WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The last regularly scheduled train to be pulled by a steam locomotive rolled out of White River Junction the morning of March 29, 1957. It was the northbound Montrealer, and at the front was Central Vermont engine number 6208, last of a class of 399,600-pound behemoths that had powered the crack passenger run between Washington and Montreal since before World War II.
Three years earlier, the Boston & Maine had discontinued its steam locomotives on the
route between White River Junction and Manchester and Boston. The B & M’s mighty number 621 posed for a farewell picture with hands from the Westboro yards on April 14, 1954.
The passing of Central Vermont’s 6208 marked the end of steam locomotives in New
England. The CV had just taken a delivery of 16 diesel locomotives, finally catching up with the region’s other lines in transitioning from the “iron horse” that had powered the industry since its beginnings more than a century earlier.
Disappearance of steam locomotives would change White River Junction and West
Lebanon like nothing until the arrival of the interstate highways in the 1960s. Gone were the facilities that supported steam technology, like coaling stations, water towers, roundtables, ash pits and specialized repair buildings. Also gone were the constant bad air conditions caused by the engines’ billowing emissions of smoke and cinders.
Buildings in both villages had a ghostly gray look from generations of exposure to coal
smoke from the locomotives that continuously came and went through the sprawling yards, plus the switchers that moved cars back and forth 24/7 assembling freight trains. There was a steady level of noise from wheels rolling over steel rails, steam releases, clanging bells and the frequent whump of cars being coupled together.
Patty Rondeau, a Plainfield octogenarian, grew up on South Main Street adjacent to the
Junction yards and has vivid recollections of what life was like there in the 1940s and early 1950s.
“I went over to Franklin for a couple of weeks one summer and it was so quiet, I couldn’t sleep. If you lived on South Main you were used to noise all the time,” she says. “I’ll never forget the day World War II ended — The engineers kept tooting the whistles and flashing the Vee sign at us kids as the engines moved back and forth.”
Rondeau speaks of the neighborhood culture in those times.
“We watched trains a lot. We knew where they were coming from and going to,” she said. “There were a lot of hobos coming through. Pieces of coal were always falling off the trains and we kids would scavenge it and bring it home to help heat our houses. Up around the station it was always busy, passengers waiting and carts loaded with stuff at the Railway Express platform.”
The railroads employed a lot of people in the glory days of steam in the 1940s —
engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, yardmasters, section hands — and were the primary employers in White River Junction and West Lebanon. The railroad men were easy to spot in their blue striped bib overalls, frocks and hats; conductors wore distinctive three-piece suits and caps that evoked the 19th century. On their way to or from work they would carry “dinner pails” often fashioned out of 5-pound lard containers, or maybe a “dinner box” with a thermos tucked inside. Rarely would it be a “lunch box” as the Upper Valley vocabulary for eons called a meal at the middle of the day a dinner, and in the evening it was supper.
Most positions were unionized, and over time there were frequent tensions with
management, but a railroad job was considered by many a much more favorable situation than working in a mill, logging or toiling on a farm.
The last steam locomotive built in the United States was placed in service in 1953. A
year earlier there were 21,200 steam engines operating in the country; a decade later, fewer than 80 were running on major railroads. Diesel locomotives had appeared in the 1930s and their lower costs of operation would hasten the demise of steam power. A study in 1959 put the cost differential at better than three to one diesel over steam on a freight-mile basis.
The Boston & Maine in the 1950s shifted some of its passenger routes to what were
called at the time “Budd cars” which had a shiny aluminum skin and resembled a standard passenger coach. Each had its own diesel power plant on board and could run individually or be hooked up in multiples. On a snowy Sunday evening in March 1965 the last passenger run out of White River Junction for Boston was a Budd car packed with women who had been up for a party weekend at Dartmouth.
Later that year, an old steam locomotive friend would make an appearance in White
River Junction. Canadian National, nominal owner of Central Vermont, had hauled the
venerable number 6218 out of retirement, given it a rehab and sent it out on occasional
excursion runs around northern New England and Quebec. At the time, 6218 was one of the last and largest operable steam locomotives in North America.
On Aug. 20, 1965, it rolled into White River Junction; the next morning it pulled out
hauling a string of cars with open windows for the enjoyment of a horde of photographers and rail buffs. A car was fitted with electricity for those wishing to make recordings of the engine’s distinctive sounds as it rolled northward through Vermont toward St. Albans. There it was turned around and made a return journey back to White River Junction. The round trip took about 10 hours. That summer, 6218 pulled an excursion train from Portland to Montreal via Island Pond, where a large crowd turned out to see what many had never witnessed before, a real live, huffing and puffing, steam-and-smoke-belching locomotive.
Another very memorable steam locomotive visit to White River Junction would come a
decade later when the American Freedom Train stopped by on its tour of all the contiguous 48 states to commemorate the United States Bicentennial. The train was pulled by a former Reading Railway locomotive that had been headed for scrap when it was rescued and restored.
The Freedom Train consisted of 10 display cars, which had been created out of former
baggage cars to exhibit some 500 pieces of cultural history, ranging from George Washington’s copy of the Constitution to Martin Luther King’s clerical robes to a piece of rock from the Moon.
The train had two showcase cars, with windows cut in the sides to afford views day and night of historic inventions, a replica of the Apollo lunar lander and the Freedom Bell along with a diverse array of Americana.
Hundreds of people poured into downtown White River Junction on a clear but chilly
early spring day to see the Train, which was touring New England on the first leg of its 1975-76 odyssey. The locomotive didn’t disappoint, pouring out a mammoth plume of black smoke from its boiler and clouds of steam from the pistons turning the wheels as it slowed to a stop. The train had arrived on Central Vermont track and it was to continue on Boston & Maine’s toward Concord and Manchester, so it was necessary to change crews.
The engine and tender were uncoupled and slowly moved south to the intersection of
South Main and Nutt Lane where a hydrant was opened to replenish the water tank. Elmer Shuttleworth of Canaan had been summoned out of retirement to serve as engineer for the next leg of the train’s itinerary.
Attired in crisp trainman’s blue garb and with his cap showing his Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers union button, Shuttleworth shook hands with Freedom Train officials and climbed up into the cabin and took control. Soon the Train was crossing the Connecticut River bridge and was off on the track toward Concord and Manchester where crowds had been waiting for hours to see the show.
A number of Upper Valley people set out to chase the train and catch views of it
progressing along the by-then little used trackage. They sped up Seminary Hill hoping to get a glimpse as it passed beneath the Miracle Mile bridge. Then it was on to downtown Lebanon, as the train rolled through the Mall tunnel, past the old depot and onto the straightaway by Riverdale. Determined train chasers raced to keep ahead as the train passed along Mascoma Lake, through Enfield Village and then on eastward. For almost a mile the most determined could try to catch up with the train as Route 4 ran for a mile close to the Canaan tracks. Others picked up the chase through Orange, Grafton, Danbury and Andover where there were numerous spots to get a look at the American Freedom Train as it rolled south.
Today there is just one steam locomotive doing regular duty in New Hampshire or Vermont. It’s on the famed Cog Railway climbing Mount Washington, though much of its schedule is now handled by locomotives powered by big John Deere diesel engines. A steamer that does excursion runs for the Conway Scenic Railway is currently out of service undergoing overhaul.
Meriden resident Steve Taylor is a longtime contributor to the Valley News. He and his
family were among those chasing the Freedom Train through Lebanon in 1975.