Rutland – Hoosick Junction railway line
The railway Rutland Hoosick Junction is a railway line in Vermont and New York ( United States ). It is approximately 100 kilometers long and connects the cities of Rutland and Bennington . The route belongs to the Vermont Rail System and is operated by the Vermont Railway exclusively in freight traffic.
history
In 1845 the Western Vermont Railroad was founded, which received a concession to build and operate a railroad from Rutland via North Bennington to the Troy and Boston Railroad . The section in the state of New York built the Troy and Bennington Railroad . Construction began in October 1850 and in December 1851 the first section from Rutland to Arlington went into operation. White Creek was reached in July 1852 and by August 1852 the route was completely completed.
Operations on the route to White Creek were run by the Western Railroad, and the rest of the section by Troy & Boston, which had leased the part of the route in New York. After Troy & Boston had also leased the Vermont part of the route in early 1857, it briefly ran the entire route, but transferred this back to the Western Railroad in May 1857, which operated under the name Bennington and Rutland Railway from 1865 . The leaseholder of the railway line changed several times until Bennington & Rutland operated the line on their own again in the fall of 1877. In 1901 the Rutland Railroad bought the route and took over the management. The section in New York had meanwhile been transferred to the Fitchburg Railroad and later the Boston and Maine Railroad . However, the trains continued to run from Rutland to Troy and Albany .
Passenger traffic ended on June 26, 1953 after the Rutland workers went on strike. Freight traffic also ended after another strike on September 25, 1961. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the closure of the route on September 18, 1962, but the state of Vermont was able to avert this by purchasing the route located in Vermont. The government leased the line to the newly founded Vermont Railway , which resumed freight traffic on January 6, 1964, which it still operates today. The section of the line in New York was also leased from the Vermont Railway.
Route description
The route leaves Rutland towards the south, initially along Otter Creek , but turns off at Clarendon into the valley of the Mill River , which it follows to its end. The route continues south over a ridge into the Batten Kill valley and through Manchester . At Arlington the route leaves the valley and leads over a ridge to Bennington, from where it follows the Walloomsac River to the end of the line at Hoosick Falls. The Hoosick Junction junction is now just a normal track triangle, but was a complicated facility due to the separate directional tracks on the main Boston – Mechanicsville line until the second track was closed in 1980. One of the tracks on the main line crossed under the Gleisdreieck, where there used to be an intersection at the same level. It is unclear whether there were connecting curves to this track as well.
The only engineering structures along the way are the numerous river bridges over the Otter Creek, Mill River, Batten Kill and Walloomsac Rivers as well as some tributaries.
Sources and further information
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010.
- literature
- Robert C. Jones: Railroads of Vermont, Volume I / II. New England Press Inc., Shelburne, VT 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 .
- Jim Shaughnessy: The Rutland Road. (2nd edition) Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY 1997, ISBN 0-8156-0469-6 .
- Web links