NEB&W Guide to South Troy, NY

Last Update: 2009-11-18

Troy Table of Contents
Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

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• Overview
• Original or "Upper" Burden Plant
• The "Lower" Burden Works
• Burden Office Building
• Republic Steel Blast Furnace
• Coke Plant
• First & Polk
• Public Bathhouse
• Workers' Houses
• Gas Station
• Wynantskill Creek
• Ironworks Depot
• Menands Bridge
• South Troy, Not Modeled

Overview

• Topographic map of this area.
  • [Topo c. 1950.]

• Aerial photo looking north, showing how the Troy Union Railroad headed diagonally from 6th Avenue in downtown to River Street in south Troy.
  • [Photo courtesy RCHS.]

• Aerial photo by Dean Thomas Phelan c. 1970.
  • [Prototype photo.]

Original Burden Plant

• Topographic map of the area of the original or upper plant. (Note the Wynantskill stream makes a semicircle just below the dam and Burden's plant in this area was thus shaped like a horseshoe, besides making horseshoes.)
  • [Map.]
  • [Postcard of the dam.]
  • [The falls c. 1909.]
  • [The famous Burden wheel, which remained after the rest of the plant was in ruins.]
  • [Another postcard.]
  • [The wheel c. 1900, in the middle of the field. Note the guy standing on the lower left, to give some sense of scale.]

The "Lower" Burden Works

• An engraving c. 1880's shows the Burden facility with the long horseshoe warehouse building to the left. (This and some of the other buildings seen here are still standing today.) Note the twin overhead conveyors in the back.
  • [Engraving.]

• Other 19th century views.
  • [Engraving c. 1876.]
  • [Engraving c. 1881.]
  • [Engraving c. 1886 of just the furnaces.]
  • [Map of the whole complex c. 1880's.]

• Views from across the river looking east.
  • [Postcard.]
  • [Photo. (I think the older anthracite furnaces are being replaced by a new one to use coke, as the furnace doesn't have any piping, etc. on top. So that would date this photo to 1925.)]

• Looking north along the mainline c. 1933, from up on the hill. A portion of the coke works is on the lower left. The horseshoe warehouse and other buildings are just visible on the upper right. Photo courtesy Rensselaer County Historical Society.
  • [Photo c. 1933.]
  Note the chain link fence everywhere, the heavy foliage between the horseshoe warehouse and the track, the two track mainline and three track "yard" and basically how neat everything looks. And this is in the midst of the Depression.

• Other views of the horseshoe warehouse. (Unfortunately, I couldn't get up high to really show this in its entirety.)
  • [Photo 1 c. 2000.]
  • [Photo 2 c. 2000.]
  • [West side of the warehouse c. 1990's. This whole wall was blank. The framework of the conveyors was still standing.]

• A high level view of our layout, looking south, with the coke works and Menands bridge in the background, and dominated by the long horseshoe warehouse. (Our model of this is condensed. If full size, it would be 8 feet and twice as wide.) The uprights for the two overhead conveyors can be seen, but we haven't model the conveyors themselves.
  • [Model view.]
  • [Another model view.]

Burden Office Building

• The ornate Burden Office Building was actually built after Henry Burden's death, but remained the headquarters for the plant through the Republic Steel acquisition c. 1940. Today it is the headquarters of the Mohawk Hudson Industrial Gateway.
  • [Map of the whole complex c. 1880's showing the office building on the far lower right.]
  • [Engraving c. 1886.]
  • [Prototype view.]
  • [Up close.]
  This style borrows from the same source of architecture c. 1000 A.D. as the Norman, but is known as Richardson Romanesque because H.H. Richardson was so instrumental in developing it in the 1880's. Notice the semi-circular arches.
  Our model is about halfway done.
  • [Model view.]

Republic Steel Blast Furnace

• A D&H "camelback" switcher (so called because the cab sat astride the boiler like a camel's hump) works the slag piles with the Republic Steel blast furnace in the background.
  • [Photo by Jim Shaughnessy, probably about 1952.]

• Richard Hutter sent us this c. '53 photo of the blast furnace, looking due west from the tracks. In the foreground on the right is an oil tank, and the concrete wall visible is the containment dam surrounding it.
  • [Photo.]
  • [Unfinished model view with a Walthers N scale blast furnace in the background.]
  • [Another model view.]

• Republic Steel used a Whitcomb diesel to switch the plant. (Don't know if this engine dates back to c. 1950.)
  • [Photo c. 1970's, I think by Paul Hubbs.]

Wynantskill Creek

• Wynantskill Creek, with horseshoe warehouse to the north and Niagara-Hudson Coke Plant to the south.
  • [Prototype view looking east, 1990's.]
  • [Prototype view looking west, 1990's. (Wish I had taken this in color.)]
  • [Prototype view in color, 2007.]
  • [Another prototype view in color, 2007.]
  • [Layout view.]
  • [Bigger view.]

Ironworks Depot

• There was a small depot on the east side of the mainline where the Wynantskill cut across. The depot was for workers for both the iron company (hence the name) and the coke works.
  • [Photo looking north from the hill c. 1933. Photo courtesy Rensselaer County Historical Society.]

• The only photos we have are from a long distance. I used an IHC depot kit as a stand-in until we know more about the prototype. (In the above photo, the depot is pretty plain and once we know more, won't be hard to scratchbuilt - but this kitbash was fun.)
  For my tastes, there wasn't enough overhang on the ends. I cut the two long walls shorter to make them sit under the roof, but you could also fabricate a new, slightly longer roof. I then painted the building in the Central's standard colors (as far as I can determine) of gray and olive green for the trim.
  • [Model photo.]
  Next time I'd look long and hard for a suitable Grandt Line casting to replace the kit's windows. (If I remember correctly, the windows come cast in place, but it isn't too hard to carve them away.)
  

Menands Bridge

• The Menands bridge was built as a lift bridge in 1933. Since steam days, it has been raised so the clearance underneath is greater, made a fixed bridge, and the lift towers removed.
  • [Postcard from up high looking west.]
  • [Postcard from further south.]
  • [Looking east, 1933. I believe this photo is courtesy Rensselaer County Historical Society.]
  • [Postcard of about the same angle.]
  • [Looking southwest c. 1980's.]
  • [Looking underneath and west c. 1980's.]
  • [Looking underneath and east c. 1980's.]
  • [East end c. 1980's.]
  • [On the layout.]

South Troy, Not Modeled

• Gerrit Bruins turned his camera south from the Menands bridge.
  • [Photo c '52.]
  • [Circus train arriving, 1963.]
  • [Circus train arriving, another photo, 1963.]

• The New York Central had an engine facility at the foot of Adams Street. (Note the freight house extended all the way to Adams.)
  • [Sanborn map c. 1901.]

• There was a monumental structure that looked like a castle (or brewery), but it actually was Troy Waste.
  • [Undated photo looking north.]
  • [Undated photo looking south.]
  • [Gerrit Bruins photo looking south c. 1960, with the circus train in town.]
  • [Looking west c. 2000.]
  • [Looking north c. 2000.]
  • [Bigger.]

See our Layout Guide for South Troy.

Also see the Rensselaer Country Historical Society for other pictures and information about Troy, including south Troy.

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