Willimantic is a census-designated place located in Windham, Connecticut. Previously organized as a city and later as a borough, Willimantic is currently one of two tax districts within the Town of Windham. Willimantic is located within Windham County and the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. Known as "Thread City" for the American Thread Company's mills along the Willimantic River, it was a center of the textile industry in the 19th century. Originally incorporated as a city in 1893, it entered a period of decline after the Second World War, culminating in the mill's closure and the city's reabsorption into the town of Windham in the 1980s.
In rail terminology, a railway turntable or wheelhouse is a device for turning railway rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. it is especially used in areas where economic considerations or a lack of sufficient space have served to weigh against the construction of a turnaround wye. In the case of steam locomotives, railways needed a way to turn the locomotives around for return trips as their controls were often not configured for extended periods of running in reverse and in many locomotives the top speed was lower in reverse motion. In the case of diesel locomotives, though most can be operated in either direction, they are treated as having "front ends" and "rear ends". When a diesel locomotive is operated as a single unit, the railway company often prefers, or requires, that it be run "front end" first. When operated as part of a multiple unit locomotive consist, the locomotives can be arranged so that the consist can be operated "front end first" no matter which direction the consist is pointed. Turntables were also used to turn observation cars so that their windowed lounge ends faced toward the rear of the train.
The EMD FL9 is a model of electro-diesel locomotive, capable of operating either as a traditional diesel-electric locomotive or as an electric locomotive powered from a third rail. Sixty units were built between October 1956 and November 1960 by General Motors Electro-Motive Division for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
The Providence and Worcester Railroad is a Class II railroad operating 612 miles (985 km) of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build a railroad between Providence, Rhode Island, and Worcester, Massachusetts, and ran its first trains in 1847. A successful railroad, the P&W subsequently expanded with a branch to East Providence, Rhode Island, and for a time leased two small Massachusetts railroads. Originally a single track, its busy mainline was double-tracked after a fatal 1853 collision in Valley Falls, Rhode Island.
Steamtown National Historic Site (NHS) is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located on 62.48 acres (25.3 ha) in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). The museum is built around a working turntable and a roundhouse that are largely replications of the original DL&W facilities; the roundhouse, for example, was reconstructed from remnants of a 1932 structure. The site also features several original outbuildings dated between 1899 and 1902. All the buildings on the site are listed with the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Yard-Dickson Manufacturing Co. Site.
The Naugatuck Railroad is a common carrier railroad owned by the Railroad Museum of New England and operated on tracks leased from the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The original Naugatuck Railroad was a railroad chartered to operate through south central Connecticut in 1845, with the first section opening for service in 1849. In 1887 the line was leased by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and became wholly owned by 1906. At its greatest extent the Naugatuck ran from Bridgeport north to Winsted. Today's Naugatuck Railroad, formed in 1996, runs from Waterbury to the end of track in Torrington, Connecticut. From Waterbury south to the New Haven Line, Metro-North Railroad operates commuter service on the Waterbury Branch.
The Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway was the first railroad to run east from Poughkeepsie, New York, and was taken over by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and assigned to the Central New England Railway in 1907.
The Illinois Railway Museum is the largest railroad museum in the United States. It is located in the Chicago metropolitan area at 7000 Olson Road in Union, Illinois, 55 miles (89 km) northwest of downtown Chicago.
The Danbury Railway Museum is a railway museum housed in the former Union Station on the east end of downtown Danbury, Connecticut, United States. It was established in the mid-1990s following the closure of the station by the Metro-North Railroad in favor of a new station nearby, and primarily focuses on the history of railroading in southern New England and neighboring New York. In addition to the former station building, the museum has a collection of heritage railcars in the neighboring rail yard it shares with Metro-North.
The New England Central Railroad is a regional railroad in the New England region of the United States. It began operations in 1995, as the successor of the Central Vermont Railway (CV). The company was originally a subsidiary of holding company RailTex before being purchased by RailAmerica in 2000. In 2012, the company was purchased by Genesee & Wyoming, its current owner.
The Railroad Museum of New England is a railroad museum based in Thomaston, Connecticut. Through its operating subsidiary known as the Naugatuck Railroad, the museum operates excursion and freight trains on the Torrington Secondary between Waterville and Torrington. The Railroad Museum of New England name and trademark was adopted in 1987, as a result of reassessing the Connecticut Valley Railroad Museum's goals and visions. Home to one of the largest collections of preserved historic railroad equipment in New England, RMNE and its predecessor organizations have been active since the 1960s.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) is a museum in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, that is devoted to the topic of transportation.
New London Union Station is a railroad station on the Northeast Corridor located in downtown New London, Connecticut, United States. Union Station is a station stop for most Amtrak Northeast Regional trains and all CTrail Shore Line East commuter rail trains, making it the primary railroad station in southeastern Connecticut. It serves as the centerpiece of the Regional Intermodal Transit Center, with connections to local and intercity buses as well as ferries to Long Island and Fishers Island, New York, and Block Island, Rhode Island. The station has one side platform and one island platform serving the two-track Northeast Corridor; the latter platform also serves a siding track that connects to the New England Central Railroad mainline.
Roundhouse Park is a 17 acre park in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is in the former Railway Lands. It features the John Street Roundhouse, a preserved locomotive roundhouse which is home to the Toronto Railway Museum, Steam Whistle Brewing, and the restaurant and entertainment complex The Rec Room. The park is also home to a collection of trains, the former Canadian Pacific Railway Don Station, and the Roundhouse Park Miniature Railway. The park is bounded by Bremner Boulevard, Lower Simcoe Street, Lake Shore Boulevard West/Gardiner Expressway and Rees Street.
The Valley Railroad, operating under the name Essex Steam Train and Riverboat, is a heritage railroad based in Connecticut on tracks of the Connecticut Valley Railroad, which was founded in 1868. The company began operations in 1971 between Deep River and Essex, and has since reopened additional parts of the former Connecticut Valley Railroad line. It operates the Essex Steam Train and the Essex Clipper Dinner Train.
The Norwich and Worcester Railroad (N&W) was a railroad in the U.S. states of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Its north-south mainline ran between its namesake cities of Worcester, Massachusetts, and Norwich, Connecticut,. The Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) owns the ex-N&W line and operates freight service.
The Salt Lake, Garfield & Western Railway, nicknamed through most of its history as The Saltair Route, is a short line railroad located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Originally incorporated as a dual passenger and freight railroad, it now provides freight-only railcar switching services to industries in Salt Lake City along its sixteen miles of track.
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 4963 is a preserved class "O-1a" 2-8-2 "Mikado" type steam locomotive originally built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1923 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. It was used by the CB&Q to haul mainline freight trains before it was leased to the Bevier and Southern Railroad to haul short-distance freight trains in the early 1960s. It was subsequently retained by the CB&Q and used as a source of spare parts before being acquired by Richard Jensen.
The Southbridge Branch was a railway line in Connecticut and Massachusetts, United States. It ran 16.9 miles (27.2 km) between Southbridge, Massachusetts and East Thompson, Connecticut, via Webster, Massachusetts. Originally planned to be part of the Southbridge and Blackstone Railroad, it was ultimately built in 1866–67 by the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad. It became part of the New York and New England Railroad in 1875, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1898. Passenger service ended in 1930, and the eastern portion of the line was abandoned in 1937. The western half continued to be used for freight service; it passed to Penn Central in 1969, and to the Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) in 1976 as the Southbridge Running Track. The P&W stopped serving the line in the 1980s, but did not abandon it until 2004. Much of the western half of the line in Massachusetts has been converted to the Quinebaug Valley Rail Trail.
