A Green Mountain Railroad excursion freight winds its way along the Connecticut River amidst the dazzling beauty of New England. Photograph copyright Shaun McGinnis and reproduced courtesy of RailPictures.Net
Lying deep in the marvelous Green Mountains of Vermont lies a railroad corridor shrouded with history and legend; where great men once tread and mighty machines roared. Today, it is the very same.
Completed in December 1849, The Green Mountain Railroad's line between Bellows Falls and Chester is part of the once-mighty Rutland Railroad's main line to its namesake city. Winding along picturesque rivers and over impressive trestles and ridges, the line once hustled name-trains like The Whippet and milk trains, of which the Rutland relied on for profit. The Rutland fell on hard times after World War II and a strike in 1953 ended all passenger service. A worse strike in 1961 cause the entire railroad to be abandoned and the Rutland's assets to be broken up and sold.
Green Mountain Railroad #405, an ex-Rutland Railroad RS-1, has spent its entire service life of 64 years on the same stretch of railroad. Photograph copyright Bob Vogel and reproduced courtesy of RRPictureArchives.NET
But much, much more was about to come to the line. Enter F. Nelson Blount.
Blount was a the owner of a successful seafood corporation and a man of many talents and interests. However, his greatest passion was for steam locomotives. Blount had assembled a legendary collection of steam locomotives. Among his collection; a Union Pacific Big Boy, a Reading T1, a Nickel Plate Berkshire, several Canadian locomotives and dozens more smaller locomotives. Blount had stored his collection both at his narrow gauge railroad in Massachusetts and the Pleasure Island amusement park, but in 1960 he was looking for a new place to open a permanent museum. Brief operations in Sunapee, NH and Keene, NH proved successful but for one reason or another did not work out. Then in 1963 the infamous Boston & Maine Railroad president Patrick J. McGinnis, a friend of Blount's, sold him a roundhouse and yard facility in North Walpole, NH just across the river from Bellows Falls, VT. Steamtown USA was born.
The Sieamtown facility in North Walpole, NH. Just across the bridge lies Bellows Falls, VT. Just some of Blount's massive collection can be seen here. Photograph copyright Ted Houghton and reproduced courtesy of RRPictureArchives.NET
F. Nelson Blount at the throttle of his beloved ex-CN 2-6-0 #89. Chester, VT 1966. Photograph copyright Michael Sirotta and reproduced courtesy of RailPictures.Net
Around the same time, the state government requested that Blount organize a freight railroad to handle traffic between Bellows Falls and Rutland. Although his interests laid mainly in steam powered tourist excursions, Blount purchased ex-Rutland equipment and created the Green Mountain Railroad. Until Blount's death in a private plane accident in 1967, GMRC and Steamtown ran as a single operation. Afterwards, they parted ways and handled their own separate affairs. In the early 1970s Steamtown moved to a new location just outside Bellows Falls at Riverside and operated there until their move to Scranton, PA in 1984.
Just a portion of Blount's legendary collection can be seen at Riverside, VT in the 1980s.
The Green Mountain line deserves to be included in Train Simulator for a wide variety of reasons. Steeped with history, the line has been host to a wide variety of famous and legendary railroads. The gorgeous scenery of New England has been seen only once in an official route, almost five years ago. This is a region with untapped potential, a part of railroading that is essential to the American railroad landscape. There is much more to the railroads of America than large scale routes in the south and west. Additionally, this area and line saw the birth of one of the nation's greatest railroad museums and hosted it for over twenty years. Rolling stock would be an easy accomodation.
In the present day, the Vermont Railway and Green Mountain railroad operate GP40s, GP40-2s, GP38s, and GP38-2s so all that would be required would be repaints for these already existing locomotives. GMRC #405, an ex-Rutland RS-1, already exists as a third-party locomotive. Only yellow wooden Steamtown coaches and perhaps a famous Steamtown locomotive like ex-Rahway Valley 2-8-0 #15 might be created. All in all, the Green Mountain line provides an amazing opportunity for an incredible northeastern railroading route that should not be missed.
Scenery like this makes the Green Mountain Line an opportunity that must not be missed. Photograph copyright Kevin Burkholder and reproduced courtesy of RailPictures.Net