The Railroads That Ran Along the Edge of the Road: Rail Adventures and Misadventures in New Hampshire and Vermont

The Garbely Publishing Company. Softcover. New. Softcover, 172 pages, standard landscape format, Color and B&W photographs. This title has many historical photographs which are B&W images. More recent times are in Color. The cover suggests quite a bit of scenes of street running, but that is not the case. These are short line railroads or rural branch lines that may or may not run along the edge of a road. Still, this is an interesting book on the rails less traveled. Accomplished railroad author Frank Kyper spent many of his formative years in towns and cities like this throughout Vermont and New Hampshire, spending the 1940s through the 1970s moving around the area with his family. His free time was spent exploring local railroads like the Springfield Terminal, Claremont & Concord, Montpelier & Barre, Clarendon & Pittsford, and even the Mount Washington Cog Railroad. His travels and interests in the region also put him in contact with the Rutland and the various branch lines of the Boston & Maine, and placed him front and center for the early formation of Steamtown and the Conway Scenic Railroad. His personal contacts with several railroad officials at the time, including the former president of the Rutland, gave him access to information as events unfolded that would drastically alter the landscape of New England railroading. This title is a mix of over 160 Color and B&W photographs illustrate the stories that are woven together to paint a picture of Vermont and New Hampshire railroading in its classic era. Contents: Introduction, pp. 4-14, The Railroads the Ran Along the Edge of the Road, pp. 15-40, Rails Cheshire 1944-1948, pp. 41-52, The Boston & Maine's Branchline Blues, pp. 53-64, Rails Souhegan 1954-1961, pp. 65-78, The Snow Trains Were Great - If You Were Not the Dispatcher!, pp. 79-90, The Curious Case of the Conway Branch, pp. 91-104, New Steam Power for the Cloud-Climbing Railroad, pp. 105-110, Rails Rutland 1961-1964, pp. 111-118, The Rise and Abrupt Fall of the Rutland Railway, pp. 119-134, Now You See It - Now You Don't: The Clarendon & Pittsford Railroad, pp. 135-142, Samuel Pinsly's Vermont Patchwork Quilt, pp. 143-154, Steamtown's Transitory (and Troubled) Early Years, pp. 155-170, Bibliography, pp. 171-172.