The Pizza-and-Beer Train: New York City’s Hidden Railroad

Particularly interesting is the tidbit in the middle of the article that there is no freight rail crossing of the Hudson River south of Selkirk[0], near Albany. So any freight train that wants to travel between NYC (except Staten Island) and points west must go almost 150 miles North of the city.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkirk_hurdle