Save the Rutland

Save the Rutland Logo The purpose of this section is to update the members of the Rutland Railroad Historical Society and other interested parties on the status of efforts to preserve ex-Rutland Railroad equipment and facilities. Images and scans of preserved Rutland equipment and facilities are always welcome. Please submit any items of interest to Jim Dufour at Remembering the Rutland.

VRS Rutland 260

A Sight for Tired Eyes...

On 3 December 2002, Rutland No. 260 emerges from the confines of Vermont Rail System's North Walpole, NH shop and into the bright winter sun after a thorough external and internal cosmetic overhaul, including repairs. In addition to the rehab of 260, VRS's Scott Whitney reports that ex-Rutland coach No. 551 came back into the shop to get it's final rehab work done. Said Scott, "The clearstory windows all received new weatherprofing and caulking and the inside woodwork got a fresh coat of polyurethane (my arms are TIRED!)." God bless the VRS!

VRS Staff Photo

Flat Car Detail

Up Close Up with Rutland 2762

As you can see, Ray Muntz has made some progress on Rutland flat car 2762 at the Danbury Railway Museum.

Here We Go Again - Steamtown NHS prepares to scrap many of its decrepit pieces.
by Jim Dufour, Rome Romano, Rob Davis, et al.
Steamtown Followup - A Note from Pat McKnight

Second Section:
(Save the Rutland Archives with lots of images, so be patient!)

Rutland 8085 Arrives at DRM - by Mike Miciukiewicz
DRM Work Session Reports and Images - by Ray Muntz and Jeff English
Update: Lisbon, NY Depot and Grist Mill Preservation - by Dick Gibson
Rutland 8085 on the Move - by Jeff English
Draft Report on Baggage Car #129 - by Patrick McKnight, Steamtown NHS Park Historian
Rutland Dispatchers Selector Board - by Jim Dufour and Steve Mumley. Image by Doug Goodwin
Ogdensburg Report - by Paul McNamara
In the Weeds at Steamtown: Rutland Box Car 8050 - Image by Doug Goodwin
Rutland Wood Box Car No. 8050 at Steamtown - by Patrick McKnight, Steamtown NHS Park Historian
Strasburg Completes Restoration of Box Car 6081 - Unbelievable!

Ex-Rutland PS-1 box car #445 has been saved for preservation and is on it's way to the Naugatuck Railroad (aka The Railroad Museum of New England) near Waterbury, Connecticut. After its tenure on the Rutland, the 445 was sold to Hudson Leasing and was leased to the Vermont Railway. In the 1980's VTR purchased the car outright and used it for oil storage. The VTR in turn sold it to a feed dealer in Barre, Vermont who, until recently, also used it for storage. The car was made ready for interchange by putting roller bearing trucks under it for the trip to the "Naugy" in Connecticut. The friction bearing trucks will be placed back under the car upon its arrival at the museum. It was placed out for interchange with the NECR at Montpelier Jct on Sunday, August 25th. Upon close observation of the roof, you can see where it was painted yellow! It's my understanding that it will be restored to the Rutland yellow and green as-delivered paint scheme.

-Steve Mumley

9194 at Strasburg...WOW!

HERE YOU GO!

Just released from the Strasburg Rail Road car shops this morning, 28 March 2002. It's the 9194. This car looks great coupled to the 6081, the other Rutland boxcar we rebuilt in 1999. This was a fun project. I did the brake work on this car and was very surprised to find out that the brakes worked! All I had to do was put a clean set of AB valves on and a retainer.

Robert Geiter
Lancaster, Pa

I noticed last October that a section of the Rutland Right-Of-Way between Norwood and Winthrop (in the town of Stockholm) had gone up for tax sale. I spoke to my county legislator, and he got the ROW transferred to the town. I have bicycled that part of the Rutland staying completely on the ROW. Many parts of the Rutland ROW in northern New York are still used as a ROW by snowmobilers and ATV riders. I have bicycled the railbed from Norwood to Malone; in some cases pushing my way through brush; in others wading through beaver pond; and in others climbing over the beaver dam itself. But mostly actually riding. The few places where the roadbed is completely impassable have been where the roadbed closely parallels a road, or in towns where people have built on the roadbed (e.g. in Malone, heavily).

The old New York Central from Malone north to the Canadian border is completely open the whole way. Except for one section where the railbed has been quarried out from under the ROW, you could lay ties and rail again and have a rail service to Malone. See the following for my trip report:

As we reported recently via Scott Whitney, Dr. Marvin Kendall of Barnet, Vermont has stepped forward to save ex-Rutland snow plow X104. Now comes word from Rome Romano that a brief report on the move of X104 to East Barnet (featuring images from Scott) can be read on the Railway Preservation News web site. Once on the RyPN home page navigate to the News Brief for March 19th. There is a link there to Scott's images, which are posted in the file section of theYahoo VRS and Rutland group.

I have just found out about, and received, a very good report on the Ticonderoga Floating Drawbridge across Lake Champlain to Addison Jct. on the D&H. This was part of the original route proposed (threatened) to bypass the Vermont Central between Burlington and Rouses Pt. on the west side of the lake to make connection with the O&LC. It was prepared in 1995 by the Lake Champlain Basin Program and contains some very good historical facts about the three barges that served the site until its abandonment in 1923 and some additional information on the original concept span at Rouses Pt. It also, details the underwater archeology projects that have located the remains of the first two barges and speculates on what became of the third and last one, that tipped over and finally was the reason to abandon the route.

The Vermont Rail System has just completed purchase of the New York & Ogdensburg Railroad between Norwood and Ogdensburg including the line to Norfolk, the old N&StL. This puts all remaining Rutland tracks back under one ownership. History repeats itself! The final details are being worked out and the VRS should start running trains in Mid March.

Rome Romano and Dick Dermody each wrote to confirm that the wide vision caboose that Tom Matzell spotted in the latest issue of Railroad Model Craftsman is indeed the ex-Rutland No. 50. The RMC in question features a two page article on the new Amtrak station at Guadalupe, California. The van is on display behind the new station and is, of course, from the nearby Santa Maria Valley Railroad, where it wore number 210.

[Note: the following report was first filed by Alden Dreyer on the B&M list. It is used here with his kind permission for those of us interested in the present status of the former route of the Green Mountain Flyer. -jrd]

On Wednesday morning, 05 December 2001, as the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of changes to the U.S. Railroad Retirement Act that will greatly influence railroading around the world forever, a Guilford Rail Systems crew of about seven men quietly went about their work of installing new switch timbers into the turnout that connects Guilford's Main track at Hoosick Jct., NY with the former 6.81 mile Bennington Branch. Other workers were performing additional duties on the site.

From a purely track status, [Amtrak] trains could easily be running from Rensselaer to North Bennington by the end of this month. Here is what Alden found west to east: The main power switch mentioned above is completely restored and rehabed. A new handthrow turnout has been installed connecting the west end of the siding to the Branch and only awaits a controlling mechanism. A new high dwarf controls movements off the Branch. The ancient signal bridge still stands for whatever reason: perhaps a few of the cables it houses are still hot.

Curiously, the Branch turnout to the dead leg of the wye has been completely replaced with 136 pound Bethlehem steel and is ready for use -- a switch to nowhere as the wye has not been rebuilt and I wouldn't run anything over it except a hirail pickup or an American Standard. However, rebuilding the dead leg and restoring the interlocking at the former Hoosick Jct. East would be a small project and then passenger trains could run directly from Burlington to Boston or New Haven.

The Branch has been rebuilt with ALL new ties, relay 127 pound 1944 welded rail where I inspected, and the few crossings rebuilt. Heavy stone ballast on the shoulders and cribbing is now adequate, but a lift will be needed in the spring to get the tie bottoms out of the cinders.

The 1880 North Bennington Depot is as pristine as ever and a new concrete platform has been built trackside to welcome all comers. The heavy 136 pound Bethlehem connections and running rails contrast greatly with the 90 pound former Rutland steel. The small yard was full of freight cars.

I have heard nothing on when service will start or how the track is coming along north of North Bennington. But the Bennington Branch should soon set a new speed record as the former times of 12 minutes down and 13 up should easily be matched or exceeded once the track has stabilized.

On a related matter, GRS has spread a considerable amount of new shoulder ballast as needed on the West End. The tie job, now badly needed because of increased traffic, has yet to materialize, but we are hoping for 2002.

On Wednesday, November 28Th, Pete Gores, John Pesarek, Ron Trottier, and Don Mooney traveled to Morristown NJ, to prepare for the trip to NY. We didn't rush to get there, thinking that we would have plenty of time to get things ready on Thursday. We stopped at the HQ of the M&E RR, at Morristown, just to say hello and to settle our storage debt. After a brief conversation with the owner and his GM, we continued on our way to the loading site. It was still early so we thought that we would start taking the tarps off.

We were really anxious to see the car without the tarps for the first time. After a few short minutes we found that the tarps were put on the car with clips, which were easy to remove. We had the car in the daylight in about 30 minutes. What a sight! Even better then we imagined. No real damage from over 25 years under wraps.

There is one cracked window in the coach section, and one broken one in the baggage section. Not bad for a car that had been vandalized several years ago. We were in [such] a great hurry to view the inside of the car, minus the tarps, that all thought of dinner soon vanished. What a view of early railroad transportation. We could just smell the coal smoke and feel the car rock. Well, not exactly, but close.

The windows had plenty of graffiti painted on, and it was decided that we would spend a few hours just cleaning the coach end. The baggage end looks like a disaster area, but we just ignored that mess. By this time, it was starting to get dark. We had to have light if we were going to enjoy the evening cleaning and talking about our treasure. Don had brought along a small generator, just in case, and we found the "plug" for the lights. Of course, they didn't work at first. They haven't been used in so long that the knife switches had corroded and needed cleaning.

After a bit, on came the lights, and the whole gang cheered. Sure was nice just sitting, and discussing how well this car will look on the L&BR. We did manage to get all the windows cleaned, inside and out. We tried to get some of the graffiti off the wood, but found that our efforts removed the finish also. We decided that we would wait until we got home, and contact an expert, before we proceeded. We are lucky in that there is no profanity painted on the walls. After the window detail, it was time to go get some food, and sleep.

On Thursday, we got to the loading area about 7:30, and found that the trucker was already there. What a relief. We felt sure that they would be delayed, and our hope of an early departure would fade.

The air compressor arrived about 8:00 and we set about aligning the jacks for the lift. This turned out to be the easiest part of the job.

By 9:15, we had the car jacked up far enough to remove the trucks, and to place the truck dollies under the end, and lower the car back onto the dollies. Sure was easy with the right equipment. It took the better part of 1.5 hours to get the chains and binders attached. The trucker didn't take any chance on this car coming unhooked. After having done the rear of the car, the rest was easy.

The load was ready to transport around 12:15. Don returned the air compressor, but was delayed slightly returning. Pete delayed the trucker, knowing that Don wanted to see, and take pictures of the car, starting its journey. Finally at 12:30, the car proceeded to the street for the final check and departure. At 12:45, we watched the combine "hit the road". What a sight to see, after all the planning and hard work. Friday, November 30th found us anxiously awaiting word of the location of the trucker. The car had made it to the NY/PA border, and the expected ETA was 11:00 at Carthage.

Next came a call from the driver delivering the trucks. He had broken down on I-81 near Syracuse and couldn't give us a good ETA. Great, here we had a car being delivered in Carthage before the trucks arrived. Space is at a premium at the unloading area and we really needed the trucks on the tracks, in the right orientation, before the car arrived. Nothing to do but wait and hope that all turns out OK. We had a contingency plan that we would jack the car up and place it on cribbing if needed. What a chore that would be.

The car arrived in Carthage at 10AM, well ahead of schedule. Now we had a problem: no trucks and no ETA yet. We proceeded to remove the truck dollies, and wonder what to do next. Finally around 11:30, the other trucker called and said that his ETA would be around 12:30. Now we could really get busy. It took some time to position the car over the rails and get the chains and binders off.

In the meantime, Ron Trottier arrived with his compressor, and we started the jacking procedure. About the time the truck dollies were ready to come out from under the car, the other trucker delivered the rail trucks. The rest was history. The job went smoothly and we had the transporter on the road at 2:00pm.

We spent a couple of hours trying to get a spring assembly back in the proper place, but gave up after a few hours. We'll have to work on this at a later date. The trip from Carthage to Lowville was quite thrilling. GE 44-ton loco #1950 hauled the car at 10 MPH, and the crew enjoyed the ride immensely. We arrived in Lowville at 7:30 PM and quietly "put the car to bed".

The car sure looks good on the engine house lead track. A great end to a once-in-a-lifetime project. We had to leave the car outside, but should be able to get it inside sometime this week. A great "Thanks" go out to the members for their support of this project, and to the many people [who] helped in the loading and unloading of this gem.

Ex-Rutland combine No. 255, which was owned by renowned photographer O. Winston Link, has been donated to the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York [P.O. Box 317, Croghan, NY 13327]. The group is planning to move the car from New Jersey, where it has resided for many years, to its new home in upstate New York. Word is that once relocated to New York the car will be stored indoors, which is good news for its preservation and (hopefully) its restoration. Anyone interested in supporting them individually should contact:

Don Mooney <dmooney@gisco.net>

Additional information and updates can be found on their website at <www.newyorktrains.com>. Let's hope that the car's Rutland heritage will be preserved by the new owners.

Rutland 8085 and Friends
Image courtesy of Ray Muntz

[Note: the following is a update from Ray Muntz outlining the work that was performed recently on Rutland boxcar 8085. I hope it serves as an inspiration for others to help out. -jrd.]

Saturday, October 13, we (me, Jeff, Cella and Rome) worked on box car 8085 at Danbury. We painted the side temporarily covered with plywood so it would be more presentable . We scraped and applied rust stabilizer to both ends and painted one of the ends (visible in the image above). Another session will be scheduled for early November to apply simplified lettering to the "good" side and work on the roof and maybe work on the flat car. The attached photo, taken at the end of the work session, shows (l-to-r) Ray, Rome, Cella and Jeff and their masterwork.

Best Regards,
Ray

DRM Work Sessions

All-day work sessions are planned at the Danbury Railway Museum on the second Saturday of each month. Please consider volunteering towards the restoration of the Rutland freight cars there.

I received a short note from Rome Romano confirming that at least one of the two New York Central-style cabooses to be found along the ex-Boston & Albany mainline over Washington Hill in western Massachusetts are indeed of Rutland lineage. I'll let Rome take it from here:

I had the opportunity to stop at Chester, Mass. last week...to look over the Chester Foundation's collection of equipment. According to Dave Pierce, Foundation member who kindly opened up the freight house and caboose, the van is definitely an ex-Rutland caboose, most likely the 32, and came with all the records pertaining to it from the Rutland! While I didn't have the time to peruse the records, I am planning on a return visit. They purchased it from somewhere in Maine along with their 0-4-0T and have restored it [the van] to appear as B&A 1151.

Also, have made contact with the owner of the van at MP131. It too is Rutland but have yet to verify it's original number.

A couple of days later Steve Mumley wrote to fill in some details on #32: The Rutland van in Chester is #32. It sat for years in North Walpole, NH, stored on the GMRC and was the property of Don Robinson. He sold it to the group in Chester.

Scott Whitney wrote recently to inform us that he has found an ex-Rutland PS-1 boxcar residing on the Washington County Railroad in Barre, Vermont. (No word from Scott on the color of the roof :-). You may already know that the Vermont Rail System, of which Scott is an employee, has been operating the WACR for some time.

Sorry I did not get the word out to you about the Tobyhanna situation. The park has been working on it over the last couple months, but last week I was directed to respond to an inquiry about it, and next thing I knew my response was splattered all over the Internet. Since then, I have been deluged with requests from people who want a caboose in their backyard to regular railroad museums, and a lot of things in between. I did get an inquiry from Ron [Freitag] in Danbury but have not had time to compose a response.

I am not the decision maker in relation to this situation, though I am part of the process. I am doing my best to get information out about individual pieces. The situation basically revolves around a problem with storing the stuff at Tobyhanna. We may need to move everything and some of it is in pretty bad shape, as you know. As for the 253, in the note that got plastered all over the internet, I mentioned that parts would be removed before scrapping, including the Baker Heater and the dispatcher's equipment. Also, you may want to note that equipment the park plans to keep at Toby includes the Rutland pile driver [X170].

You are one of the few that had the chance to see firsthand what is at Tobyhanna. As a historian, I would love to sit back and write an article about the reaction of the rail preservation community on this, but I am part of the process, so it gets interesting. Let me know if you have any further questions, and if anyone is complaining I am ignoring the, keep on trying. I am doing my best to keep everyone informed.

-Pat

Apparently Steamtown National Historical Site is preparing to purge itself of many of its unwanted locomotives and rolling stock. Steamtown Historian Pat Mcknight was recently asked to make an accounting of Steamtown's plans for the pieces, most of which are stored off-site at the Tobbyhanna Army Depot. (Mr. McKnight should be familiar to Remembering the Rutland readers; among his contributions to RtR is the NPS draft report on Rutland steel baggage 129). There is nothing revealing in all of this to those of us who have followed the Steamtown saga these past years. All of the listed items are in deplorable condition and many do not fit into the Steamtown vision, and those that arguably do are so far down the road of decay that the cost of restoration is prohibitive.

We'll start off with Pat McKnight's email which has been making the rounds on many of the railroad lists this week, followed by reactions from Rome Romano and Rob Davis.

From: Pat McKnight
Sent: Wednesday, 17 January, 2001 12:45 PM
Subject: Surplus Tobyhanna equipment available?

I have been asked to send you information on the equipment at Tobyhanna. There are thirty-three pieces of equipment out there, three of which belong to another party. Of the remaining thirty pieces, Steamtown has decided to retain ten of them, and scrap another one for its parts to aid in reconstructing a similar one we have at Steamtown. Of the remaining nineteen pieces, there has been expressed interest in seven of them from outside groups. These seven pieces are:

--Boston & Maine Combination Car #2069 (wood, on flat car)
--Canadian National #5288 locomotive
--Canadian Pacific #2929 locomotive, Jubilee, 4-4-4
--CNJ Coach #1009
--East Branch & Lincoln Logging Derrick
--Kansas City Southern diesel locomotive
--Rutland Railroad Boxcar #9194

The remaining pieces that remain will probably be scrapped unless a suitable home is found for them:

--Boston & Maine Combination Car #1216 (wood)
--British Great Western Coach #6705
--DL&W Coach #3215
--Erie Stillwell #2 (2633)
--Erie Stillwell #3 (2607)
--Erie Stillwell #4 (2633?)
--Long Island RR coach #7016
--Long Island RR coach #7092
--Rutland Railroad Combination Car #253 (remove certain items before scrapping)
[NOTE: THE RUTLAND DISPATCHERS TELEPHONE BOARD IS INSIDE THE 253!!! - JRD]
--SJ&LC caboose #51
--SJ&LC caboose #53

If any of these pieces catch your eye, let me know. They are not in very good shape. If you need additional images or information on specific cars, let me know and I can send you additional information. I did do a report a while back with an image and short description of each car. If you give me a regular mailing address, I could send it your way. I hope this message does not appear to be too cryptic, but this is a complicated process we are going through.

-Patrick McKnight
Historian, Steamtown NHS

Fellow RRHS, RRET, and DRM friends,

Today on Railway Preservation News there was a posting from Rob Davis that follows below. Hopefully this, as with the last time, is just a rumor. If anyone can substantiate this as fact or fiction please inform the rest of us. I would also be interested in which party has expressed interest in the 9194, as it is the very last example of a "virgin" wood NYC type door and a half boxcar.

RRHS/RRET members have found over the past two years that we do not have the resources to acquire, restore and preserve any more pieces than what we have so far (8085, 2762, X578) at the Danbury Railway Museum. While we have come to realize that we (RRHS/RRET/DRM) as a group are incapable of realistically transporting, restoring and preserving the 270, we may have an option this time around.

What I am suggesting is that the RRHS approach the Steamtown-NPS with an offer to help underwrite the restoration and preservation of the remaining Rutland pieces in Scranton. The NEWSLINER Vol.12, #4 stated we currently have 375 members, and what better way to start a "Millennium Project!" If each member were to donate as little as $20 to help preserve the few remaining pieces of the Rutland at Steamtown and DRM, it would be at least $7500 a year. Would the promise of a few thousand dollars a year be enough to convince Steamtown-NPS to preserve our heritage? And here is the hook, are our members willing to forego that extra kit or to put off purchasing a book to help restore these last few pieces of the Rutland? Lest we forget that in addition to the 253 and 9194, Steamtown-NPS still has the X170 and 8050 at Tobyhanna too.

While I am loathe to splitting our limited personal financial resources between Steamtown and DRM preservation efforts, it would be far better than three (four, or more...) museums, or worse, looking at photos of what was once in our grasp.

Unlike two years ago I do not have the luxury of time and energy to follow this up. I implore someone from our group to spearhead this current effort to save the remaining Rutland pieces at the Steamtown-NPS Site.

Sincerely,

-Rome Romano

Ok guys, the call is going out again. An e-mail from Pat McKnight at Steamtown was circulated on the EL mail list. The National Park Service is stepping up efforts to remove unwanted equipment from the storage site at Tobyhanna. This could mean scrapping if the pieces do not find homes. This is a reality that will face all large museums at one time or another. Now is NOT the time to get angry. Now is the time to get into action.

We are just over dealing with the Bellows Falls equipment and word comes that Steamtown will be scrapping quite a few New England pieces UNLESS a home can be found. My limited contact with Pat McKinight is that he is a very reasonable person to deal with [ditto - jrd]. If you have a potential home or need parts, now is the time. If you have museum connections, or can help spread the word, now is the time.

Might we start a Rutland #253 fund?

According to the e-mail the following pieces are in the most danger:

--Boston & Maine Combination Car #1216 (wood)
--British Great Western Coach #6705
--DL&W Coach #3215
--Erie Stillwell #2 (2633)
--Erie Stillwell #3 (2607)
--Erie Stillwell #4 (2633?)
--Long Island RR coach #7016
--Long Island RR coach #7092
--Rutland Railroad Combination Car #253
--SJ&LS caboose #51
--SJ&LS caboose #53

The ones with some interest from potential homes -- so far -- are:

--Boston & Maine Combination Car #2069 (wood, on flat car)
--Canadian National #5288 locomotive 4-6-2
--Canadian Pacific #2929 locomotive, Jubilee, 4-4-4
--CNJ Coach #1009
--East Branch & Lincoln Logging Derrick
--Kansas City Southern diesel locomotive (F-7?)
--Rutland Railroad Boxcar #9194

Time to see if we can find the muscle and money to save one or two of these honeys!