One more thing - we will need a good photo that shows the lettering on the flat car when we get around to painting the flat car. I plan to check with Steamtown to see what they used.

Ron Freitag says that he and Rome Romano were with Jeff on the first work session.

I plan to go to DRM this Saturday (August 26).

Best Regards,

The eleven member committee continues to raise money in an effort to restore the the former Rutland Railroad depot. Volunteers have been cleaning up the old depot with the intention of having it open to the public on August 19, 2000 for the Lisbon Homecoming Weekend. Although the depot is not officially a Museum yet, the committee is optimistic that the Town of Lisbon can get the depot on the list of the National Register of Historic Places. In addition the committee hopes in the future to have the old Trainer and Colon Grist Mill across the tracks from the depot added to the list. The Museum when opened will not only highlight Lisbon's railroad history but also it's farm history which the Rutland Railroad was major part.

The committee has raised to date $1,300.00 in donations. Donations may be sent to:

The Lisbon Museum Heritage Committee
P.O. Box 216
Lisbon, NY 13658.

The festivities on Saturday the 19th will include an historical display of old pictures showing Lisbon's history, a showcase of model trains provided by the Norwood Model Railroad Club, agricultural animals showing the correlation between the farm industry and the railroad and sketches showing the proposed Museum.

by Jeff English

On Monday, July 10, a small group of volunteers assisted representatives of the Danbury Railway Museum in loading Rutland Box Car 8085 on a TTX flat car for its journey to a new home at the museum's facility in Danbury, Connecticut. The 8085 had spent the last thirty-plus years serving as storage in Green Mountain RR's North Walpole, New Hampshire yard. As of 10:30 p.m. the car was secured and ready for interchange to New England Central RR to begin its trip.

The car was lifted off its trucks and the flat car was rolled underneath for the crane to gently drop the box into place in the center of the flat car. Then the crane placed 8085's trucks on the remaining open deck space of the flat car. This was accomplished by 11:00 in the morning, and the volunteer crew spent the rest of the day and into the night arranging the blocking and tie-downs which will hold the car and trucks securely in place while in transit. Many of the same volunteers had spent another day last fall framing up reinforcements to 8085's deteriorated structure and securing loose sheathing. This was the first step in preparing the car for transportation.

After arrival and unloading in Danbury, 8085 will begin the process of complete restoration. Watch the RtR website for information on how to volunteer to help with upcoming work sessions.

A forty-foot, wood-sheathed car with fishbelly steel underframe, Rutland 8085 was one of 300 cars built in the summer of 1924 by the Youngstown Steel Car Company of Niles, Ohio (no relation to Youngstown Steel Door Co.). Built following a New York Central design first produced in 1916, and assigned NYC Lot number 485-B, the Rutland 8000-8299 were the only such cars built with single six-foot doors rather than having four-foot auxiliary doors providing a ten-foot door opening. Allowing for this variation, 8085 and its handful of surviving Rutland sisters are the only known remaining cars representative of the NYC 1916 design, of which more than 17,000 examples had been built.

Rutland Dispatchers Selector Board
by Jim Dufour and Steve Mumley. Images by Doug Goodwin
(05/21/00)

Image by Doug Goodwin March 18, 2000   

During March of 2000 Doug Goodwin and I were the honored guests of Pat McKnight, Historian for the Steamtown National Historic Site, who arranged for us to visit Steamtown's off-site storage facility at the Tobyhanna Army Depot near Scranton.  While inspecting the sad remains of Rutland combine number 253 (see image below) we discovered an unusual looking device (above) in one corner of the car. It was comprised of rows of switches, each with a Rutland station name beside it, and an attached ammeter.  A sign declared that it was a "RUTLAND R.R. DISPATCHERS SWITCHBOARD."  The 253 once served as Steamtown USA's display car at their Riverside, Vermont location and apparently this device was one of the displays. But what did the Rutland do with a telephone switchboard? For answers I turned to my good friend Steve Mumley.  Here is what Steve had to say:

The case in the combine sounds like the old Rutland dispatchers selector board. They retired it about 1954 or so to go to a more compact one.   I am guessing that the old one went to the Nash-Ludlow collection in Bennington, Vermont which in turn was donated to Steamtown while in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Did you get a photo by any chance? I would love to see it. [Rutland dispatcher] Ken Linihan tells many stories about using it [see the Fall 1999 The Rutland Newsliner for an interview with Ken].