December 21st, 2004
We got up in White River Junction and headed for the tracks just in time to see the Southbound Vermonter. After that we toured the museum next to the station and proceeded along the tracks to Bellows Falls before concluding our travelling in Brattleboro.
Bellows Falls, Vermont
(map) Vermont Rail System member Green Mountain Railway meets the NECR at Bellows Falls. There is purported to be a GMRS Alco RS-1 here, as well. It is directly across the river from North Walpole, New Hampshire.
December 23rd, 2005
We spent the night with a friend in rural New Hampshire and got going late in the morning, working our way West toward Vermont. On the way, we stumbled upon a tourist railway, though not operating at the moment, in Meredith. We proceeded on to White River Junction and headed South along the NECR Palmer sub, stopping to check on the Concord and Claremont, to Bellows Falls where we watched an HLCX-painted Vermont Rail locomotive switch a handful of cars from VTR trackage onto NECR trackage.
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HLCX-painted VTR 205 heads across the Bellows Falls diamond toward the GMRC North Walpole yard to work.
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VTR 205 pushes 7 tank cars back across the diamond from the GMRC North Walpole yard.
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VTR 205 tows the first half of its train across the connecting track onto the NECR line.
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VTR 205 comes back across the river from dropping off its cars at NECR's North Walpole siding.
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VTR 205 backs down the connecting track to pick up the secnd half of its train.
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VTR locomotive 205 pulls the second half of its interchange train up the connecting track onto the NECR.
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VTR 205 backs down the NECR line with the second half of its interchange traffic toward the siding at North Walpole.
February 14th, 2009
We started our day in Rouses Point, New York, where we found the D&H quite quiet. We crossed Lake Champlain over to St. Albans, Vermont, where the NECR showed equally little sign of life, so decided to follow the VRS through Rutland to get to Brattleboro, our destination. Not long after leaving Burlington, we heard two extras being set up to meet in Chester, Vermont. Being two hours from there we had lots of time to wonder if we'd see it, and along the way we were distracted by an SBU blaring around New Haven, Vermont. We knew we were near a train on the Rutland-Burlington line but after trying to find it unsuccessfully for a while, we pushed on, ultimately reaching Chester about an hour after the meet had taken place. We caught the westbound in the woods about 5 miles out of town, but didn't get ahead of the eastbound until Bellows Falls, where the train was headed.
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C&E extra 204 east arrives at Bellows Falls diamond and switches its train into the interchange at North Walpole on the NECR.
March 4th, 2016
Travelling north out of Massachusetts, we heard NECR 321 out of Brattleboro and found it at Bellows Falls station before staying the night in that town.
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NECR 327 passes through Bellows Falls after sunset.
March 5th, 2016
The final leg of our trip saw us wake up to the persistent sound of a symmetric braking unit on the scanner in Bellows Falls, which led us to parked-running Guilford engines on the Walpole side of the river, before we turned north to see the Claremont and Concord, west to Rutland, and north to Burlington, stumbling completely by chance on a local working the Omya plant in Florence that we did not hear on the radio. We wrapped up our impromptu vacation stopping in Montreal to visit family.