The St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad (StJ&LC) was a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

located in northern

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. 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 A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

, known as the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. Once completed it will be the longest rail trail in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

History

The railroad began construction in December 1869 as part of the Vermont Division of the

Portland and Ogdensburg Railway 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 Ne ...

to connect the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

with the

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

of Portland, Maine. It would be completed on July 17, 1877 with

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Horace Fairbanks Horace Fairbanks (March 21, 1820 – March 17, 1888) was an American politician and the 36th governor of Vermont from 1876 to 1878. Biography Fairbanks was born in Barnet, Vermont, on March 21, 1820, the third of nine children of Erastus Fairb ...

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 The Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad was founded in 1849 as the Northern Railroad running from Ogdensburg to Rouses Point, New York. The railroad was leased by rival Central Vermont Railroad for several decades, ending in 1896. It was pur ...

and provide a direct connection to the Great Lakes. 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 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 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970, B ...

. 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. 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 A bridge line or bridge route was an American rail carrier tasked primarily with moving traffic from one major carrier to another (hence the "bridge" moniker). Bridge lines often were located between two major cities, connecting rail carriers that ...

traffic (westbound paper and eastbound feed) for the Maine Central Railroad Mountain Division. Six 70-ton

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s replaced steam locomotives. Passenger service ended in 1956. Trucks had taken all of the milk traffic by 1961, but

traffic had increased six-fold following the 1953 dissolution of Maine Central's joint operating agreement with

. 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. The State of

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.

Rail trail

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 The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...

allowed the decommissioning of the old right of way into a trail, with then representative

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...

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. As of 2020 two disconnected sections have been constructed; one 15 miles long from downtown St. Johnsbury to Joe's Pond in West Danville , and the second 17 miles from

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

to Morrisville tracing the course of the Lamoille River.

Route and Station listing

Locomotives

References

* * *

*https://vtvast.org/flipbook/LVRT/History/?page=1

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Johnsbury Lamoille County Railroad Defunct Vermont railroads Railway companies established in 1948 Railway companies disestablished in 1973 American companies established in 1948