For some time St. Johnsbury, VT was a hotbed of rail activity, in spite of its small size. CP, B&M, MEC, and ST. Johnsbury & Lamoille County all ran through it or terminated in the town. But who owned the yard there?
The Boston & Maine never served St. Johnsbury, VT in recent years. I visited St. Johnsbury, VT in 1952, and I saw a St Johnsbury & Lamoille County 0-6-0 switcher switching in the yard across from the passenger station, but I don' t know who actually owned the yard.
My old maps show that B&M owned the main N-S line in the late 1800s, but that CP owned it by the 1920s. My guess is that one of those lines owned the St J yard depending what time period you are talking about.
This is where the history becomes important. The yard was built where the Portland and Ogdensburgh crossed the Connecticut and Passumpsic by the P&O. When the P&O was broken up the MEC got rights to the yard, but not the yard itself. In later years the CP (successor to the B&M as owner of the C&P) and the MEC had rights to use the yard, but the St. J and LC (St Johnsbury and Lake Champlain) did the yard switching under contract. After Pinsly bought the St.J and LC (now St Johnsbury and Lamoille County) the arrangement held for a while until MEC bought out Pinsly's interest. The whole kit and caboodle is now owned by the State of Vermont and what track is left in St Johnsbury is operated by the Washington County Railroad, part of the Vermont Rail System, whose other line is made up of ex-Central Vermont, Montpelier & Wells River and Barre & Chelsea trackage. WCoRR also operates the ex-B&M line from Wells River to White River Jct. VT. The ex-MEC line is still in place and listed as operated by the Twin State Railroad.
The Montpelier and Wells River had a similar switching arrangement at Wells River VT and Woodsville NH until its abandonment in the late 1940s, though there ownership was largely B&M, with CP coming into Wells River from the North.
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