The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opened a line from Albany to Schenectady in 1831. The Utica and Schenectady Railroad opened from Schenectady west to Utica in 1836, including the present Hudson Subdivision west of Schenectady. On the east side of the Hudson River, the Hudson River Railroad opened from New York City north to Rensselaer in 1851. The original Hudson River crossing was the Hudson River Bridge, but the Livingston Avenue Bridge, the current crossing, opened in 1902. The entire line became part of the New York Central, later Penn Central, and finally Conrail, through leases, mergers, and takeovers. The line was then assigned to CSX in the 1999 breakup of Conrail. In October 2011, CSX and Amtrak reached an agreement for Amtrak to lease the line between Poughkeepsie and Schenectady, with Amtrak assuming maintenance and capital responsibilities. CSX will retain freight rights over the line, which hosts two freights a day. Amtrak will use federal funds to double track the line between Rennselaer and Schenectady, and add an additional station track at the Albany-Rennsalaer station. Amtrak sees the lease as key to improving Empire Service speeds and frequencies. Amtrak officially assumed control on December 1, 2012, with trains in the section now dispatched by the Amtrak Control and Command Center in New York City.
Services
Current service
As a segment of the Empire Corridor, the Hudson Line carries five Amtrak trains. The Empire Service, Lake Shore Limited, and Maple Leaf operate over the entire Hudson Line, while the Adirondack and Ethan Allen Express use the line southeast of the Delaware and Hudson Railway junction in Schenectady. The trackage west of that junction is owned by Amtrak and used by CSX via trackage rights. The Hudson Line has four stations: Schenectady Intermodal Station, Albany–Rensselaer station, Hudson station, and Rhinecliff–Kingston station. Schenectady and Rensselaer are served by all five Amtrak services, while Hudson and Rhinecliff are bypassed only by the Lake Shore Limited. Poughkeepsie station is also part of the Amtrak Hudson Line, although Metro-North owns trackage up to a point north of the station.
Former service
Service on the line was originally established as the Hudson River Railroad in 1846, and later became part of the New York Central Railroad. Following New York Central's 1968 merger and 1970 bankruptcy, Conrail assumed responsibility to the line. Conrail abandoned all non-Amtrak stations in 1981, and when the Metro-North Railroad was established in 1983 to take over operations of what became the Hudson Line, service did not resume.
