Mechanicville Traffic

How many PAS trains go through Mechanicville on an average day? I am interested in doing some day and night photography a bit east of there but like to avoid heading out on a weekend (for example) if that means very little would be running.

West of Mechanicville on the joint PAS/CP stretch you're probably talking anywhere from 8-13 per day, with 13 occurring if you were lucky enough to catch a bow coal train or two and ethanol trains going to/from the port of Albany. As an aside, this section should be getting busier in the not too distant future with increased traffic for the PAS Mechanicville facility as well as CSXT-CN runthrough trains which will eventually be shifted to the CP from their current Massena routing. East of Mechanicville on the PAS, more like 4-8, again, depending upon catching Bow coal trains and if they're running RJED/EDRJ. Hope that helps.

That does.
Looking at the photos over at NERail, I counted up
MOAY/AYMO
RJED/EDRJ
MOED/EDMO
I was hoping to do some night photography, but it seems these guys mostly run during the day.
I can hear the CP over in Colonie but don't seem to catch much when I go over to shoot -- but I guess that makes sense, based on your report it sounds like they have about the same frequency as PAS...now I just need to figure out their train numbering scheme.

Yeah, I'm not too sure what they run down the Colonie main these days; maybe a CSXT interchange train for Selkirk, a train for the port and the occassional ethanol train for the that new facility. At one time they were running Intermodal down there too, but not sure if that's still the case?

What sort of traffic is there to and from Rotterdam?

Since my question hasn't been answered, I can only assume that there's something of which I'm ignorant. What, exactly, constitutes the joint PAS/CP trackage --- the loop just west of Mechanicville, or the whole track from there to Rotterdam? When you're talking freight in and out of the Port of Albany being routed onto the PAS, I'm assuming it's via the CP (D&H). My question still stands; please make this a little clearer. Thanks.

Shared trackage is CPF467 (XO Tower in Mechanicville) to CPF 477 (Crescent).

PAS interchanges with the CSX at Rotterdam. Roughly 4 round-trips a week from Deerfield (8 trains total), the previously mention EDRJ/RJED. There is also a local based out of Rotterdam that makes a trip to Vermont twice a week.