NEB&W Guide to Rutland, VT - Railroad Yard

Last Update: 2009-09-11

Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

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• Overview
• South End
• Ice Houses
• Engine Terminal
  • Old Roundhouse
  • Ash Pit
  • Coaling Tower
  • New Roundhouse
  • The Turntable
  • Tender Shop
• Backshop
  • Overview
  • Freight Car Repair
  • Storehouse
  • Machine Shop
    • Tin Shop & Blacksmith Shop Annexes
  • Scrap Bins
  • Lumber Sheds
  • Retaining Wall
• 1919
  • Enginehouse
  • Coach Shop
• North End Industries
  • Overview
  • John Welch Coal
  • Duffy's Coal
  • Burditt Brothers
• Evelyn Street
• Not Modeled
  • Depot
  • Other Railroad Facilities
  • Not Railroad

Overview

• The yard at Rutland, VT dated back to the mid 19th century. The overall general arrangement continued to bear a resemblance nearly a century later. Bob Nimke's 9 volume series on the Rutland devotes an entire volume to the railroad's namesake (Volume II).
  • [Civil War era view from the overpass, photo courtesy of Jim Shaughnessy's The Rutland Road. (The covered roundhouse burned in 1864.)]
  • [Map c. 1878. (Hmmm, the covered roundhouse still is shown.)]
  • [Panoramic view, 1885. (Covered roundhouse must have been rebuilt.)]
  • [Prototype photo, c. 1905, before the tender shop was built.]
  • [Another angle, c. 1905.]
  • [Similar angle, c. 1910. The framework for the tender shop is visible.]
  • [Nimke's book cover. Photo c. early '50's.]
  • [In-progress model photo, Jan. '04.]

• The 20th century yard after the final major changes of 1919.
  • [Postcard c. 1940's.]
  • [Rutland track plan c. '34, courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [1940's aerial view courtesy of Bob Nimke (The Rutland, 60 Years of Trying, Vol. II).]
  • [Closer view.]
  • [Aerial view looking southwest c. '40's. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Aerial view c. 1950, from the Pine Street underpass end.]
  • [Aerial view c. 1955, from the same end. By this time, the station, the two transfer tables, and the tender shop had been torn down. Photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]
  • [Track map with yard tracks labeled. (Don't know what they mean, but here are the labels.)]

• Some panoramic color views:
  • [View of the whole complex from the River Street overpass, c. '49. Color photo in our collection.]
  • [View of the yard itself c. '53, I think from up on the coaling tower. Color photo in our collection.]
  • [View of the roundhouse and tender shop c. '53 from the coaling tower. Color photo in our collection.]
  • [View of the ash hoist looking down from the coaling tower c. '53. Color photo in our collection.]

Ice Houses

• There was an ice house at the south end of the yard. Later this was deemed not large enough, so a larger structure was built adjacent in 1921. The older one developed quite a lean in later years. The old ice house was taken down in 1951 and second one came down in '54.
  • [Sanborn map, c. '44.]
  • [View from the overpass c. 1940. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Another view from the overpass. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Howard Townsley took this photo c. '52. Photo courtesy Scott Whitney. This is the end of the older ice house, the new one is to the left, but hidden by the smoke. If you notice, the doors seem cleaner than the rest of the building. I bet as the building began to lean, they had to make new doors to match the parallelograming of the opening.]
  • [View from the other end. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Rear view from further back c. '53. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Side of the ice house c. 1953. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]

Engine Terminal

Old Roundhouse

• Engine terminal, with the old roundhouse across from the coaling tower, was later used for sand and other storage. This roundhouse has "Waterford gables", large stepped parapets for fire protection. It was built sometime between 1854 and 1864. The wood (green) wall is where they sliced diagonally across the stalls to fit in another track. (On the layout, the Troy-Green Island lift bridge in the background.)
  • [Prototype photo c. 1899, when it was still used for locos. Photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]
  • [Prototype photo, from our collection c. 1953.]
  • [Track map c. 1934.]
  • [Valuation plan c. 1917.]
  • [Valuation cross-section c. 1917.]
  • [Front c. 1952.]
  • [South side c. mid-'50's. By the time of this Howard Towsley photo (courtesy Scott Whitney), the ice houses had been torn down. But it shows the back of the old roundhouse.]
  • [Rear view c. '52. Note how the land slopes down on the north corner. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Rear view c. '53, from the other end. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [View on the NEB&W.]
  • [Another model view.]

Ash Pit

• In 1918, the ash pit was replaced with a mechanical cinder conveyor.
  • [C. 1905 view shows the depression where the gon was placed to make it easy to hand shovel the ashes into it.]
  • [Another c. 1905 photo.]
  • [Bigger.]
  • [Rutland 150 next to the mechanical cinder conveyor.]

New Roundhouse

• The "modern" roundhouse was built c. 1899. It was composed of 17 stalls, all 70 feet long. By 1919, this was too short for the longer locos coming on line, so a wood extension was built all away around on the inside. This extension sloped the opposite way, and at a steep pitch. A decade or so later this extension, too, was not long enough, so a brick extension was built out the back on all but five stalls. The back wall of the extension was the same height as the original back wall. The five stalls on the south end retained their wood extension, while the other 12 had the original brick front exposed again. This resulted in quite a strange hodge-podge look. A new turntable was built in 1905.
  • [Valuation photo c. 1922. This shows the wood extensions on all the stalls.]
  • [Track map c. 1934.]
  • [Aerial view c. '40's with the old roundhouse in the background. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Photo c. 1938 courtesy Jim Shaughnessy's The Rutland Road.]
  • [Photo c. late '40's, courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]
  • [Ten-wheeler no. 74 peeks out from a stall. Close-up photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]

The Turntable

• A photo c. '38 shows the center arch was made of wood.
  • [Photo c. 1938 courtesy Jim Shaughnessy's The Rutland Road.]

• In the late '40's. By this time, the center arch was made of pipe. And the wood railing got a second horizontal member.
  • [Photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]
  • [High level view. Phil Hastings photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy.]

Tender Shop

• A steel framed structure was built in 1910 as the engine shop. It was covered with a stucco finish, which in later years was patched with asphalt shingle siding. Within a few years (1919), the sudden increase in engine length made this building obsolete, so it became the tender shop when a new engine house was built.
  • [Front view. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Aerial view. (The large tubular device on the far right was a "flue tumbler" which they used to clean boiler tubes. Old timers said it made a real racket in use.) Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]

1919

• The last big changes to the yard came in 1919, with the construction of a new engine house, complete with a transfer table between it and the old (1910) enginehouse, which now became the tender shop. A new coach shop with its own transfer table was added at the north end of the yard. Both buildings were very plain, architecturally, with large expanes of windows. The "modernizations" made a story in Railway Review.
  • [Article, page 1.]
  • [Article, page 2.]
  • [Article, page 3.]

Enginehouse

• The 1919 enginehouse. When the Rutland dieselized in the '50's, they tore down the roundhouses, took out the transfer table and made this building into the diesel house.
  • [Floor plan, from a 1919 article in Railway Review.]
  • [Engine house c. 1919.]
  • [Engine house, another view, (not quite finished) c. 1919.]
  • [Engine house c. early '50's, with a Pacific being used as a temporary boiler.]
  • [Color photo, 1954, showing no. 81 as a temporary boiler. Photo in our collection.]
  • [Transfer table.]
  • [Our model of the office annex, Jan. '06.]

Coach Shop

• The 1919 coach shop. After the Rutland eliminated all passenger service in '53, the shop became obsolete. The transfer table was removed and the area became a parking lot, while the building itself became the offices of the railroad (as they had to move out of the depot, also abandoned after '53). The building still stands today (2005), the only building left.
  • [Floor plan c. 1919.]
  • [Front of building as the transfer table is being construction. Photo courtesy Scott Whitney.]
  • [Coach shop, front view c. 1919.]
  • [Coach shop, rear view, c. 1919.]
  • [Interior view, from the 1919 article. (I am surprised to see the framework is wood, not steel.)]
  • [C. '54, with the building about to be retired. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [C. '54, as rebuilt as the office building. Photo courtesy Bob Nimke.]
  • [C. 1990.]
  • [View of the foundation exposed on the north end c. 1980's.]
  • [Another view of the foundation c. 1980's.]
  • [And another view c. 1980's.]
  • [And yet another c. 1980's.]
  • [And yet another c. 1980's.]
  • [And yet another c. 1980's.]
  • [Close-up color view c. 2002.]
  • [Tom Amrine took this photo of the west side of the coach shop showing the foundation of the transfer table c. 2000.]

• There was a coal trestle for the power plant which was reached via the passenger car transfer table. (Really unique and model railroad-ish, but in this case prototypical.)
  • [Coal trestle c. 1919. (It looks like they are still working on it, even while they are using it.]
  • [Track plan.]

See our Layout Guide for Rutland Yard

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