Essex Junction – Rouses Point railway line
The railway Essex Junction Rouses Point is a railway line in Vermont and New York ( United States ). It is 75.5 kilometers long and connects the cities of Essex Junction , St. Albans , Swanton , Alburgh and Rouses Point , among others . The section from East Alburgh to Rouses Point has been closed. The rest of the route belongs to the New England Central Railroad and is served by this in freight traffic. The Amtrak uses the passage of Essex Junction to St Albans for their express Vermonter , which runs once a day.
history
prehistory
In the mid-1840s, entrepreneurs planned to open up the state of Vermont with railroads. A north-south stretch was to run along the Connecticut River into Canada, and two cross-stretches were to connect Burlington on Lake Champlain in the northwest of the state to this north-south stretch, one through Rutland and the other through Montpelier . The route via Rutland was to be built and operated by the Rutland and Burlington Railroad , and that via Montpelier by the Vermont Central Railroad . On October 31, 1845, before the construction work for the route network had begun, the Vermont and Canada Railroad was founded by the banker John Smith from St. Albans , which was to connect the two routes leading to Burlington with Montréal .
Construction and opening
Construction began in 1847 and on August 24, 1849, Vermont Central leased the railway company, intending to oust its competitor, Rutland & Burlington, and use the route alone. The line should connect to the concession in Burlington, the Vermont Central changed the plan and connected the new railway in Essex Junction to their main line, where the Rutland & Burlington did not go along. She did not allow Rutland & Burlington to use it and placed the trains in such a way that changing trains from the direction of Burlington involved considerable waiting times. On October 18, 1850, the first section to St. Albans went into operation. The line was extended to Alburgh on January 10, 1851. Since the planned bridge over Lake Champlain at Rouses Point had not yet been built, a makeshift pontoon bridge was built here, which went into operation on September 17, 1851. The permanent bridge could not be opened until 1868. In Rouses Point, the railway line Saint-Lambert-Rouses Point joined, on which Montréal could be reached.
Further development
With the opening of the Swanton Junction – Iberville line , traffic to Rouses Point declined noticeably from 1864. Express trains to Montréal now used the shorter connection, only passenger trains that ended in Rouses Point now drove over the western part of the route. Another connection to Canada was established in 1897 by the Canada Atlantic Railway from East Alburgh, which took further through traffic from the route to Rouses Point. Since the Central Vermont Railway (CV), which had meanwhile emerged from Vermont Central, was owned by the Grand Trunk Railway , as was the Canada Atlantic , but a mutual right of use was granted so that the Canada Atlantic trains could run to Swanton and the CV trains over the new route.
In 1901 the Rutland Railroad , which had emerged from Rutland & Burlington, built its own route to Rouses Point. Since she did not want to bear the costs of her own bridge over Lake Champlain, she agreed with the CV to share her bridge, which also allowed this, since the through traffic from Vermont to Canada no longer ran through Rouses Point anyway. The Rutland therefore built a track loop on the bridge so that it could run its own route over it.
After the traffic between East Alburgh and Rouses Point became weaker and weaker, the CV stopped passenger traffic on this section as early as 1929. In 1962, operations between East Alburgh and Rouses Point ended and the CV shut down the section. Rutland had already ceased operations the year before. In September 1966, passenger traffic was also stopped on the remaining route, but was resumed on September 29, 1972 by Amtrak , which led the Montréal from Washington to Montréal over the railroad. This train has ended in St. Albans since April 2, 1995, which again brought the end of passenger traffic between St. Albans and East Alburgh, and was renamed Vermonter , a name that a train on this route already had at the time of the CV . In January 1995 the CV was sold to RailTex by the Canadian National Railway , which had taken over the Grand Trunk and thus also the CV. It has operated as the New England Central Railroad since then and continues to operate freight services on the route between Essex Junction and East Alburgh.
Route description
The line branches off at the Essex Junction junction in a triangular track from the Windsor – Burlington railway line and initially leads northwards over a ridge to Milton. Shortly after Milton, it crosses the Lamoille River over a high bridge. The railway line continues winding north across the plateau and after a few kilometers reaches St. Albans. The city's 21-track freight yard was originally in the south and was crossed by Lake Street on a giant level crossing. For the St. Albans tram , which ran along Lake Street, a curve connecting it to the railroad was built here. The tram operation was responsible for securing the track crossing. Today there is only a small freight yard south of Lake Street and the level crossing is limited to the main line. The site of the former freight yard is built over. A little north of Lake Street is still the city's passenger station, where Amtrak trains have ended since 1995 and where the line to Richford branches off. This is also where the headquarters and depot of the New England Central Railroad are located, as well as a large roundhouse . The new Italy Yard freight yard was built in the north of the city.
From St. Albans the route continues through the settlement of Fonda, where the route to Iberville used to branch off. Here the route turns to the northwest and reaches the Missisquoi River at Swanton . There was a connection here to the Lunenburg – Maquam line , whose trains shared the Swanton station. The route now runs for a few kilometers along the Missisquoi River, but turns west before it flows into Lake Champlain and at West Swanton first crosses a narrow bay of the lake and then the narrow part of the lake that separates Missisquoi Bay from Maquam Bay. Here a swing bridge was built into the yoke bridge in the middle , which continued to allow shipping to the Missisquoi Bay. Still on the bridge, at its western bridgehead, the line branches and the East Alburgh station begins. The track in the direction of Rouses Point is closed from here, but is still used as a siding in the station area. This is where the route to Ottawa branches off and is still used.
The now disused route crosses a peninsula in Alburgh, which protrudes from the north into Lake Champlain. The town of Alburgh was once a major railway junction, as the Rutland route crossed Burlington here. This then led alongside the route from Essex Junction along and over the track loop to Rouses Point. Another line, the Maquam – Ogdensburg line , also crossed the same level west of Alburgh, but had its own bridge over Lake Champlain, which was a short distance north of the CV bridge. The yoke bridge is still partially preserved, only the steel swing bridge, which was also built in the middle of the bridge, has been dismantled. The western part of the bridge is now used as the pier for the port of Rouses Point. The route ends shortly after the bridge at Rouses Point station, where, in addition to the three routes from Vermont, there is also an important north-south connection that carries the bulk of the traffic from New York City to Montréal.
Sources and further information
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010.
- ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. Northeast. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2007.
- literature
- Robert C. Jones: Railroads of Vermont, Volume I. New England Press Inc., 1993. ISBN 1-881535-01-0 .
- Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .