  © John Mahoney
across the trestle a personal account of riding the Foliage Special excursion train from Newport down to St. Johnsbury in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom and the delights encountered
JOHN MAHONEY
the last time I rode down this stretch of track I was a teenage soldier shipping overseas to Germany. That was more than four decades ago ago and passenger trains have long since been history, romantic memories of the glory days when railroading was the ony game in town.
I come from a railroading family. A century ago my great-grandfather was a railway freight agent here. My grandfather was a brakeman for forty years in the South Yard. Two of my uncles drove trains during WWI and one was later killed when he unwittingly stepped back into the path of a steam locomotive in Montreal. And my father spent long, hard, low-paid years manhandling freight on the Transfer gang before WWII.
I miss the noisy, smelly trains so I jumped at the chance to make the excursion run being offered by the Northern Vermont Railroad while the leaves are at their peak color this autumn.
Their core business is hauling freight but this year they are experimenting with diversifying into specialty passenger runs -- like theVermont leaf peeping trade. The first people-hauling excursions were in Nova Scotia last July.
"By the end of the summer, we were turning people away," said Russell S. Penniman IV, an Iron Road director and investor. Penniman, an ex-navy fighter pilot, believes railroads as cost-efficient movers of bulk goods are making a comeback.
Copyright © John Mahoney 1997 This page hosted by Tripod Get your own Free Home Page |
The NVR is part of the Bangor & Aroostook system, which in turn is owned by Iron Road Railways. They control 1000 miles of track in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Maine, Vermont, and Iowa. About 100 miles are located in the Green Mountains.
