The train continued to roll the miles north towards Burlington.
Views of the very beautiful and scenic Lake Champlain. The train pulled into the greater Burlington area.
Passing through the Vermont Railroad Yard and Roundhouse.
Views as we arrived at Burlington. Due to the City of Burlington painting the Bike Trail at our deboarding location, it took longer to unload the passengers but once everyone was off, the Roundhouse Tour group met. Everyone had to have a hard hat, safety glasses, safety vest and steel-toed boots or shoes to be able to go on this unique NRHS Tour of the Burlington Roundhouse.
Tickets were collected and we walked down the bike path to the roundhouse.
NRHS Burlington Roundhouse TourBurlington Yard is squeezed between Maple Street (MP 121.6) on the north and Flynn Avenue (MP 120.4) on the south. In between is the former Burlington Yard Drawbridge which crosses a canal into Lake Champlain.
There was a water station here in 1949. During steam days, Burlington was shown to have two 50,000 gallon water tanks, with a daily demand of 100,000 gallons.
Today, there is a brick seven-bay roundhouse and turntable to the west. This facility handles all major locomotive repairs and inspections for the VRS. Further to the west are the corporate offices of the Vermont Rail System, located on the shore of Lake Champlain.
Between the roundhouse and the mainline are several tracks with interesting names such as interchange, coach and cripple. To the east is a railroad-served transload terminal and petroleum facility. The transload facility, operated by Barrett Trucking, receives Cargill road salt for regional distribution. Barrett also hauls in rock and ballast for loading into rail cars. The Global Partners petroleum terminal receives rail shipments, generally brought up from Albany (NY) via Whitehall (NY). Between are several tracks used to store, switch, and repair freight cars. these tracks are numbered 1 through 8 heading to the east.
Vermont Railroad GP40-3 312, ex. Kansas and Oklahoma 806, exx. HATX 806, nee Denver and Rio Grande Western 3077 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1967.
Clarendon & Pittsford Railroad GP38-2 204, ex. HATX 217, exx. CSXT 2528, exxx. Seaboard 3528, nee Seaboard Coast Line 528 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1973.
The wheel sets and back side of the Burlington Roundhouse.
The Vermont Railroad gave us a safety briefing before we went inside the roundhouse to start our tour; there was yellow safety tape leading a path through the active roundhouse.
Vermont Railroad GP40-2 307, ex. Union Pacific 1325, exx. Southern Pacific 7225, nee St. Louis-Southwestern 7255 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1984.
An empty roundhouse stall.
Clarendon & Pittsford Railroad GP16 802, ex. CSXT 1758, exx. Seaboard 4703, exxx. Seaboard Coast Line 788, nee Atlantic Coast Line 103 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1950.
The owner of this roundhouse in Burlington.
The Paint Shed of the Vermont Railroad in the roundhouse.
Washington County Railroad GP38-2 202, built by Electro-Motive Division in 1974, was purchased new by the Vermont Railroad and it is up in the air as they are working on the traction motors in the truck.
Locomotive trucks and traction motors.
The elevated Washington County Railroad GP38-2 202.
Views outside of the roundhouse and Burlington turntable.
Burlington Roundhouse scene.
Providence & Worcester GP38 2011, ex. Conrail 7794, nee Penn Central 7794 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1969.
Canadian Pacific MP15AC 1404, ex. SOO Line 1534, nee Milwaukee Road 468 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1975.
Green Mountain Rail GP40 302, ex. CSXT 6592, nee Baltimore and Ohio 4017 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1971.
Roundhouse scene. I walked over to Lake Champlain for photographs.
Beautiful but very windy Lake Champlain in Burlington.
Our roundhouse tour group members.
Roundhouse scenes.
Yard scene.
Two more views of the Canadian Pacific MP15AC 1404. This ended our tour of the Vermont Railroad Roundhouse in Burlington. A very big thank you to the Vermont Railroad for having us here today at their roundhouse.
I started back to the boarding location.
The bay in Burlington. Next I can never pass up locomotives in perfect light.
Vermont Railroad GP40 301.
Vermont Railroad GP40-2LW 311. I continued my walk back to our boarding location.
Burlington Union Station built in 1916. I walked to the next grade crossing and found a outdoor grill and had a hot dog and Coca-Cola then walked inside the lower level of the station to use a bathroom.
The Train Ball inside the station. It was originally commissioned by developers Melinda Moulton and Lisa Steele. In 2017 the State of Vermont purchased the lower level of Union Station from Main Street Landing in preparation for the expected arrival of regularly scheduled Amtrak service into Burlington, and Train Ball was relocated to the first floor lobby of the Lake and College building. Fisk, graduated from the University of Vermont, was the artistic director of the legendary band Phish. His work and Redhook studio has been featured in the New York Times. More of his spherical sculptures can be found on the UVM campus and on Lakeside Ave in the South End.
The waiting area.
The Trip Back to RutlandThe Train departed at 4:00 PM and started out of Burlington but stopped for a passenger whose watch had stopped running.
Later we crossed the New Haven Bridge.
The passengers in my Rutland Railroad combine 280.
Otter Creek at Middlebury.
Interesting sky to our west on the trip back to Rutland.
A caboose used by a gas company.
The Rutland Railroad station in Leicester. It was announced that we would do a pair of photo runbys at Proctor and upon arrival, we unloaded the passengers and formed three photo lines. I took the highway bridge into town for mine.
Reverse move 1 at Proctor.
Photo runby 1.
Reverse move 2.
Photo runby 2. We all returned to the train to reboard for the trip back to Rutland. I made one more garbage run and put up a new trash bag in my car then thanked my passengers for coming and gave them the times for tomorrow's trip to Omya. We arrived in Rutland and I swept the train for any lost items. With no lost items left onboard, I detrained after another great NRHS trip. A special thank you to the Vermont Railroad for having the NRHS on their train today. Robin and I stopped at KFC and returned to the Days Inn for the evening.
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