the Green Mountain

Green Mountain is a good one!

Thanks Scott.... Great line, I have had the opertunity to spend some time on that strech of railroad as well!

Passenger

Depending on when and where you model, it's entirely possible to run a daily scenictrain if the area is particularly photogenic.  A few older coaches, be they heavyweights or even wooden cars, and whatever loco is available, wouldn't be a big stretch.

D&H Whitehall to Rutland

Anybody know a little about D&H operations from Whitehall to Rutland?

@ Bob

Hi Bob,

I think by 1980 the Vermont Railway owned the trackage rights.  Vermont Railway would be much more searchable and that section of track ships and receives most of the types of goods that Vermont uses.  Bob Jones has written a book on the VTR as well as his son Jim Jones doing multiple videos for his  ompany Telltale Productions. There was also a VTR book published by Carstens (or White River Productions aka Model Railroad Craftsman.  

There should be a good supply of VTR GP38s and GP40s as well as an Alco RS all by atlas available over time on eBay.  

The industries served are fuel oil, kerosene, diesel, gas, propane, lime slurry, boxcars carrying bags of lime, grain and feed, some cut lumber and building products, logs, kaolin and maybe the Amtrack train was coming into Rutland at that time too.  

If you have a chance email me amsnic2000@yahoo.com .

Nick

Clarendon and Pittsford

Would the "technically" be the Claredon & Pittsford? I know for the most part thats only seperate for tax reasons and all VTR power ran around the system

What I like about that is the ability to run the VTR family of power.... 

@ Bob again.

You are exactly right about the C&P.

My correct email address is amsnick2000@yahoo.com sorry about my first try.  Please try agin.

Nick

Narrow gauge

I would be inclined to go with the Sandy River or predecessors. Of course an interchange with the ME would be required or visa versa - model the ME and have a branch/interchange with the little two footers. In HO these could be ‘n30 or, if you have the space and resources, go O scale with n2 brass. 

What kind of space do you have?

Will you ask others to play - how many?

Is this a railfan layout, operations, or mix?

What era appeals to you? 

more questions

How short?

How busy?

How far west? (much of upstate New York is hilly, but not truly mountainous)

How true to life?

some ideas

Authentic

1. Sometime after Conrail, the NYS&W took over the route from Binghamton to Syracuse, NY. They still run it today.

2. Several post-Conrail short lines a bit further west in New York: e.g., Finger Lakes Ry, "origional" Genessee & Wyoming

Proto-freelance - real railroads that were merged long since -- re-write history to keep them independent

3. The Ulster & Delaware ran from the D&H (north of Binghamton, NY) east to Poughkeepsie through some very rugged turrain. Merged into NYC in the 1930s. There's a great book by Gerald Best.

4. The D&H had a short line in the Adiriondacks. It was merged long ago.

5. The original Springfield Terminal was a true short line.  Merged into Guilford in modern times. Tony Koster modeled it in large scale and wrote about it.

the Green Mountain

D&H Whitehall branch

You need an industry why not

You need an industry why not Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream!

model a dairy farm with and a small town research Stowe Vermont area

city? Burlington with its great brick buildings and culture

you can also have the Teddy Bear Factory or Magic Hat Brewing as industries

its New England so make it fall/winter and  the foliage colors gotta love the leafers!

Q&A

Some questions, so some answers are needed. 

* how far west (or south) I am really a fan of anything as far west as Binghamton. As far south at Wilkes Bare, as far north as Quebec and well for that matter the Atlantic!

A few things I do not want on this one. Large cities with large industries.  Heavy mainline/double main action. 

Time frame is still 1975-1980 . I am really sticking to this period in history. 

(I just got out of N, but dang it the Athearn challengers in N would make for a cool D&H layout)

NYSW Utica Branch

You might want to look at NYSW's branch that runs from Utica south towards Binghampton.  Lots of material about this line on the web.  Lots of cool videos too on YouTube:

This one shows a section of street running on Schuyler St in Utica, switching a local brewery via a _very_ tight siding that enters the building.  The man who shot this video has a ton of other great footage of the NYSW taken all over this branch.

NYSW interchanges with CSX in Utica  (would have been Conrail for your period of interest) and after running south from town, it goes through a various small towns and rural countryside, serving some small local industries.  Although the tracks go all the way to Binghamton, last I heard regular service did not go that far.  A recent project has rehabilitated the tracks from Binghamton up the line about 20 miles to close a gap that had existing for many years, but I believe they have not found customers yet to justify restoring service the full length of the line.  I can't remember whether the full line was open during your time period, but that information is probably not difficult to find.

Lots of fun stuff to model on this line, and there is lots of material available to guide your efforts.

Dennis

NYSW

NYSW is a cool line for sure. 

Just off the top of my head in 1980 they were running some unique-ish power GP18s, Alcos RS1s, RS3s, C430s

Depending on your scenary

Depending on your scenary preferences you could even have a ski mountain scene

Central Vermont Fans show yourself

One line that seems to run right through the middle of all of this would be the Central Vermont...

So far its proving to be one of the more difficult lines to reseach. Lots of CV steam information, and a lot of 1990s info right up to the sale and start of the NECR.. 

a bit wider territory can offer...

CV

Robert C. Jones wrote an excellent series of books on the CV.  Volume VI covers 1961 through 1981.  A few are available used on Amazon for $34 and up.  If there's any chance you'd model the CV, I'd ecourage you to get a copy if one's available at a reasonable price.

The 70s were an interesting period on the CV as it exerted a little more independence from parent CN.  They adopted their "independence green and yellow" scheme during that period, although it retained the CN-style "bent noodle" style logo.  Some of the old black-and-red units were still around and CN power visited as well.

Locos included GP9s and RS11s for the most part.  An S4 and 2 or 3 SW1500RS models were used in some local and yard service.

The road had two distinct personalities.  North of White River Junction, VT (or maybe as far south as Palmer, MA) had one personality while south end (nicknamed the "Banana Belt") south of Palmer was a different animal.  I'm far more familiar with the south end.  Interchange was with Conrail in Palmer and, for part of the time, with the Providence &Worcester in Willimantic CT.  The Willimantic yard is compact and very modelgenic.

I hope this gives you some help.  Let me know if you have any specific things you think I can help with or look up in my copy of Jones' book.

Eric thanks,

Thanks Eric.

This is one I am just getting into so all information at this point is for the most part "new" to me. 

Did the CV have any "large"online customers?  I have not been able to come across any paper mills etc on the line. 

I would be mostly interested in the CV on more of the northern end.

Always have been a closet

Always have been a closet Rutland lover. Most any railroad in New England is a dandy modeling subject. Go for it and best of luck!

Andre

Did or does the CV have any large customers.

Hi Bob,

Just CN and any other railroad to the south.  As far as I can tell they shunned both big and small customers as CV, Rail America and now G&W.  Just not customer friendly.

Nick

Industries

Bob, the CV had decent business on the north end (Richford and Roxbury subs) in your era.  While I'm not personally familiar with it, I was able to find the following in the Jones book.

Missiquoi Paper in Sheldon Springs on the Richford Branch.  Also, interchange with the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County (later the Lamoille Valley) at Sheldon Juntion.  A pair of SW1200RS's usually handled this area's business for the CV.  They wore the later CN black-and-red until at least the mid-70's; Rapido is releasing that model in black-and-red, albeit lettered for the CN - would be an easy re letter/re number job.

There's a feed mill at Swanton and VTR interchange in Burlington.  Much further south is Erving Paper (which seems like more of a warehouse operation from the photos in the book) and a large Agway plant, both in Brattleboro.

The book also has excerpts from the CV's 1979 Financial Report.  It shows forest products accounted for 44% of revenue, agriculture products @ 19%, fuel and chemicals @ 11%, ore and metals @ 7%, construction materials @ 5% and all other traffic @ 14%.

-Eric