The Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad was renamed several times over the years; it became part of the CSX Transportation system in 1999.

The first part of the line was built as the Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad, incorporated April 16, 1864 and opened in spring 1866.

The line first opened in 1872 as a spur of the New Jersey Midland Railway, which had built the section south of Ridgefield Park.

Bankruptcy struck soon, and the New York section of the line was sold on September 28, 1877, and reorganized on October 12, 1878, as the Jersey City and Albany Railway.

[citation needed] In 1883, the newly-formed company inaugurated service between Newburgh and Jersey City, at the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot, where passengers transferred to ferries across the river.

[1] A new alignment was built along the east side of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (formerly the New Jersey Midland) to North Bergen.

In 1881, the WS had been planned as a link in a new cross-country line from New York to San Francisco, using the Nickel Plate Road, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, Northern Pacific Railroad and Oregon Navigation Company.

The NYC then proceeded to drive the New York, West Shore and Buffalo into bankruptcy via a brutal rate-war that the WS could not financially withstand The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) recognized that the WS would make a great addition to its system, allowing it to penetrate deep into NYC territory.

His personal intervention with these two railroads' presidents, aboard his steam yacht "Corsair" in New York Harbor, forced the PRR and NYC railroads into an agreement under which the NYC would buy the WS and stop building the South Pennsylvania (sections of which were reused much later for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, in 1940.)

Several named trains traveled north from Weehawken to Albany including the Storm King Limited and the West Pointer.

[3][4] Main stops between Albany Union Station and Weehawken Terminal included Ravena, Coxsackie, Catskill, Saugerties, Kingston, Highland, Marlboro, Newburgh, Cornwall, West Point, Haverstraw, Congers, West Nyack, Orangeburg and Tappan, all in New York, and Dumont, Teaneck, Bogota and Ridgefield Park in New Jersey.

At the time, many towns along the line supported the idea, and went as far as conducting zoning procedures to allow room for the new additions the railroad would bring.