As you can see, there were elevators. There are even a few grain dealers serviced by rail left in the state. Recently vandels released the brakes on an empty (I think) and it rolled down the track and fortunatly it derailed where it did, a little further could have been very messy.
There is a lazer kit of Cosby’s Coal, they were also a feed and farm equipment dealer. These were not uncommon mixes along the rails.
As well as Ethen Allen, Cushman Furniture was also in VT, probably others in the area you are covering.
Maple syrup would not be shipped in anything larger than 55 gallon drums. Sugar houses are close to the trees.
There were paper mills also. At one time one of the mills where I lived turned out a lot of Christmas wrapping paper, not sure what they sent out the rest of the year. I think they received rolls, not sure if shipping was primarily rail or truck. Didn’t live near enough to observe them often.
I can speak for Maine industries that were or are serviced by rail, as I live there & my family was involved in one such industry, potato farming. Northern Maine, primarily Aroostook County, was one of the largest potato producing areas in the country. The primary reason the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad was built was to service that industry. Rows of potato storage houses can be found in most Aroostook County towns, all serviced by direct rail for shipping potatoes to market. If you do an image search for “Maine Potato Houses” or Aroostook County Potato Houses", you’ll bring up lots of images.
Paper Mills are all over Maine & nearly all directly serviced by rail. Many have their own rail yards right at the mill. I’m just 15 miles from one of the biggest paper mills in the state, at Rumford, Maine. They have a huge railyard, complete with roundhouse & turntable right at the mill. You see lots of tank cars in that yard, which deliver the chemicals needed for the paper bleaching process.
There are lots of wooden grain elevators in Maine too.
The Maple Sugar industry here is comprised mostly of small, family owned & operated businesses. Most produced no more than a few hundred to a few thousand gallons of syrup per year. It all adds up to a few million gallons per year total output, but the bulk of it is sold through local outlets ( much of it in shops right at the farm of origin). Some is shipped out of state, but mostly by truck. The Maple Syrup industry here is not and never was serviced by rail. The industry is too small & widely scattered to be effectively rail serviced.
One well known furniture company here in Maine was Moosehead Furniture. They just closed a few years ago & I’m not sure if they were ever directly serviced by rail.
There were 3 or 4 huge grain elevators on the Portland, ME waterfront served by the Grand trunk RR. They shipped grain from Canada when the ports on teh St Laurence R were ice bound. They burned down 40 or 50 years ago
two years ago when i had my own truck I delverd grain to lots of grain elevators in those stats and most of the ones i deliverd to still get rail deliverys. most of them use the same unloading/loading bays for rail and truck either a auger pit next to the rail pit or the rail and truck pit were the same…let me tell you its alittle nerve racking to have your truck on one side and a rail hopper on the other. where you could reach out and tuch both of them with out haveing to fully extend your arms and the hopper is being pulled out by the local crew…
