Technically only the southbound train was called the Bootlegger, but the name became applied to the northbound as well (long after prohibition!). The official name for the northbound was the Washingtonian. The southbound- the Montrealer. Both the south and northbound trains passed through White River Junction in the night, but occasionally would be late, especially northbound. One old time railroader in WRJ would hear the whistle, cock his head, cup his ear and proclaim, “There goes the Boot!”
The southbound train was the Washingtonian and the northbound the Montrealer. Rode them both several times. And yes the bootlegger name did stick. There was competition from New York, the Montreal Limited on the NYC and D&H. And at one time on the Rutland as well, but not while I was a frequent rider.
Among the interesting services provided after some train-offs was the set-out sleeper for White River Junction. The two Pullman fluted side 10 rommette and six double-bend-room Boston and Maine sleeper normally assigned to this service were the “Dartmouth College I” and the “Dartmouth College II”. They were identaclel to the New Haven’s postwar 10 and 6’s, but with an all stainless side treatment, no paint except black lettering and numbers.
Of course I got th\at reversed. The southbound was the Washingtonian and the northbound the Montrealer.
Another funny story used to be told at cocktail parties when I was a student at Dartmouth in the 60’s. I don’t know how much of it was true and how much was “urban legend”:
Dartmouth collaborated with the US Army Corps of Engineers to develop and build the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, NH. When the building was dedicated, they invited a number of dignitaries from Washington, DC to attend. Since air service into the Upper Valler was limited to commuter flights and Boston was several hours away, it was decided to have the dignitaries travel by train. The only problem was that the northbound Montrealer passed througn White River Junction at 4am and the southbound train to return to Washington passed through at 11:30pm. These were preAmtrak days when there was still some amount of infrastructure still in place at WRJ. There was a steam connection in the yard which had been used in better days for the northbound trains to leave off a sleeper so travellers could detrain at their leisure. The car was also spotted in the yard, attached to steam and power in the early evening, so travellers could board at a decent time and wake up in Washington DC the next morning.
There were a few challenges. The WRJ crew hadn’t done this operation for years. Both Dartmouth and the Army Corp were a little vague about the actual day of the arrival and departure. To add to the soup, both the north and southbound trains changed power and crew at WRJ (CV to B&M). Also there was another train, the CV-operated Vermonter, which ran as a local, gathering passengers (and milk!) for smaller stations north of White River, which went north 30 minutes after the Montrealer and arrived southbound 30 minutes before the Montrealer. All this added confusion to the yard operations.
The day before the dedication the Washington dignitaries boarded the special pullman in DC. When the Dartmouth folks arrived the next morning to pick them up, the sleeper was nowhere to be found. A quick check
My grandfather was an engineer on the Montrealer in the steam era.
Here’s some history on the subject, written by my father, who organized a campaign to restore passenger train service to Vermont and Montreal in the early days of Amtrak:
In 1924, Canadian National Railways had just been formed, being a merger of Grand Trunk Ry with the several Canadian transcontinental lines that got over-extended in the early 1900’s. To get a president, CN looked to Pennsylvania RR. Henry Thornton, former General Mgr, Lines west, of PRR, was hired. He is the man who conceived and built Jamaica Station of the LIRR, with its 3-way cross-platform transfers of commuters. He was made Sir Henry Thornton by King George V, and he went to work to make CN a solid competitor of CPR.
One thing that bothered him was that, because of the longer mileage of the CV-B&M-NH route to New York, the CN had to offer passengers a 2-hour longer run to New York than the CPR through the latter’s D&H connection.
BOth D&H and New Haven operated the Montreal trains into Grand Central, and passengers going beyond had to transfer either to PRR at Penn Station or to B&O at Jersey City.
The Hell Gate Bridge had been opened and was being used by New Haven-PRR for through Boston-Washington trains only. Sir Henry decided he could gain an advantage over CPR if he could put on a through train that would connect the capitals of Canada and the U.S., via the new Hell Gate Bridge.
Thanks for the history! In the days when Dartmouth College I and Dartmouth College II were operating, most equipment was New Haven, some Pennsy, an some CV. The New Haven coaches were usually the remodelled 8200’s, the prewar “American Flyers”, that had interiors like the postwar 8600’s, including reclining seats and the smoking facing-the-aisle section at one end. Any PRR coaches were usually modernized P-70’s with air conditioning and reclining seats, sometimes picture windows, sometimes single small windows. Sleepers both PRR and NYNH&H were six and tens, as were the two B&M drop sleepers for White River Junction.
Much of this period I was working on the Hopkins Center project at Darmouth, and use of Owl sleepers to New York, where the architects Harrison and Abromovitz were located, the sleeper to White River Junction, and the two Budd cars back to Boston that were running as the Allouette (one CP and one B&M, diesel mu) was almost routine for me. The Center opened in 1962, but I would occasionally want to show up for concerts and plays. But after train service to Boston was discontinue, my auto had to suffice. My last Boston-Montreal trip was via B&M Budd car to Portland, taxi to the GT station, and their Sunday evening only Portland -Montreal passenger train. I think this was a summer-only operation, but I enjoyed all these train trips.
It was one of my first trips on the Amtrak Montrealer one early December night. . It had started to snow as we left WRJ, and by the time we reached Brattleboro, it was coming down like a real nor’easter. The train made a screeching halt somewhere south of Brattleboro. One of the seasons’s first snowfalls had prompted several Dartmouth students to go back to the rear car and pull the emergency cord, stopping the train so they could get out and have a snowball fight. Thye conductor first read them the riot act, explaining that the emergency stop had likely created flat spots on some of the wheels. I’m guessing he also made a call to the State Police, since the train stopped again at a rural crossing and the students were plied into a cruiser with flashing lights. I expect it was a rather expansive snowball fight.
Question: With the success on 1924 of the Montrealer/Washingtonian, why did the day train, the Ambassador, continue for its history to run to GCT? Why didn’t it also use the Hell Gate Bridge and run to Penn Station and to Washington, DC?
I’d guess it was because the Penssy didn’t elect to pick it up. The Ambassador didn’t get into NYC at a very convenient time. As I recall, it was after 11pm. I remember arriving late and wandering across town with my siutcase in hand looking for Port Authority (not realizing there was a Times Square Shuttle subway).
These links are to a picture of the Ambassador in 1936 and a timetable, date unknown. If it had been a Penn Station through train it would have to have left Washington very early in the morning and arrived after midnight.
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/structures/index_choice.cfm?id=36&photoid=1775812032
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/1606/mtrbm.jpg
Mike
Great photo, but why no Montrealer/Washingtonian in the timetable?
The first run of the Montrealer was in 1924, so that timetable has to be earlier than that.
The New Englander’s train numbers 21 and 20 were given to the Montrealer and Washingtonian.
Mike
I found this article on the web the other day. – Mike MacDonald
MACDONALD’S EFFORTS PAY OFF!
By Betty Sproston
One man sparked the restoration of passenger service in Vermont and worked relentlessly for it for more than a year.
On July 7, l97l, Joseph V. MacDonald read a newspaper story on his way to work at the Continental Can Co. in New York City about Amtrak’s decision to resume passenger service between Boston and New York via New Haven, Conn., Springfield and Worcester, Mass.
MacDonald is a native Vermonter, born in St. Albans. He completed high school and then was graduated from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., in 1936.
His father and two of his uncles were locomotive engineers on the Central Vermont Railway running between Montreal and White River Junction. During his schools years, MacDonald worked as a messenger in the telegraph office of the CV and was a timekeeper during vacations.
“These are my sole connections with railroading, but the interest generated back there stayed with me,” declared MacDonald, who is corporate buyer of capital equipment at the head office of Continental Can.
He travels thousands of miles a year by rail. He does not fly. So far this year, his business travel by rail totals about 40,000 miles. As a result, he believes, during some 3l years of business travel by rail he has gained an awareness of what is happening among railroads that is shared by few business people. He was perhaps the only person reading that New York Times story who knew key facts and would be in a position to put forth a proposal to Amtrak.
“My efforts have been as a private citizen and as a public service. I have no other interest in the matter, financial or otherwise,” declared MacDonald.
He realized the new Inland Route train would cross the Central Vermont tracks at Palmer, Mass., 14 miles east of Springfield. If Montreal cars could be coupled
Also found on the web. By this time Dad (1914-1978) was on the Amtrak board.
1976 letter to Railroad Magazine - Old Days On the CV
I was delighted to read about the Central Vermont’s three Pacifics in the June Information Booth because I grew up with the CV and my father fired and ran its 230’s. I was actually standing among the people lined along the old cast-iron fence on Feb. 4, 1928, when the 232 posed for the photo you published. I was then 13 years old. It was a happy day for St. Albans, Vt., because this was the first train to run on the Northern Division after three months of reconstruction from the big flood of 1927. Among the dignitaries in the three-car train was Sir Henry Thornton, president of the Canadian National.
The flood damage had sent the CV into receivership. Prior to that CN had owned two-thirds of its stock, but the Central Vermont had been run pretty much by itself under the aegis of E.C. Smith, grandson of the founder. CV engines were painted in their own livery, which had no resemblance to the Canadian National’s. They bore the name Central Vermont on the side of the cab, with the engine number in larger figures on the sides and rear of the tender and in small digits on the sand dome, all lettering and numerals being white. The engines were painted a solid black, except for light gray smokeboxes and the white-rimmed wheels.
But to the dismay of onlookers, including myself, the 232 came down from the enginehouse and under the trainshed painted - for the first time for any CV engine - in Canadian National livery. There were a gilded number on the side of the cab, a removable small number plate in white paint on the rear of the tender, no number at all on the sand dome, and the name Central Vermont in gilt enclosed in a titled rectangle on the tender. Engine and tender were now CN dark green and not black.
Obviously, CN had taken over at last. Our own railroad had fallen beneath the November rains, but was rescued by the 500
Both the New Hven and B&M had 6 section-6 roomette-4DBR sleepers. What you remember are those (Neither road had any 10-6’s).
Good to have recollections of these overnight interline trains, which were discontinued in September 1966. Sadly, I never rode them — only the latter-day Amtrak version
Since you corrected me on the sleeper configuration, perhaps you can fill in a gap in my memory. I think the buffet sleeper cars used on both the State of Maine and the Montrealer were in the Beach series of names. Can you confirm or correct this and give the configuration? Each car had a lounge and rooms, but I don’t remember any roomettes. Did the New Haven have any Postwar cars with sections? I rode the Doller Saver Sleeper several times, but it was always a heavyweight 12 and 1. 1960.
When I retired from Amtrak’s Boston Dispatchers Office about six years ago, Amtrak’s Vermonter (in both directions) was still often referred to as “The Bootlegger,” or simply “The Boot.” I wonder how many of the younger folks have any idea what that term referred to.
Quoting Dave Klepper: “Since you corrected me on the sleeper configuration, perhaps you can fill in a gap in my memory. I think the buffet sleeper cars used on both the State of Maine and the Montrealer were in the Beach series of names. Can you confirm or correct this and give the configuration? Each car had a lounge and rooms, but I don’t remember any roomettes. Did the New Haven have any Postwar cars with sections? I rode the Doller Saver Sleeper several times, but it was always a heavyweight 12 and 1. 1960.”
The New Haven’s Beach Series cars (delivered in 1954 & 1955) were 6 section, 6 roomette, 4 double bedrooms.
There were four 6 double bedroom cafe lounge cars delivered in January of 1955. Bay State and Keystone State were assigned to the Federal, and Nutmeg State and Pine Tree State were assigned to Washington-Montreal service. Two of these may have been mov ed to the State of Maine.
The other postwar sleepers were the 14 roomette, 4 double bedroom Point series, which were delivered in 1949 and 1950.
It was the 14 and 4 series that I mistakenly remembered as 10 and 6. Except for my trips on Dartmouth College I and II. Do you have the names of the 14 and 4’s? Om 1960, Russ Jackson and I rode the Maurey Kleibolt - Chicago RR Club 5632 Colorado excursion from Chicago, including a side trip behind UP 844 out of Denver to Rawlins and back (diesel Denver- Cheyenne), and four days on the D&RGW narrow gauge. Russ and I were assigned to roomettes in one of the New Haven 4 and 14;s, and Maurey said: “We wanted you to feel at home.” McGinnis orange stripe and all. The CB&Q had mechanically gone over the whole consist, including some heavyweight equipment, so we had a good trip.
Correct, both the B&M and NH had “6-4-6” Pullmans.
The NH also had 6 double bedroom, buffet lounges and
14 roomette, 4 double bedroom cars.