Remembering the Rutland
Rutland Q&A

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Q. #1 (09/22/99)  Anyone out there know anything on the NORWOOD & ST. LAWRENCE RAILROAD ?  Like the paint scheme (colors) of the 70 tonners before Pickens purchased the road.  Any info on the RACK cars they had on their roster for years?  Also, the N&StL purchased about 26 wooden box cars from the Rutland around 1941.  What did they use them for?

-Steve Mumley


A (09/26/99)  The 7/99 issue of Railpace has a couple of 1971 pictures of N&St.L locos in a medium blue paint scheme with yellow striping and black underframe. One photo show two locos hauling a number of PC/NYC? gondolas with logs/pulpwood. I too am interested in hearing from anyone with info on N&St.L locos, equipment, and operations from 1950s thru present.

-Rich Parkola


A (09/26/99)  The only freight cars on the N&St.L roster listed in the 1953 Railway Equipment Register are as follows: 1 Flat (#1), 7 Racks (#38-60) and 21 more Racks (#64-99).  Apparently the N&St.L's main commodity must have been pulp wood.   Is it possible that the Rutland box cars were converted to pulp racks?  There is also one each of the following listed: Passenger-Baggage Combine, Air Flanger, and Snow Plow.  Any information on the lineage of these?

-Jim Dufour 


Question #1 Follow-up  (11/02/99)In regards to my questions on the Norwood & St Lawrence, thanks to Bill Brigham and Rich Parkola (answer above), I have enough info to model a N&StL 70 Tonner.  The July 99 Railpace article was great and the color shots were just what I was looking for. The N&StL purchased a wooden Combine from the Rutland I believe in the 1940's (I will have to look up the data in the car accountant's book) and then when it was retired it was used as a tool shed in someone's back yard in Norfolk,NY.  This was in the 1960's. Still looking for info and photos of what the rack cars looked like and what happened to the Rutland 7000 series box cars that they purchased in 1942.

-Steve Mumley



Q. #2  (09/22/99)  Mention is made on the web site [Recommended Rutland Resources] of a Blackhawk film/video of Rutland steam and diesel (Green Mountain Railroading on the Rutland). Is this still available???

Regards,

-Don Spiro


A (10/13/99)  As an aside to the Blackhawk video commentary you might want to note that Phil Jordan is selling copies of the Rutland RR video (entitled Remembering the Rutland -jrd) he showed at the Manchester Convention.  As other movie footage comes to light, he is planning to expand the tape. I got my copy of the Blackhawk film a few years ago from Pentrex.  I have no idea if it was a one time thing or they have rights to it.

-Bill Badger


A (09/30/99) I did a little research over the weekend.  Here's the scoop - the original Blackhawk video has absolutely no information on it in terms of names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.  It is only 20 minutes long, some of which is taken up by text panels describing the upcoming scene.

The good news is that I have another tape entitled "Northeast Steam" that I ordered from A&R Productions.  It looks like perhaps A&R bought up the rights to the Blackhawk films.  This video tape includes all of the footage from the other tape with several differences.  The A&R tape has several additional minutes of footage showing the inauguration of "The Wippet".   Awesome! 

The second difference is that a lot of the footage is in color whereas the first tape was all black and white.  I don't know if it is 'colorized' color or original color.   If it's 'colorized', they did a pretty good job.  Another difference is that the text panel information has been replaced with voice-over narration.

Another bonus is that the A&R tape also has footage from the D&H, Reading, U&D, Lehigh Valley, etc.  It's about a 50 minute tape for only about $10 more than I paid f0r the earlier one.

A&R has a website at:

http://www.a-and-rproductions.com/

http://www.a-and-rproductions.com/ns1data.html

The address on the box from my A&R videotape is:

A&R Productions
P.O. Box 492
Kensington, CT  06037
(800) 246-5898

I bought this over a year ago, so I'd suggest anyone with e-mail or internet access would be better off ordering from the website.  A&R advertises in RAILPACE and some of the other railfan mags from time to time also.

Hope this information is helpful.

-Mark Rossiter



Q. #4 (09/21/99)  Subject: Rutland Vans.  Realizing fully that "color"  is highly subjective and at times an emotionally charged subject, what color in the Polly Scale line of paints is close to the red used on Rutland vans in the immediate Post World War II era??? Any mixes would be fine as well.

Thank you

-Don Spiro


A (09/24/99)  The only photo I've seen of any Rutland caboose, post WWII [that] I trust for it's rendition of Rutland's Cherry Red is on page 27 of the Plant brothers' Boston and Maine in Color from Morning Sun.  The red of the CN herald on the nose of the Fairbanks-Morse C-Liners can be verified as very close to the color known to be used.  No. 28 in the background is a darker red.  I've gotten a good rendition by adding 2 drops of black to 78 drops of caboose red in the Floquil line.  Similar proportions of PollyScale should be close enough. (I found that a 3:77 proportion mixture was too dark a maroon color, 1:79 not dark enough.)

-Chris Martin



Q. #5 (09/17/99)  Can you please help. What is the best commercially-available paint to represent the Green used by the Rutland on its RS 3 diesels?

Yours sincerely,

-Duncan Broad


A(09/24/99)  It appears that Modelflex Dark C&NW Green is a match for the RS's as both roads received them about the same time this is probably correct. Anyway it works for me in 'O" scale.

-Chuck Hladik


A(09/24/99)  I like Floquil's CNW Green.  Any of the commercial CNW greens would be in the ball park, although the water based paints seem to be lighter than the Floquil paint and Scalecoat seems to be darker.  For a water based paint mixture, combining Modelflex's CNW green with a judicious amount of their new NH Hunter Green might well give results consistent with the Floquil.

-Chris Martin


A(10/10/99)  The Rutland diesel green can be exactly matched using Pro Color GMRC Green, it was made using an original Rutland paint sample and matches paint chips that Steve Mumley and Bill Brigham took from the RS's.

-Glenn Annis



Q. #6 (09/14/99)  Do you know the height of the "RUTLAND" lettering on the standard passenger cars?  The Champ Decal set I have has two sets for passenger cars with it.  One is the usual 5-6" and the other appears about 12".  I assume that the former is correct, but some of the pictures I have seen make the lettering appear larger than that.  Looking forward to hearing from you.

-Gary S. Raizes


A. (09/14/99)  All of the (copies of) classification drawings in my collection that are legible seem to indicate that the RUTLAND lettering was 6" high.   All of these are for lettering ABOVE the windows and indicate that the letters are to be equally spaced vertically on the letterboard (same distance above and below the letters to the top and bottom edges of the letterboard).  Numerals are 5" high.   I do not know what the letter height was for the later, under-the-windows scheme.   Anyone?

I believe that the Champ lettering is less-than-perfect in the execution of the letters vis-a-vis Rutland practice and that a recent Newsliner article addressed this issue.  Does anyone remember which one?

-Jim Dufour


A. (09/16/99)  The question about passenger car lettering - The numbers are 5 inch and as necessary the "0" any other numbers that are rounded are slightly taller to compensate for optical illusions that they are not the same size.  I believe that the lettering on the letter board is 7 inches high.   At the moment I can't find the reference where I found that. Also note that none of the currently available sets are very close to the correct Rutland lettering style.   There are several ongoing attempts to get accurate lettering sets.  Also the Railworks artwork is pretty good. I didn't have a good look but the "D" is definitely too square.

Best regards,

-Ray Muntz


A. (09/16/99)  It so happens that I have done a fair amount of work on Rutland Passenger cars lettering.  During the steam era, the road name on the letterboards was pretty consistently about 7" tall, and very wide -- wider than the champ lettering.  The numbers were about 5.5" inches high as was the word "MILK" on milk cars and the road name on cars with the road name below the windows.   The "mail" lettering on RPO's was 4" high (per gov't regs).  The diesel era lettering is a real hodge podge -- all different sizes and colors.  Most of the cars were lettered using a type face like that on the cabooses, or a condensed version of that.  I'm gradually working on artwork for some decals, but I have so many other demands on my time that I haven't gotten far.

Yours truly,

-Chris Martin



Q. #7 (09/14/99)  Could you please tell me what colors are correct for Rutland depots and other buildings.  Thank you in advance.  I appreciate your help.

-Steve Schulman


A(09/15/99)  The color scheme for the Brushton station was solid green (kinda drab green) and the Moira station was top half cream colored cedar shakes and bottom, again, the drab green. Thats all I can lend to the request. Brushton was mainly a freight stop and Moira was both freight & passenger.

-Bob Miller


A. (09/16/99)  In regards to Rutland station colors, Bill Badger's articles in Volume 8, No. 4 and Volume 9, No. 2 [of The Newsliner] are as good as we've got for the time being.

Yours truly,

-Chris Martin


A(09/23/99)  I guess what it has come down to is the following:

Early paint scheme was golden rod yellow with black trim and then it looks like in the 1940's they started with light olive green with dark green trim.  This color was researched in detail by Bill Badger, myself and many others.  Bill took samples off the old Manchester,VT. station and worked with the paint specialist at RK Miles Lumber (the company that now owns the station) to come up with a mix [with] which they painted the building and we (GMRC) also used on our little passenger station in Manchester.  I still have a little of the paint left.  Maybe I will make a display for the next
convention.

The next paint scheme seems to started in the early 1950's or late 1940's.  Depot buff color for the base and dark green for the trim.  This is the color on the car house at East Wallingford.  This depot buff paint came out of actual paint cans left over from the Rutland Railway and we figured it was over 40 years old when we applied it to the building.  Went on just great!  The top of the 5 gallon pails were marked:  Purchasing agent, Rutland Railway, Rutland,VT.  I still have some of this paint left over also.  It goes on a very bright yellow but tones down to a buff in about a year. Fades. John Cook painted his Depot/Store this same color scheme except that he had a stain mixed up for it.

I noticed on the Chatham trip that those buildings had the olive green paint as well as the Manchester station.  When looking over the Car House in North Bennington I noticed that paint scheme on some of the boards that were covered up over the years and didn't get the new paint.

So goes another chapter in the paint scheme of things!

-Steve Mumley


A(10/11/99)  As to what colors are "correct" for Rutland depots and other buildings, the answer depends on what building is being modeled and at what period in its history. The earliest paint scheme that seemed to have common usage was a goldenrod yellow body with black trim. In researching Manchester station (ca.1851), those were the earliest colors of which I could find any evidence. However, Danby is also a first generation station but I could find no evidence of yellow and black. Danby station was extensively rebuilt around the turn of the century so perhaps all the evidence was removed. In any case, the yellow and black scheme was followed by a gray-green body color and dark green trim scheme. The gray-green is similar to Polly Scale British Infantry gray green. The dark green looks like Dartmouth Green. When this switch was made is unclear. Steve Mumley told me some years ago that he understood that the goldenrod and black was at least pre 1920. I have a hunch it was replaced by the gray-green as part of the 1900 creation of the "new" Rutland. It seems logical that the pre-1900 separate lines would have had a variety of different color schemes. The yellow and black scheme may have been a CV color scheme, however on the one CV station I have examined closely (Roxbury), I can fine no evidence of yellow and black. Some of the stations on the Chatham seem to have had the gray-green and green scheme without the underlying earlier yellow and black. It also appears that for at least part of this period the window sash were painted red.

Just to complicate the matter, North Dorset (ca.1895) seems to have always been painted white with dark green trim. Some time around 1950 the Rutland started using the yellow/buff and dark green that Steve Mumley describes. Perhaps this was part of the new green and yellow image that came in with the reorganization as the Rutland Railway. The only way to sort this out is to do some careful paint examination on remaining buildings. I plan to do another color article, specifically on buildings, in a future Newsliner. If anyone is interested in joining in, let me know. In the meantime, the only way to know for sure what a particular station was painted is to examine the building. If the building is no longer standing, the job gets harder.

-Bill Badger 


A(08/28/00)   I have a problem with one of the postings [above]. Shortly after the Rutland shut down, Bill Brigham and I made a tour of the entire O&LC. We took pictures (and a few other things). The point I am trying to make is, as I recall, the color was not green as reported, but light brown, almost a tan. There was no trim [color] at all. You may verify this with either Bill or Steve Mumley. If it was ever green, it must have been long after the abandonment.

-Armand Premo


A(09/11/00)   Earlier this summer I sat down and reread the articles that Glenn Annis and I did on RUTLAND colors back in the Winter 1996 and Summer 1997 Newsliners. I have been doing some more reasearch on stations and I think it may be getting to be time for a Part 3. I also thought that there might be new information that would suggest corrections to our original articles. However, upon rereading them, I can't find anything that I would change. So I would suggest that anyone with color questions should start with those articles. I will try to put together some additional material on building colors, because that is the one area that could use more information.

-Bill Badger


A(12/10/00)   One of the peculiar things about historical research is there never seems to be a "final" answer. In a previous reply to question # 7 I said I could see no evidence of "goldenrod" on Danby depot. Now that the building has deteriorated even more, part of a wall has fallen outward and been rained on. The water has lifted the paint and turned up beautiful samples of "goldenrod." It looks very close to Polly Scale D&RGW yellow. I have also been doing some work on the South Londonderry station of the West River RR. The CV ran the West River for most of its life, so I would assume the depot would have been painted CV colors. There is evidence of "goldenrod" under lots of other paint, so I suspect it may have been a CV color.

-Bill Badger



Q. #8 I have a Rutland Ballast car kit made by F&C and sold by the Steam Shack.  At about step 6 or 7 the instructions say to install the door closers.  Unfortunately, it does not say where they are to be installed.  I know which part they are because the instructions say to install two per door, so they
are an "L" shaped piece.  Any help on where they go on the model would be appreciated.

-Kent Hurley


A.   (09/15/99)  I just finished building this car and found the same frustration.  This is an excellent kit, but the door closures are its weak point.   As indicated, they are the L-shaped brackets.  There are metal straps toward the left and right ends of each door.  The short end of the L attaches to the bottom of these straps.  The bottom of the L is horizontal.  The long leg of the L has a small groove near its end.  The underside of the rod, installed just previous to the door closures, rests in this groove, so the long leg of the L goes on the underside of the rod.  Because of the groove, there are left and right L's.  The long leg of the L's go on the outside of the door strap.  That is, to the left of the left strap and to the right of the right strap.

Frankly, it's tough to get these closures to fit properly.  They seem a bit too short.  And they definitely have a cross-section that's too thick.  There are a couple of clear photos of these cars in Nimke's Vol. 1 and in R. W. Jones' Green Mountain Rails that show the door closures pretty well.   The long leg of the L appears to be a metal strap and the short leg is a pin.   Were I to build another of these kits I'd consider replacing the door closures in the kit with straps of either styrene or brass, and brass wire.

Another troublesome area is the rod supports, which are metal straps simulated with 1x2 styrene.  Basically, the styrene gets folded in half and even after softening it with solvent I couldn't get the styrene to bend without breaking.  I tried cutting thin strips from .005" styrene sheet and this worked better, but not satisfactorily ... too springy.  Finally I used Simpson Models .006" x 2 scale in. brass strap stock.   This was easy to work with, stayed bent, glued easily to the model with ACC, and is as sturdy as the styrene would have been.  I've had this stuff for a long time and don't know if it's still available.  Simpson used to advertise in the NG&SL Gazette.  I don't have my Walthers catalog handy, but someone (I think it's Detail Associates) makes .015"x.024" brass strips.  These are a bit thicker than 1 scale in. styrene, but should work fine.

I hope this helps.

Cheers!

-Jay Conant


A.   (09/16/99)  I do have the kit in my "to build" file.   I think what is refered to by "door closures" are straps that run from the rod supported by the rod brackets put on earlier in step 7 to the metal straps holding the door planks together.  If you look at the photo of a ballast car on p.36 of Robert Wiloughby Jones's Green Mountain Rails.  The closures work by the rod being rotated so that they allow the doors to drop from the inwards-canted position to vertical.   Hope this makes things clearer.  

Yours truly,

-Chris Martin



Q. #9 (09/17/99)  Does anyone manufacture correct Rutland wood caboose decals in HO scale (with or without the "Route of the Whippet" slogan)?   


A.  (09/17/99)  CDS Lettering Ltd. at one time sold a dry transfer version of this scheme with the "Whippet" slogan included.  It was CDS #429.  Can anyone enlighten me as to their current availablilty?  I don't know about decals; again, does anyone know?

-Jim Dufour


A.  (09/24/99)  The CDS set (which is readily available direct from CDS or from the better Rutland-minded dealers such as John Cook in Bellows Falls) is the best set.  The set included with the F&C caboose kit is the only set of decals worth the paper they're printed on, and the more-recent versions of them are reasonably well printed, though not quite as good as the CDS set.

-Chris Martin



 

Q. #10 (09/26/99)  Can someone please tell me what the specific topics are for each of R. W. Nimke's books about the Rutland. Thanks.

-Steven A. Schulman


A (09/26/99) Sure:

Volume 1:   Motive Power and Equipment
Volume 2:   The Hub (Rutland)
Volume 3:   Bellows Falls Sub
Volume 4:   B&R and Corkscrew Divisions
Volume 5:   The Main Line (2 parts)
Volume 6:   O&LC Division (2 parts)
Volume 7:   The Addendum
no vol. #:   Train Schedules

Also by R.W. Nimke and on the Rutland theme: 

Betterments - Statistics
Side Track Diagram[s] December 1, 1934
Green Mountain Railroad

-Jim Dufour



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