Next Route: The Milford-Bennington Railroad

After recently completing and releasing the large fictional Champlain Division Route, I have decided to create a route that will be much simpler, the real life Milford-Bennington Railroad of southern New Hampshire.

The Hillsboro Branch of the Boston & Maine Railroad was always a "twilight line" at best. In its earlier days it stretched from Nashua to Keene, but by 1972 the line had been diverted and cut back to a paper mill at Bennington, just south of Hillsboro. Thus, the B&M didn't even serve the line's namesake town anymore. The B&M continued to run the 20+ mile Branch from Nashua to Bennington up until 1985, when a strike on the newly created Guilford Rail System caused a huge delay in rail service. Frustrated by late deliveries, the Bennington Paper Mill switched to trucks.

With no reason to travel to the far end of the Branch, the trains stopped and Guilford had plans to abandon the Hillsboro Branch past Wilton, NH. However, the State of NH stepped in and purchased the Hillsboro Branch from Wilton to Bennington. They hired a new shortline, the Milford-Bennington Railroad, to serve a stone quarry in Wilton.

Armed with an ex-Canadian National SW900, several ex-Delaware & Hudson ballast hoppers and a B&M caboose, the MBRR ran the 8 or so miles from the quarry in Wilton to a processing plant back down in Milford. Guilford Rail continued to service the few other freight customers in Milford and Wilton, causing great legal issues with the MBRR and ensuring that they only had one customer, the stone quarry. They soldier on today, as they have for over two decades, hauling several stone trains a day between Wilton and Milford.

Berlin Mills Railway FMC Boxcar

In the late 1970s, the Berlin Mills Railway, a long-running industrial railroad serving the many paper mills of Berlin, NH, leased 50’ boxcars for paper service and painted them into a jade green scheme with white lettering. Some can still be seen today in their original paint, scattered far and wide. These boxcars traveled quite far distances and I have even seen a photo of one on a train in Mt. Shasta, CA. I have repainted the wonderful freeware 50' FMC boxcar from MaineLines, which is available on Railworks America. This model is easy to work with and a lot of fun to repaint, and best of all is it free so you will all be able to download any repaints of it. The Berlin Mills Railway repaint of the FMC 50' Boxcar will be available soon on Railworks America.

Champlain Division Route Released

The Central Vermont Champlain Division has been released on Railworks America! There are also a ton of repaints that myself and others have done in the past week for the route. Simply search "Western Vermont" or "Central Vermont" in the File Library searchbar.

Content Update 6/16/2015

My apologies for the lack of posts recently, its been a very busy week Train Simulator wise!

I have finished and uploaded the Central Vermont Champlain Division to the RailWorks America file library. It should be available for download by Saturday of this week. I had a lot of great enthusiasm, feedback and help from the RailWorks America community, and without them the route would not have been as enjoyable to create.

It was a busy week in terms of uploaded content as well. Harry Adkins, an excellent content creator at RailWorks America, has created many repaints for the route as well as much-needed granite flatcar loads for the quarry. I have completed and uploaded a number of repaints for the route as well. I will list them below.

At the moment I am working in the project of updating my route to the 1990s. So far I have replaced the roads, cars, and a number of buildings. The Western Vermont beyond Wilkesboro Bend has been abandoned and pulled up, and most of the Waterton yard is gone. The changes surprise even me!

Uploaded Content:
- Two Western Vermont cabooses
- Western Vermont MOW Hopper
- Western Vermont Alco RS-1
- Central Vermont Alco RS-1
- Two Central Vermont cabooses
- Canadian National Passenger coaches

Repaints in Progress:
- Central Vermont GP38-2
- Western Vermont GP7
- Western Vermont Alco RS-11
- Central Vermont FMC Boxcars
- CN, CV and Western Vermont Wide-Vision Steel Cabooses

The Champlain Division: 30 Years Later

As I add the finishing touches onto the Central Vermont Champlain Division Route, I am currently planning my next short project. Just what exactly would this area in northwestern Vermont look like if the dial could be set ahead 30 years? What would still be around? What would be left to memory?

These are the questions I am asking myself as I plan to make a copy of the route set in the early 1990s, as the Central Vermont Railroad began to separate itself from its parent company, the Canadian National. Many familiar sights along the line will be much different for sure, while some will remain the way they are in 1960. It will be a fairly easy process, swapping out the roads, vehicles and some of the buildings along the line. Perhaps the most striking changes will be seen on the Western Vermont Railroad, as 30 years can bring a lot of change to a small shortline railroad. Keep checking up for more information on the project!

Route Update 6/9/15

It's been a busy few days for my current route in progress, the Central Vermont Champlain Division! The route is now in beta and I have sent it out to testers. I can't say enough about the beta testers, taking the time to check the route over thoroughly. Thankfully there are only minor issues that can be fixed easily! I have already made a number of changes and have a few more to make before the route should be ready to release.

I will be including two free roam scenarios with the route, one featuring the Central Vermont as the focus and the other the Western Vermont. I have whipped up repaints of the RWA Alco RS-1 for both railroads to serve as "default" locomotives for the free roams. They will have to be installed prior to installing the route but that should be no problem as the RWA route is required anyways to run my route. The repaints have been uploaded to RailWorks America and should be available this weekend. I will also be including 2-3 basic standard scenarios.

More news as it comes! Keep an eye out for the Steam Sale, scheduled to start on June 11th.

Covered Bridges

     Railworks assets creator jpetersjr (http://www.i-m.mx/jpetersjr/BigJProductions/) has built for me two covered bridges that I have incorporated into my current route, the fictional Central Vermont Champlain Division.

     In addition to an covered railroad bridge (top photo), he has also created a covered railroad bridge (bottom photo). I have placed two covered railroad bridges on the shortline Western Vermont Railroad segment of my route. The reason for not placing any on the mainline Central Vermont portion is because although they were once used on mainline tracks, by 1960 (the route's time period) all mainline covered bridges had been replaced with stronger steel and wooden structures. However, they remained in use on branch lines and shortline railroads. Covered railroad bridges were very common in Vermont, even until recently. In fact, a real life Vermont shortline, the St. Johnsbury & Lamoille County Railroad, operated freight traffic over a number of these until the late 1990s. Although the line is now abandoned, one still stands at Wolcott, VT.

There were a staggering number of railroad covered bridges in my home state of New Hampshire as well. Many of them can still be visited today, albeit almost all of them are abandoned and home to rail-trails. However, if you visit Clark's Trading Post in Woodstock, NH, you can take a ride through the last active covered railroad bridge in the world.

Delaware & Hudson 50ft Boxcars

Tonight I worked on some D&H repaints of GreatNortherner's freeware 50-foot boxcars. These will be seen on the Delaware & Hudson segment of my Central Vermont Champlain Division Route and can be run appropriately on many routes currently available for Train Simulator 2015. 

Although I live far from the former-Delaware & Hudson system, I have actually seen quite a few of these boxcars in person. When Guilford Rail Service famously took over the Delaware & Hudson (albeit briefly) in the 1980s, many of these boxcars made their way up the New Hampshire Mainline to the Concord, NH area, where they were carried in freight service by the New England Southern Railroad. Even today a few battered, overgrown and rusted examples survive in the Concord area and up the White Mountain Branch, serving today as storage.