RUTLAND, Vt. — Vermont Rail System continues to make progress in repairs to flood damage sustained by its lines earlier this month, company president Selden Houghton told a local news site on Wednesday.
“Hopefully, by next week, we’ll be 100% put back together,” Houghton said in a phone interview with the VTDigger.
Houghton detailed the widespread damage for Trains News Wire on July 12, but felt VRS had been fortunate because the flooding had not caused any bridge failures [see “Vermont Rail System recovers …,” Trains News Wire, July 12, 2023].
The hardest-hit portion of the system, the Green Mountain Railroad, still has 27 state-owned miles closed because of flood damage, Joe Flynn, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the news site. One damaged portion of that line, in Ludlow, Vt., where tracks were left hanging 50 feet in the air after a washout, was widely shown in national news broadcasts. Another, in East Wallingford, saw tracks left unsupported by a massive slope failure.
In Ludlow, the washed-out area has been filled in and work to relay the tracks was slated to begin Wednesday. In East Wallingford, work was continuing to shore up the hillside before tracks could be rebuilt.
The Washington County Railroad, which saw two locomotives and 11 railcars stranded by flooding, should also be fully repaired next week, Houghton told the Digger.
I live in Chester, VT and RJ Corman has been working out of a staging area adjacent to the historic Chester train station, first built by the Rutland Railroad in the 19th century. Huge amounts of stone, crushed rock and other fill has been transloaded here for transportation to Ludlow and Wallingford according to workers here. Just a few minutes ago, four Corman rotating dump trucks were loaded with large rock and sent north on the rails.