Trip On the Vermont Railway

Well we are gonna save the Springfield-New Haven trip till later on in the summer but me and my family (minus dad, he was workin) took a little ride on the Vermont Railway from North Bennington, VT to Manchester, VT. The station at North Bennington is a beautiful depot, built in 1880 and it was restored into great shape a few years ago. They had some displays of rail travel in Vermont and how Amtrak might start running a train over this route (probably will never happen though). They had a few large pictures of Genesis units in the station, one was 831 which hauled the Foliage Flyer last fall. The train had a Red GP38 up front, an HEP box car. The box car was the odd one, it had almost like Amtrak Phase III striping going across the car but it had markings for Vermont Railway. The were two old time Budd Coaches with pairs of seats facing each other and at the end there was the Vermont Railways version of an Amdinette. We sat in the "VRDinette". The car had a very nice refurbished restroom and the seating and decor of the car were pretty nice. The only thing bad about it was the musty smell. The air conditioner in the car worked very well, there really wasnt anything at the food service counter a coupld of bags of chips and some drinks, and a ton of different souvieners like shirts and hats and stuff. The ride cruised at an average speed of about 24 MPH, no Acela Express for that matter. The track was surpisingly good! The "VRDinette" made horrible noises though, alot of creeking and moaning. Never heard an Amfleeter do that. The car had a bunch of little tables set up through out the car and had regular chairs that you could move around in the car. I got talking to the conductor of the route, a true railroad veteran! Hes worked on the railroad for about 50 years, he says he loved every single minute of it. He had a varity of positions from train dispater to train master, Im not sure what the title of train master is though. Hes also from a railroading family, though most of his relatives were killed in the line of duty, including one that had their head taken off in the famous Hoosac Tunnel, which runs through a corner of my hometown-Savoy, Mass. I also told him I was intrested in a career with the railroad in a few years, he was pumped about that! He asked which railroad I would be intrested working for, and I told him Amtrak. He says its a great company to work for, his son worked for Amtrak for a while and loved it. He goes just hopefully the government doesnt shut it down! He says that he could refer me to an Amtrak training center over in Albany next year to get into a career with the railroad! I was happy about that! We got off in Manchester after a pretty nice trip and ate at a cafe up the road a ways from the Manchester booth, which was the Vermont Railroad's version of an Amshack. The slow service in the cafe limited our time looking at the shops of Manchester because it was an hour before the train went back. On the ride back we rode in one of the coaches, Amtrak cars are much nicer Ill tell ya that much, this car was looking a little beat. But the neat thing about this car was that the windows opened. They had the Amfleet style windows which are divided in the middle and one section of the window slid past the other, the sounds of the rails sounded great!! I loved having the windows open, its such a nice experience, too bad Amtrak's windows dont open but theres probably safety reasons behind that. Alot of people were sticking their heads and stuff out the windows, and I was one of them It was awesome when they blew the horn for rail crossings, the sound echoed through the car - Very loud!! Very nice sounding horn too. The trip back was smooth as well. We stopped just North of the North Bennington Station and had the locomotive run around on a siding from the front of the train to the rear of the train to push the train into the station and prepare for its next journey up to Manchester. I got a glimpse of the engineer as well, I almost died!! He looked incredibly like the engineer of 449 that I saw last friday!!! It was freaky! :lol: We then disembarked for the day, said goodbye to the crew . . .like I said it wasnt Amtrak, but it was still a great trip!

Sounds like you had a great trip.

Sounds like an amazing trip. I took this same railway about five years ago. I can remember just how much fun it was.

Yeah it was a good one no doubt, It would be nice if Amtrak did make the move to this line someday. I was surpised at how many people were riding it both ways, being a Friday mid-day in all, around 50 people were riding. I imagine that its got a ton of riders on the weekend! My next Journey though - the Berkshire Senic Railway! They have now extended their run from a few hundred yards on their own property to a 22 mile round trip just this year! The odd thing is, I found out about the extention on the news ticker on the bottom of CNN! There wasnt anything about it really in the local newspapers or anything, which was weird. . . hearing bout a small line like that on CNN, who would figure. But reports have it that the train has been jammed packed every weekend and its a real nice ride

I did the Berkshire Scenic Railroad about 5 years ago and it certainly wasn't worth the money to go a few feet then back a few feet and then forward again. Now that they've extended the route though is great! I rode on the Conway Scenice Railroad up in New Hampshire, and that was another cool experience. They had an open platform car where you could stick your head out. On the return trip the locomotives were right in front of the platform car, which made for some great horn listening.

Ohh man the Berkshire Senic Railroad was the most pathetic thing for the longest time, my god go back and forth three times along a stretch of track probably as long as the Lake Shores Boston Section uggh. I know school classes who have taken trips down there expecting a nice long train ride but didnt know how long it really was go down there and be horribly dissapointed!! Ive seen adds for the Conway senic, that looks like an awesome route and its on my list of routes Id like to travel someday!