Albany-Hudson Electric Trail: Trolleys, Trails & Tales

Trolleys, Trails & Tales: Interpreting the Albany-Hudson Electric Trails

This illustrated talk will present the corporate, social, and technological history of the “Albany-Hudson Fast Line,” an electrified high-speed interurban railway in Columbia and Rensselaer counties. It will also tell the story of Hudson River Valley Greenway’s conversion of the surviving trolley line right-of-way into the Empire State Trail’s “Albany-Hudson Electric Trail” segment. Finally, it will discuss the process of developing the trailside interpretive signage that explains the history of the railway, the communities it passed through, and historical features visible from the trail to the trail’s users. 

Albany-Hudson Electric Trail (AHET) Exhibit

Stop in during the library’s open hours to view replicas of history panels installed along the 36-mile Albany-Hudson Electric Trail (AHET), The exhibit will be on display in the large meeting room from October 16th through November 30th.  Panels provided courtesy of Columbia Friends of the Electric Trail (CFET).

Presenter's Biography

Matt Kierstead is the owner/proprietor of Milestone Heritage Consulting, a Hudson Valley business providing documentation and interpretation services for historic engineering, industrial, and transportation resources for clients including government agencies, private developers, and the heritage tourism industry. His focus areas include the history and technology of bridges, mining and quarrying, metallurgy, mineral processing, power generation, canal and rail transportation, and public utilities. Mr. Kierstead has completed over three hundred projects throughout the northeastern United States including historical resource surveys, National Register of Historic Places determinations of eligibility and nominations, Historic American Buildings Survey/Engineering Record (HABS/HAER), and state-level documentation, Superfund site cleanup consultation, and public history interpretation projects.