Schoharie Valley Railroad Complex

At the end of Depot Lane in Schoharie stands a cluster of buildings from the Schoharie Valley Railroad, a short rural line that connected the valley to the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad. Most structures date from about 1875: a two-story brick passenger station with a slate roof, a ninety-foot wood-framed freight and locomotive house, a small office with freight scales, a three-story mill building older than the rest, a storage building and four coal silos. The line ran about 4.3 miles and began regular service in 1867, financed by local investors and the town. It carried hops, apples, grain and milk out of the valley and brought in supplies, tourists and hop pickers. Before the railroad, a farmer's round trip to Albany took three days. Operations ended in 1942. The surviving buildings are valued as a tangible link to the period when the valley's prosperity depended on rail transport, and the village planned to use them to tell that story.