Tantalising reference concerning US short line -- does anyone know more?

[Calthrop]

This will be found, likely, a weird / abstruse matter -- have wondered whether it properly belongs here, or in one or another different sub-forum; but as it concerns a railway elsewhere than in Britain... as ever, "mods, please adjust if you see fit".

Brought to mind by recent "chat" elsewhere on the Forums, about towns in the USA called Woodstock. In my undoubted all-time favourite railway book, Bryan Morgan's The End of the Line (as a bore concerning which, I sometimes fear that I approach gold-medal-winning heights): the author muses in his brief "wrapping-up" chapter, on railways in distant parts of the world -- some no longer in operation, even in the 1950s -- with which he would or might (strictly theoretically) wish for first-hand acquaintance. He gives a couple of paragraphs thus, to the Americas: including a mention in the bygoing, of "the line from Woodstock in Vermont... which shut in such a sinister fashion that sleety Good Friday long ago".

Googling led me to a brief article on Wiki, re what must be the subject thereof: the Woodstock Railway (not "Railroad"), a 14-mile-long small local independent rail undertaking ("short line" in US parlance) in the state of Vermont: standard gauge, connecting with the wider rail network at White River Junction, and running to the town of Woodstock. Operational from 1875 until abandonment in 1933. Mention in general, of road competition's role in its demise; as with many such lines in that part of the world, in that era. No direct allusion to any suspension of services -- temporary or permanent -- on any Good Friday, in inclement weather or otherwise. The article does state that the last train ran on Saturday April 15th, 1933. Wondering prompted -- the right time of year for ("had it been so") that day to be the one immediately after Good Friday: Morgan perhaps slightly misinformed; and / or being authorially terse / imprecise for the sake of effect; thus, might whatever grim thing happened, have indeed done so on the Friday -- essentially dealing the coup de grace to the railway, but with its still being possible (and this actually what done) for the last day of operation to be on the day after?

I have always felt mildly curious about this matter, since first reading The End of the Line sixty-plus years ago; without curiosity having been so consuming as to inspire me to diligent research. If readers of this post might know more details about the alluded-to sinister doings in the Vermont backwoods; I'd be most interested and grateful, to learn of same.


ETA: abovementioned "chat", on sub-forum "General Discussion", thread And In Other News: a brief exchange (two posts) between myself and another participant, on 21/6.

 

[Gloster]

A quick look suggests that April 15 was Easter Saturday and that was the day the last train ran. I wonder if Morgan thought that Friday was the last day trains ran and the given date of Saturday 15 the first they didn’t, which is British style. The only thing of note was that the right-of-way was sold to Vermont so it could be turned into Route 4; the shareholders had apparently voted for this the year before.

 

[Calthrop]

My thanks. Was too lazy to "consult the oracles" and see when Easter 1933 was (though I knew it could very easily be Googled) -- right, Easter Sat. that year was the 15th, so GF the 14th. Maybe Morgan was, as you suggest, mis-construing things as per British versus American conventions re these matters; or perhaps (as he admits, disarmingly, in The End of the Line) it was to do with his not being good at figuring / calculating stuff... plus, he was a fairly devout (though overall benign) Catholic: that, imaginably, inclining him at whatever realised-or-unrealised level, to link "Good" Friday with "bad" stuff -- at all events, I would love to know what the supposedly sinister business, was all about !

 

[Gloster]

My thanks. Was too lazy to "consult the oracles" and see when Easter 1933 was (though I knew it could very easily be Googled) -- right, Easter Sat. that year was the 15th, so GF the 14th. Maybe Morgan was, as you suggest, mis-construing things as per British versus American conventions re these matters; or perhaps (as he admits, disarmingly, in The End of the Line) it was to do with his not being good at figuring / calculating stuff... plus, he was a fairly devout (though overall benign) Catholic: that, imaginably, inclining him at whatever realised-or-unrealised level, to link "Good" Friday with "bad" stuff -- at all events, I would love to know what the supposedly sinister business, was all about !

Could he have known that there was something a bit underhand about the sale of the line for conversion into a road? Or could it just simply be a feeling that the sale for use as a road was in itself a dirty trick, even if all was above board?

 

[Calthrop]

Maybe -- but old Bryan was a railway enthusiast of the "wooly-verging-on-magical dreamer" kind (rather like me) -- feel that he'd probably have been oblivious to grubby administrative dirty-tricks stuff: the supernatural-or-bordering-thereon, more his style: feel that his mention of the "sleety Good Friday", and "sinister" (something more evil for him, than admin. machinations) is a bit of an indication that way. Just my "take" -- I may be way off-beam.

 

[etr221]

Methinks that an American forum - e.g. that of Kalmbach/Trains Magazine - might be better place to raise this, as more likely to have a suitably knowledgeable member.

 

[Taunton]

Unfortunately my copy of the all-time classic reference to such lines, Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" (1947) *, is at the back of the attic. Beebe came from New England, so quite possibly knew the Woodstock and it may get a reference there. Anyone else have it to hand?

Beebe is also very much in the Bryan Morgan camp of elegant writers. Besides many fascinating books of ... well, rail "experiences", he invariably brought in food critiques and commentary, and wrote extensively for various USA newspapers on the same subjects. Hard-nosed rail historians pick many factual inaccuracies in his books, but he never let this get in the way of his elegant prose. Having written for the New Yorker, among others, I'm sure he would have known Rogers E M Whitaker, another comparable railroad writer.

Here's the Woodstock timetable from the 1920s:

* : Bought secondhand years ago in an antiquated train book shop in Pasadena, California with the great shop name of "Choo Choo Chums" (!), which I have mentioned here before.

 

[Calthrop]

Methinks that an American forum - e.g. that of Kalmbach/Trains Magazine - might be better place to raise this, as more likely to have a suitably knowledgeable member.

Thanks -- excellent idea, I'm sure: was probably being lazy, and hoping that RailUKforums' amazing pool of far-reaching learning, might just come up with someone who knew the answer to this one !

Unfortunately my copy of the all-time classic reference to such lines, Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" (1947) *, is at the back of the attic. Beebe came from New England, so quite possibly knew the Woodstock and it may get a reference there. Anyone else have it to hand?

Beebe is also very much in the Bryan Morgan camp of elegant writers. Besides many fascinating books of ... well, rail "experiences", he invariably brought in food critiques and commentary, and wrote extensively for various USA newspapers on the same subjects. Hard-nosed rail historians pick many factual inaccuracies in his books, but he never let this get in the way of his elegant prose. Having written for the New Yorker, among others, I'm sure he would have known Rogers E M Whitaker, another comparable railroad writer.

Here's the Woodstock timetable from the 1920s:

* : Bought secondhand years ago in an antiquated train book shop in Pasadena, California with the great shop name of "Choo Choo Chums" (!), which I have mentioned here before.

Thank you for timetable: if I read rightly, two workings each way per day, Mon -- Sat. only -- pretty much standard, one gathers, for American rural short lines in that era.

I once owned Beebe's Mixed Train Daily (to my great regret, no longer have it) -- utterly fascinating, especially from a modern-day perspective. Impression is had, that -- rather as with Morgan and TEotL -- the book was devoted to operations which were still running at the time of publication: stuff long-closed as of then, such as the Woodstock, was not mentioned. With my having been curious about the "end-of-the-Woodstock" thing, since 1962: had there been any mention of it in Beebe's book, I'm sure that I would have homed in on it.

Beebe; and as per yours above, Whitaker (who for his rail-related writings favoured, I believe, the pseudonym of E. M. Frimbo); would seem for sure, to have been a colourful couple of chaps. You characterise Beebe: Whitaker was, I gather, another "man of parts", accomplished in various non-rail spheres, and moving in US high society. One sees the pair of them, as at the very opposite pole of the cliche image of the pitiful nerdy, obsessively one-track-minded, mostly-social reject and definitely "on the spectrum" railfan, with effectively nothing in his life except for his railway hobby ...

 

[Taunton]

There's a good chunk of extract from "Mixed Train Daily" in Bryan Morgan's own "Railway Lover's Companion", which as a Morgan aficionado I'm sure you have.

Two, timed, passenger services each way, connecting at The Junction, was in fact a step up from the baseline entry in The Official Guide, which indeed would just state "Mixed Train Daily". Truth was that something had to pay the costs of the line, and as Beebe describes in the extract it was commonly a single freight shipper, and indeed the ownership of the line would most often be with the pulp mill, quarry, or whatever, typically employing the rail staff directly. But there was long a taxation advantage in presenting a passenger service as well.

Beebe periodically wrote letters in florid style to Trains magazine, which equally eloquent editor David P Morgan always printed, with some benevolent but warm rebuttals underneath. It's a shame UK rail writing has never managed this style.

There is, of course, another Woodstock Railway: