Rutland Corkscrew Division

[Fr.Al]

I enjoyed Jim Shaughnessys article "Remembering the Corkscrew" in the Srong 2012 issue.I wonder if anyone on this forum has memories of the branch of the Rutland which ceased operating in May,1953.My family moved to Vermont in 1956 and by the time we relocated to Bennington in 1962,the Corkscrew was long gone.

   I discovered the remains of the roadbed in the fall of 1965.After my parents divorced,my dad moved to a street very close to where the Dewey street crossing had been.Walking to visit him,I would walk the old roadbed from Gypsy Lane crossing near Old Bennington through the Town Hill crossing (Main St./Vermont Route 9)to the aforementioned Dewey St.

[Inside Observer]

I am a fan of the New England railroads. I haave a friend who lived right near Petersburg Jct. I always look for the power lines which mark  the line when I head to MA on Route 20, through Lebanon

[Fr.Al]

I raised this question before on another post. Videos of the Rutland Milk Train show a combine car on the end (Fred McCloud's YouTube video). I would venture to say based on Jim Shaughnessy's book that the milk trains never carried passengers.

   While the Corkscrew Division ended passenger service in 1931, is it possible that the Milk trains elsewhere on the line did?

[daveklepper]

Pretty sure it did carry passengers, at least during WWII, and was listed as a mixed train.  Connected with the NYCentraql's Harlem Div. trains at Chatham.

Unless this was a local arrangement with locals who lacked other transportation in the days of A-cards during WWII.

WWII did revive passenger service on somoe linesw.  The Washington and Old Dominion was one example.

[Fr.Al]

You may well be right. I notice in R. W. Nimke's book, "Rutland, 60 years of Trying;Vol 4", there is a combine just ahead of the caboose on the local freight heading up from Chatham to Rutland.

    The photos were taken on Aug 15, 1952, just two days before I was born. Ironically, the consist also is pulling three brand-new Alco RS-3's, which will soon replace the steam locomtive on the front.

    I would suspect the milk trains might be the reason the Corkscrew Division lasted as long as it did.

[Fr.Al]

You are correct, Mr. Klepper. I read an account online by a retired brakeman, George Cameron. He stated that they carried passengers, but very few.

[daveklepper]

Thanks.  I rode the Suncook Valley mixed four times during the summer of 1945.  Three times I was the only passenger, and one time there was one other.