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Reporting mark | SJL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Locale | Vermont | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dates of operation | 1948–1995 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Predecessors | Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad, St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Successor | Lamoille Valley Rail Trail | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technical | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Length | 193.7 miles (311.7 km) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad (StJ&LC) was a railroad located in northern Vermont. It provided service to rural parts of the state for over a century, until track deterioration and flood damage made the line unusable and uneconomical to repair, which forced the line to close in 1995. Vermont is in the process of converting the roughly 96-mile route from St. Johnsbury to Swanton into a rail trail, known as the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. Once completed it will be the longest rail trail in New England. [1]
The railroad began construction in December 1869 as part of the Vermont Division of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railway to connect the Great Lakes with the seaport of Portland, Maine. It would be completed on July 17, 1877, with Governor Horace Fairbanks driving in the silver spike in Fletcher. Although the railroad had plans on expansion to Lake Ontario, the line originally ended at Swanton. The Vermont Division was extended to Rouses Point in 1883, allowing it to connect to the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad and provide a direct connection to the Great Lakes. [1]
The eastern end of the Vermont Division was leased to the Maine Central Railroad in 1912, and the remainder of the line became a subsidiary of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Boston & Maine operated their segment as the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad after 1925. This segment was reorganized as the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad in 1948. [2]
Freight traffic was 30% inbound commodities, 20% outbound dairy products to Boston, 15% outbound forest products, and 25% outbound limestone, talc and asbestos. The remaining 10% was bridge line traffic (westbound paper and eastbound feed) for the Maine Central Railroad Mountain Division. Six 70-ton General Electric Diesel locomotives replaced steam locomotives.[ when? ] Passenger service ended in 1956. Trucks had taken all of the milk traffic by 1961, but bridge line traffic had increased six-fold following the 1953 dissolution of Maine Central's joint operating agreement with Boston and Maine Railroad. Light-duty rail and covered bridges prevented the line from accepting new heavier "incentive" freight car loadings. The covered bridges were replaced or reinforced so worn out light diesel locomotives could be replaced by larger locomotives; but track conditions deteriorated under the heavier loads. [3]
The State of Vermont purchased the line from Samuel Pinsly in 1973. The line was then operated by Morrison-Knudsen as the Vermont Northern Railroad for a time. In 1978, local shippers took over the operation and it became the Lamoille Valley Railroad. In 1989, the line was leased to a Florida company and was operated by them until major flooding in 1995 and 1997 damaged the line so much that it was not profitable to repair the track. In 2002, the state of Vermont started converting the 96-mile route into a recreational trail and created the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, under a railbanking arrangement. This process was completed in May 2023.
The State of Vermont created the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail Committee in 1997 to begin the conversion of the old route into a recreational trail. In 2002 the federal Surface Transportation Board allowed the decommissioning of the old right of way into a trail, with then representative Bernie Sanders earmarking over $5 million in federal funding for its construction. Work began in 2006, with work slowly progressing with funding availability and the labor-intensive rehabilitation of old stone supports and bridges. [1] As of 2023, construction of the 93 mile trail has been completed, from downtown St. Johnsbury to downtown Swanton, tracing the course of the Lamoille River and the Sleepers River. [4] [5]
Milepost | Town / City | Station | Image | Note | Position | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.0 | St. Johnsbury | St. Johnsbury | Interchange with Maine Central Railroad and Canadian Pacific Railway. [6] | |||
1.4 | Fairbanks Scales factory [6] | |||||
11.48 | Danville | Danville [6] | ||||
14.85 | West Danville | |||||
16.30 | Joe's Pond | |||||
19.7 | Walden | Walden [7] | ||||
23.87 | Dow | |||||
27.80 | Greensboro | Greensboro [7] | In the village of Greensboro Bend, so named for the large arc of the track as it turned south to follow the Lamoille River. | |||
31.0 | Hardwick | East Hardwick | ||||
34.73 | Hardwick | 98-foot covered bridge built 1909 over the Lamoille River burned 1959. [8] | ||||
35.7 | Granite Junction | Junction with Hardwick and Woodbury Railroad. | ||||
39.0 | Wolcott | Fisher Covered Railroad Bridge | Preserved 90-foot bridge built in 1908 over the Lamoille River. It was strengthened in 1968 to be the last covered railroad bridge in service. [9] | |||
120-foot covered bridge built 1909 over the Lamoille River. Replaced by Baltimore Truss steel bridge about 1917 [9] | ||||||
41.03 | Wolcott | |||||
48.88 | Morrisville | Morrisville [10] | ||||
51.56 | Hyde Park | Hyde Park | ||||
56.35 | Johnson | Johnson | ||||
64.26 | Cambridge | Cambridge Junction | Junction with Central Vermont Railroad. 113-foot covered bridge built 1899 over the Lamoille River replaced by steel bridge about 1968. [8] | |||
68.81 | Fletcher | Fletcher | ||||
74.24 | Fairfield | East Fairfield | ||||
78.44 | Fairfield [11] | |||||
83.05 | Sheldon | Sheldon [11] | ||||
84.56 | Sheldon Junction | Junction with the Missisquoi Railroad line [11] | ||||
87.40 | Highgate | East Highgate | ||||
90.91 | Highgate [11] | |||||
94.73 | Swanton | East Swanton | ||||
Swanton Covered Railroad Bridge | Three-span 369-foot covered bridge over the Missisquoi River built in 1898 was on the main line between East Swanton and Swanton. It was preserved by routing StJ&LC trains over the Central Vermont Railroad. [12] | |||||
96.10 | Swanton | Station now houses Swanton Historical Society | ||||
Fonda Junction | Swanton Lime Works and interchange with Central Vermont Railroad [11] |
The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983.
Cambridge is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,839 at the 2020 United States Census. Cambridge includes the villages of Jeffersonville and Cambridge.
The Rutland Railroad was a railroad in the northeastern United States, located primarily in the state of Vermont but extending into the state of New York at both its northernmost and southernmost ends. After its closure in 1961, parts of the railroad were taken over by the State of Vermont in early 1963 and are now operated by the Vermont Railway.
The Northeast Kingdom is the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Vermont, approximately comprising Essex, Orleans and Caledonia counties and with a population of 64,764 at the 2010 census. The term "Northeast Kingdom" is attributed to George D. Aiken, former Governor of Vermont and a U.S. senator, who first used the term in a 1949 speech.
The Central Vermont Railway was a railroad that operated in the U.S. states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as the Canadian province of Quebec.
The St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, known as St-Laurent et Atlantique Quebec in Canada, is a short-line railway operating between Portland, Maine, on the Atlantic Ocean, and Montreal, Quebec, on the St. Lawrence River. It crosses the Canada–US border at Norton, Vermont, and Stanhope, Quebec, and is owned by short-line operator Genesee & Wyoming.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad was a railroad that operated in Massachusetts in the United States. It was one of the first railroads in North America and the first major one in the state. The line later operated as part of the Boston and Maine Railroad's Southern Division.
The Maine Central Railroad was a U. S. class 1 railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. By 1884, Maine Central was the longest railroad in New England. Maine Central had expanded to 1,358 miles (2,185 km) when the United States Railroad Administration assumed control in 1917. The main line extended from South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada–United States border with New Brunswick, and a Mountain Division extended west from Portland to St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and north into Quebec. The main line was double track from South Portland to Royal Junction, where it split into a "lower road" through Brunswick and Augusta and a "back road" through Lewiston, which converged at Waterville into single track to Bangor and points east. Branch lines served the industrial center of Rumford, a resort hotel on Moosehead Lake and coastal communities from Bath to Eastport.
The Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad was a railroad planned to connect Portland, Maine to Ogdensburg, New York. The plan failed, and in 1880 the Vermont section was reorganized and leased by the Boston & Lowell Railroad. In 1886, the Maine and New Hampshire section was reorganized as the Portland & Ogdensburg Railway. That part was leased to the Maine Central Railroad in 1888, and in 1912 the Maine Central leased the eastern part of the Vermont section from the Boston & Maine Railroad, the successor to the B&L.
U.S. Route 2 (US 2) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that is split into two segments. Its eastern segment runs from Rouses Point, New York, to Houlton, Maine. In Vermont, US 2 extends 150.518 miles (242.235 km) from the New York state line in Alburgh to the New Hampshire state line in Guildhall. West of Vermont, US 2 continues into New York for another 0.87 miles (1.40 km) to an intersection with US 11 in Rouses Point. US 2 passes through the cities of Burlington and Montpelier as it traverses the state. The highway parallels Interstate 89 (I-89) between these two cities. The Burlington to Montpelier route was first laid out as a toll road in the early 19th century. It was later incorporated into the transcontinental auto trail known as the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway in 1919 before being designated as part of US 2 in 1926.
The Vermont Railway is a shortline railroad in Vermont and eastern New York, operating much of the former Rutland Railway. It is the main part of the Vermont Rail System, which also owns the Green Mountain Railroad, the Rutland's branch to Bellows Falls. The trackage is owned by the Vermont Agency of Transportation except in New York, where VTR operates a line owned by the Boston and Maine Corporation. The rail line employs about 150 people in Vermont.
Rouses Point station is an Amtrak intercity train station in Rouses Point, New York, served by the single daily round trip of the Adirondack. The station building is a former Delaware and Hudson Railway constructed in 1889, with a one low-level side platform on the east side of the track. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as Rouses Point Railroad Station.
The Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad was founded in 1849 as the Northern Railroad running from Ogdensburg to Rouses Point, New York. The 118-mile (190 km) railroad was leased by rival Central Vermont Railroad for several decades, ending in 1896. It was purchased in 1901 by the Rutland Railroad and became its Ogdensburg Division.
The Mountain Division is a railroad line that was once owned and operated by the Maine Central Railroad (MEC). It stretches from Portland, Maine on the Atlantic Ocean, through the Western Maine Mountains and White Mountains of New Hampshire, ending at St. Johnsbury, Vermont in the Northeast Kingdom. The line was abandoned in 1983 by MEC's successor, Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI). Guilford retained a stub between Portland and Westbrook. A section in New Hampshire remains in use by heritage railway Conway Scenic Railroad.
The Fisher Covered Railroad Bridge is a covered bridge in Wolcott, Vermont. Built in 1908, it originally carried the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad line over the Lamoille River. Now closed, it was the last covered bridge in Vermont to carry railroad traffic, and is a rare surviving example in the state of a double Town lattice truss. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The Morrisville Depot located at 10 Depot Street in Morrisville, Vermont, is a decommissioned historic train station. Built in 1872 to serve the Portland and Ogdensburg Railway, the depot was known as the most important train station for the Vermont lumber industry, for its decorative architectural ornament, and for housing the headquarters of the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad from 1959 to the early 1970s. It was subsequently converted into a restaurant. The Morrisville Depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as building #15 in the Morrisville Historic District.
The Swanton Covered Railroad Bridge was a covered bridge in Swanton, Vermont. Built in 1898, it carried the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad across the Missisquoi River just west of Swanton village. It was destroyed by fire in 1987, and its site is now occupied by the former West Milton Bridge. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and has not been delisted despite its destruction.
The Greensboro Depot is a historic railroad station on Main Street in the village of Greensboro Bend, Vermont. Built about 1872 by the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad, it is a well-preserved example of that railroad's early station designs, and a reminder of the village's historic association with the railroad. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
East Hardwick is an unincorporated village in the town of Hardwick, Vermont, United States. It is part of what is known as the Northeast Kingdom (NEK) of Vermont. The community is located on the Lamoille River and along Vermont Route 16, 16 miles (26 km) west-northwest of St. Johnsbury. East Hardwick has a post office with ZIP code 05836, which opened on October 10, 1810. According to a 1937 WPA Federal Writers Project Guidebook, East Hardwick is a "side hill village spilling from the level of a plateau down a sharp incline in the valley of the Lamoille. It is surrounded by rich farm lands, Maple groves and forests."
The Hardwick and Woodbury Railroad was a short-line railroad serving the towns of Hardwick and Woodbury, Vermont. Built to serve the local granite industry by bringing rough stone from the quarries to the cutting-houses, the railroad was about 7 miles (11 km) long, plus leased track, extended to about 11 miles (18 km) at its greatest extent. It connected with only one other railroad, the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain, in Hardwick.