th Street in Watervliet was abandoned and razed.
In the late 1960's, before Amtrak, Penn Central had sold Albany Union Station and built stations at Renesselaer and Karner Road. The Laurentian and the Montreal Limited had been rerouted to run on PC from Rensselaer via Schenectady although the equipment still came from Colonie via the new connecting track to the Livingston Ave. Bridge. That required some awkward backup moves.
I remember one time in 1970 or 1971, pre Amtrak, when I was the Track Supervisor at Oneonta. The passenger trains were running via Schenectady. I was on an office car special from Binghamton to Colonie via Mechanicville. One of the Erie Lackawanna vice presidents, not an operating officer, pitched a fit over the 20 mph speed restriction on the main tracks at Mohawk Yard.
He threatened to have me fired if I couldn't lift that "slow order." I tried to tell him that it was not a track problem, but on account of the switches and crossovers between MX and GV Cabins not being equipped with electric locks in TCS territory. Greg Maxwell finally told him to get over and go sit down.
There was a good operating reason for not installing electric locks, because it would have played havoc with switching operations at Mohawk. There were time delays built into those locks, and if the door to the lock was opened you could not clear a signal at MX or GV over that track, or the adjacent track as well if it was a crossover.
- Gordon Davids