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Railroad Museum of New England acquires three new cars
Oddly enough this museum has NO hours, only train ride tickets and info…
No. 260 looks to be in amazingly good condition, especially considering its age.
The 260 is a great car. We’ve been in it a couple of times- I believe it was the oldest continuously operating passenger car in the country before being donated. I’m sorry it’s left Vermont, but glad it will be preserved and cared for.
I just drove past Rutland 260 sitting in a parking lot next to the crossing on Rt 4a in downtown Rutland. Unless they built and painted another one and lettered it #260…
The car currently on display in Rutland is coach #551, donated by VRS to City Of Rutland and set up for display in late October 2013.
RMNE open hours are listed on our website, www.rmne.org. In-season, the station is open on Tuesdays 9-12 noon, and Sundays 10:30 am to 4:30 pm. In fall foliage season, add Saturdays 10:30 am to 4:30 pm.
Thanks Howard, I will look again!
Wonderful to see that car look so good. In June 1952, if you were a kid boarding the Green Mountain Flyer at Burlington en route to YMCA Camp Abnaki on North Hero Island, you grabbed your trunk, boarded what I believe was this car (added in Burlington), and huddled together for the gorgeous ride across the islands. (In my case I had come up from Bellows Falls so had to change cars.) Talk about rare mileage!
Any idea what the plans are for the two MOW cars? Are they going to restore and interpret them as maintenance cars? That’s an area that usually gets ignored. Or maybe they’ll just use the former coach for storage and have some other use for the wire car?
The Rutland car is wonderful. I have to wonder about the wisdom of accepting the other two cars (especially the line car) unless they have some specific purpose for them. With maintenance capability always at a premium on tourist lines, acceptance of odd-ball equipment not in keeping with the general them of an operation is a potential recipe for future dereliction.
the wire car is a dead ringer for the ones Amtrak had built by MARMON TRANSMOTIVE of Knoxville Tenn in the mid 1980’s.
We had ours until the 1st carcars showed up and then the cars were pulled fron service. some were cut up , but we heard some were sold to NJT and NY. Ours were built on 50ft PRR cast flat cars left over from early TRUC-Train days.
the fact i can see lots of orange paint underneath the blue paint, and the side rails and out rigger platforms match what i remember leads me to think these maybe our old tower cars that were rebuit by MTA. right down to the 4 hydrualic cylinders at each corner with matching stabilizing columns that we get filled with oil to keep the deck from swaying.
even the hydrualic tank and motor/pump is in the same location.