Marty McGuirk wrote:

Just back from the Central Vermont Ry convention where a good time
was held by all (or at least me, everyone else seems to have had a
good time . . .)

I have a couple of questions that I would like to pose for anyone
here who can answer --


2. Around 1912-1925 was the "Southern New England" Railway listed in
the ORER -- apparently some locomotives were ordered for the
railroad, just curious if any cars were ever listed, or if the road
name itself was included.

Marty,

In the earliest ORER I have the November 1925 issue, the SNE is not mentioned nor does it seem to be listed in All Westerfield's October 1919 ORER Disk.

If the answer to either of the above is "yes" I'll order the
appropriate ORER from Westerfield -- just wondering if this will
prove a dead end.

One neat artifact on display this weekend was a complete set of hand
drawn maps showing, in detail, the route of the SNE from Palmer Mass
to Providence RI -- very cool. Most interesting was the clearly
labeled "C&O RR Coal Pier" to be built in Providence -- indication is
there would have likely been some SNE hoppers to haul the coal inland
from there.

In the early 1920's, about half of the coal arriving in New England whether it be anthracite or bituminous arrived via tidewater. The ports of embarkation included those on the west side of the Hudson, Philadelphia area and Chesapeake.

The improvements in railroad operations in the late 1920's led to all-rail transit to New England except for some barge traffic in New York Harbor and Long Island Sound (perhaps as far east as Allyn's Point & Hartford), and good Southern West Virginia coal loaded into colliers in the Hampton Roads.

Indeed, during WW II, the lack of shipping this coal to New England via Tidewater was a major cause for the hopper shortage. One of the remedies was to shift the port of embarkation from the Hampton Roads to New York Harbor, and transship into barges for the sneak trip up the Sound around Point Judith, and either up Narraganesett Bay or through the Cape Cod Canal.

After the War, the Hampton Roads, again, came the port of embarkation. As of the year 2000, Boston Edison's Salem-Beverly Plant received coal via tidewater. There was a co-gen plant in the interior part of Maine which used coal transshipped into hoppers in Portland for the trip inland.

Furthermore, the dust jacket of the TITANIC RAILROAD had a fantasy painting of SNE hoppers following a Consolidation. I would think that it would be quite appropriate in the 1950's to have hoppers carrying Southern WV Bituminous from Providence for your paper mill.

I don't believe New London had any significant coal unloading piers after the 1920's (Allyn's Point further up the Thames' east side was maybe the major debarkation point for coal for eastern Connecticut); therefore, it would be quite possible that coal through Providence could be terminated on large parts of the CV as well as the SNE if the unloading facilities were present (& the SNE could get at them without infuriating the New Haven).

Tim Gilbert