Meet Ole Rusty

I'm really excited about the response to the Facebook Save the Trains campaign. I want to thank everyone who has donated and all those who are stepping forward with information and offers to help and volunteer.

One of those who responded, was Rick |Kfoury, a director of the B&M Railroad Historical Society. He has offered his assistance and give us valuable information about the history of our caboose.

He tells us, "The N-5s were built at the Concord Shops in 1932 as 104700 - 104724. These were essentially clones of a popular Pennsylvania Railroad design.

104707 was wrecked in 1936, and the remaining cars were renumbered to C-11 through C-34 in 1942. Some survived to the end of the caboose era under Guilford Transportation Industries in the 1980s. They were initially assigned to replace weaker wooden cabooses on the Fitchburg Division in order to withstand the strain of steam helper locomotives pushing from the rear up Ashburnham Hill.

When the B&M replaced the last of their wooden cabooses with a new order of cabooses from International Steel in the 1950s, the N-5s spread out to the rest of the system and were common on rural branch lines where they served as a mobile office and quarters for the conductor and brakemen.

In the late 1960s the N-5s received the famous scheme of blue sides with red ends, black roof, white trim, and a large B&M logo on either side."

So here's the question I have posed to our community on Facebook. When we paint Ole Rusty should we stay with the original caboose red, with gold lettering or blue with the large B&M logo?

Raymond Railroad Depot, Museum, and Rolling Stock

For the past few years, the Raymond Historical Society has been exploring how to go about restoring our rolling stock, which is starting to show its age and the effects of the weather.

The historical society has a small but dedicated volunteer base, but progress has been slow. Most recently, a committee consisting of Dave Hoelzel Sr., Sally Paradis, and I have been working on securing the resources to accomplish the task. Our lack of experience, and lack of funds have been problematic, but we are persisting.

Last year, the inspection car was treated to a new coat of paint by the McDonald family and a new set of doors by Roger Paradis, but our caboose and boxcar are big challenges that will require more money and resources than we have on hand.

Scott Knightly, President of Envirovantage, has stepped forward to provide expertise and the resources of his company to restore the outside of our caboose to honor his grandmother, A. Willis Goddard, one of the founders of the Raymond Historical Society. He has enabled us to reach a tipping point and to begin moving forward. 

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it will take the help of our community to restore our trains. I've established this blog as a personal journal of our progress.  I will be conducting interviews, posting pictures, and video, of the work here and spreading the word through our YouTube channel, our website and our Facebook page.

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My next entry will be to provide a little background on the Depot, the rolling stock, and our efforts to date, but if you want to get a head start, here's an interview with Steve Goldthwaite, I conducted a few years ago.