Selkirk Yard is a large freight railroad yard

Rail yard

A rail yard, or railroad yard, is a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading/unloading, railroad cars and/or locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic....

 located in Selkirk, New York

Selkirk, New York

Selkirk is a hamlet in the town of Bethlehem, Albany County, New York. It is located south of the city of Albany, it is an suburb of that city....

, about 8 miles south of Albany

Albany, New York

Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

. The yard is owned by CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...

, and is its major classification yard

Classification yard

A classification yard or marshalling yard is a railroad yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railroad cars on to one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill...

 for the northeast United States and the gateway to points east of the Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

, including New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. It is situated just west of the Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge

Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge

The Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge is a railroad bridge spanning the Hudson River at Castleton-on-Hudson and Selkirk, New York in the United States....

 on the railroad's Castleton Subdivision

Castleton Subdivision

The Castleton Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs from Schodack northwest to Selkirk along a former New York Central Railroad line. At its southeast end, it junctions with the Berkshire Subdivision and Schodack...

 and is the eastern end of the Selkirk Subdivision

Selkirk Subdivision

The Selkirk Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. State of New York. The line runs from Selkirk northwest to Amsterdam along a former New York Central Railroad line. At its southeast end, at Selkirk Yard, the Selkirk Subdivision becomes the Castleton Subdivision...

. The 1,250 acre facility was built in 1968 and features a 70 track classification hump yard, several support yards and servicing facilities. The yard can process over 3,200 cars per day using computerized controls that originally employed a Data General Nova 3

Data General Nova

The Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and...

 minicomputer.

Recent improvements include an automobile transload facility and procurement of a genset

Genset

Genset may refer to:*Engine-generator, a machine used to generate electricity*Genset locomotive, a railway locomotive using multiple engine-generators per vehicle for traction power.*Genset Corporation, a French biotechnology company...

 switching locomotive to improve air quality by reducing emissions from yard operations.