Looking for White River, VT DEM not DLS version

[rwk]

I tried Fishlips site on Wayback but none of the links work for the cdp file. The DEM on the DLS goes from White River, Jct. south to Brattleboro, VT but the non-DLS one goes north of White River Jct. to St. Johnsbury, VT. I thought somebody archived most of his DEM's? I merged a few gfisher Vermont and NH routes together, and I need at least the section from Wells River, VT to White River Jct. VT to merge the DLS blank route with my merged routes. I can merge the DLS White River to Brattleboro route to a Bellows Falls to Rutland route I have then merge a Rutland to Whitehall, NY route to it.

 

[JCitron]

I tried Fishlips site on Wayback but none of the links work for the cdp file. The DEM on the DLS goes from White River, Jct. south to Brattleboro, VT but the non-DLS one goes north of White River Jct. to St. Johnsbury, VT. I thought somebody archived most of his DEM's? I merged a few gfisher Vermont and NH routes together, and I need at least the section from Wells River, VT to White River Jct. VT to merge the DLS blank route with my merged routes. I can merge the DLS White River to Brattleboro route to a Bellows Falls to Rutland route I have then merge a Rutland to Whitehall, NY route to it.

I have that file, but it's corrupted like many of the others.

 

[rwk]

What does corrupted mean? That it's unusable? It won't load in Surveyor? His DEM's throw an error in newer Trainz versions that's easy to fix. The error is that the tag USA doesn't exist, so you have to delete the USA tag in the config, save the config, commit, and then the file will be error free. The only other way would be if someone could make me the DEM with TransDEM or something. About 37 miles in a straight line.

 

[JCitron]

What does corrupted mean? That it's unusable? It won't load in Surveyor? His DEM's throw an error in newer Trainz versions that's easy to fix. The error is that the tag USA doesn't exist, so you have to delete the USA tag in the config, save the config, commit, and then the file will be error free.

Corrupted in this case means that you can't even open the cdp file. The file is unrecognized when brought into Content Manager due to something being damaged within the file. This is a problem with many of the files that were on this website.

 

[rwk]

Oh well, maybe I will have two separate routes or try to ask somebody to make the DEM for me. I have a person in mind, BlackDiamond1964. I can grab the other White River DEM off the DLS and merge it with a Bellows Falls to Rutland route then merge a Rutland, VT to Whitehall, NY route. I'm only missing 37 miles or so. I want to run steam and diesel excursions on Green Mountain Railroad as well as Bellows Falls to White River Jct. and return and steam and diesel excursions on the Lamoille Valley which is actually a rail trail now but my world is fictional. Maybe I will connect my Conway Scenic route to this as well, at Whitefield, NH. My Conway Scenic will be an extension of a Control Point payware Maine Central Mountain Div. route which only has some of the Conway Scenic.

 

[JCitron]

Oh well, maybe I will have two separate routes or try to ask somebody to make the DEM for me. I have a person in mind, BlackDiamond1964. I can grab the other White River DEM off the DLS and merge it with a Bellows Falls to Rutland route then merge a Rutland, VT to Whitehall, NY route. I'm only missing 37 miles or so. I want to run steam and diesel excursions on Green Mountain Railroad as well as Bellows Falls to White River Jct. and return and steam and diesel excursions on the Lamoille Valley which is actually a rail trail now but my world is fictional. Maybe I will connect my Conway Scenic route to this as well, at Whitefield, NH. My Conway Scenic will be an extension of a Control Point payware Maine Central Mountain Div. route which only has some of the Conway Scenic.

A route generated with TransDEM will not merge well with routes created with HOG.

The problem is HOG uses the old TIGER maps which are notoriously inaccurate and many times out of position by as much as a kilometer or more. There are places on some maps where the railroad is shown going over a hill instead of following the grade below. There are other issues include the overall world-positioning. TransDEM allows for adjusting terrain by up to about a half a baseboard on the X, Y axis. These old routes are usually way off and won't line up at all. I ran into this myself when I brought in a TransDEM addition to George Fisher's Gloucester Terminal Railroad.

There's nothing stopping you from trying but I foresee a lot of frustration trying to line things up especially when crossing the White Mountains. There will be nothing worse than your train line running smack dab into the side of Mount Washington.

 

[rwk]

I found that out some time ago, I've been using Trainz as long as you about. I switched to Trainz from MSTS. HOG and TransDEM routes sometimes don't play nice together. Even HOG routes sometimes don't play nice together. What I mean by that is I have two HOG routes from the DLS of Vermont and New Hampshire one the Green Mountain Railroad from Bellows Falls, VT to Rutland, VT and the other Brattleboro, VT to White River Jct., VT which also has Bellows Falls in it, I tried deleting some baseboards and merging the Brattleboro to White River Jct. to the Green Mountain route and the merge point was at a point west of Bellows Falls on the Green Mountain, and on one of the routes the coordinates are off as the route is shifted a bit compared to the other one thus doesn't line up exactly. Like one of the mountains has a vertical cliff because the positioning is off on one of the routes. The only solution I see to this is to do a merge north of Bellows Falls and south of Bellows Falls and keep the Bellows Falls on the Green Mountain route rather than the Brattleboro to White River Jct. route or do a merge west of Bellows Falls with an extra strip of baseboards that don't have tiger lines on the Brattleboro route to mask the rail line being off.

 

[JCitron]

I found that out some time ago, I've been using Trainz as long as you about. I switched to Trainz from MSTS. HOG and TransDEM routes sometimes don't play nice together. Even HOG routes sometimes don't play nice together. What I mean by that is I have two HOG routes from the DLS of Vermont and New Hampshire one the Green Mountain Railroad from Bellows Falls, VT to Rutland, VT and the other Brattleboro, VT to White River Jct., VT which also has Bellows Falls in it, I tried deleting some baseboards and merging the Brattleboro to White River Jct. to the Green Mountain route and the merge point was at a point west of Bellows Falls on the Green Mountain, and on one of the routes the coordinates are off as the route is shifted a bit compared to the other one thus doesn't line up exactly. Like one of the mountains has a vertical cliff because the positioning is off on one of the routes. The only solution I see to this is to do a merge north of Bellows Falls and south of Bellows Falls and keep the Bellows Falls on the Green Mountain route rather than the Brattleboro to White River Jct. route or do a merge west of Bellows Falls with an extra strip of baseboards that don't have tiger lines on the Brattleboro route to mask the rail line being off.

You followed the same route, pun intended, as I did to Trainz. I too used MSTS first then arrived in Trainz and haven't left. I ran into the same issues with HOG routes. I have driven through the area where you are looking to build the route. The terrain is beautiful and will make a nice route to operate someday.

To go a bit off topic, the Vermont Rail System is in the process of restoring the old Mountain Division between St. Johnsbury, VT and Whitehall, NH. The STJ to Gilman, VT will be last, they are currently working on the Whitehall to Gilman portion. They also currently run freight down to Fabian to serve customers in that area. The company that runs the Conway Scenic runs some freight in that area and they are in the process of acquiring the Portland to Intervale portion of the line. If that comes to fruition along with VRS completing the top half to Gilman from STJ, the route will be fully opened again. In addition to this line, they're looking at reopening the line up to Berlin from the junction with the Mountain Division. The tracks have been lifted with the ROW devoid of tracks because it's now a recreational trail. Whenever, or if ever that occurs, will be a great restoration project up in the White Mountains.

 

[rwk]

Does that mean that Conway Scenic could expand their tourist operations? They should reopen the ex-B&M to Osippee, but there are a few obstacles in the way like Coleman Concrete south of Conway where the current end of the operational part is buried some of the track to create a road I believe, although a now defunct tourist railroad called Silver Lake Railroad operated three miles of track north of Silver Lake/Madison several years ago for a few years. And south of Silver Lake Station a road crossing the rails were paved over you can see on Google Street View and the rails south of the road look overgrown. If you go to Whitefield, NH on Google Street View you can see abandoned crossings past the ball signal where two tracks cross at a diamond. There is a short line which comes in from the east to connect with Conway Scenic, currently the only rail link with the outside world until the ex=MEC to Vermont gets restored. The ex-MEC past Whitefield had trees growing in the tracks but those are probably being cleared now. Their steam locomotive made a special public run from North Conway to Whitefield a few years ago, as well as Hazens which is before Whitefield and the division point between Conway Scenic and the other railroad, they normally don't go that far on the Notch excursions to the north of North Conway, just to Bartlett, Crawford, or Fabyan Station. The VT-NH loop by gfisher which is at that archived USLW files page has the St. Johnsbury to Whitefield segment as well as south of St. Johnsbury and a line which loops back to Whitefield which is actually gone in real life I believe, tracks ripped out. I could connect that with my MEC route from the defunct Control Point Simulations if I had a filler DEM or I could just use flat baseboards. I had the same problem merging gfisher's Lamoille Valley route with his VT-NH loop at St. Johnsbury, the DEM is shifted on one of the routes by about half a baseboard. But, when I merged a blank Lamoille route to the other end of the gfisher route to extend it to the other end several years ago, I had deleted baseboards on the east end of the blank route, it was a perfect fit. The real Lamoille Valley was ripped up for a rail trail.

 

[JCitron]

Yes, Conway Scenic is looking at expanding its operations south. It already has up north. Whenever the southern part opens, should the deal be approved, it'll take quite a bit of hard work and money to restore those tracks.

Unfortunately, the B&M branch is going to become a rail trail. The State of New Hampshire ensured that by authorizing the removal of the rail infrastructure above the NHNC end of track at the sandpits in Ossipee. There's a strong rail-to-trail group that has done a lot of damage in New England, especially in New Hampshire. They attempted to get the line between Concord through Laconia and the short line up there fought that and won that battle, but sadly a lot of others have been lost such as the former Northern Railroad between Concord and Lebanon, NH, and the Lawrence to Salem, NH remaining segment of the Manchester and Lawrence which opened in 1842.

The former short line was the NH&VT and is now owned by Vermont Rail Systems. They are the ones who are restoring the tracks and have done a ton of work around Whitefield and currently operate the line down to Hazens. There are plans to reopen line from Whitefield to Berlin at some point. The old line out of Hazens with the tracks ripped up has been closed for a very long time. Who knows what will happen with that line.

 

[rwk]

Does Conway Scenic have a connection with the outside world? Seems like the only place would be Whitefield the line that goes to the east from the ball signal. And if the ex-B&M does get ripped up between the sand pit and Conway then that will forever sever the link to the south. But the tracks are already impassable south of Conway station with some breaches in the row at Coleman Concrete and I believe there is a new road south of Conway station that I saw on satellite maps that severs the tracks, and I read that dirt was piled on the track south of the switch for the passing siding at Conway. And south of Silver Lake I believe the tracks are more impassable/overgrown. The man that started Conway Scenic in 1974, Dwight Smith recently passed away at 100. I entered the world on Jan 14, 1974. I think it is the only tourist railroad up there with an operable steam locomotive, then there's Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln with a short steam railroad, as well as the diesel Granite State formerly Hobo Railroad that heads south. I wonder why Conway Scenic didn't want the tracks south of Conway to begin with and they sat and rotted for over 50 years, well three miles north of Silver Lake was used by the defunct Silver Lake Railroad several years ago. They used motorcars sandwiched between roofed open air cars. There is a video on youtube of a guy on a speeder riding the tracks south toward Silver Lake on the part that the Silver Lake RR used and there was a bridge with rails removed that he had to slow down for and walk it across. I was never to NH, but I was to Boston in June 1993 with my younger brother and late mom and we stayed at a Days Inn in Woburn and took the T train into Boston for sightseeing and we even rode the subway which turned into an elevated by North Station. My mom passed in the hospital on June 14, 2022 and my father was hit by a car 2 miles from our house on March 8, 1986 at night he was walking across the street and a drunk lady with a male passenger hit him. He was an alcoholic as well and could have had a beer at a bar right near where he was hit, the bar is still there. I live in eastern PA and have been on almost every tourist railroad east of Harrisburg. NH seems to have a lot of dormant rail lines, or they were ripped up, and the state is not really passenger train friendly, well Amtrak runs through Dover in the lower part of the state on the Boston to Maine route, and the northern part of the state just has tourist railroads in places like Laconia and Meredith, Lincoln, and North Conway. There was Wolfeboro Railroad from 1974-1985 but now it's a trail with rails and a speeder club uses 10 of the 12 miles. Crossing is paved over at Wakefield, and tracks were removed up to Wolfeboro Station. The prairie steam locomotive #250 originally came from a 4 1/2 mile landlocked tourist railroad 15 miles west of me in Kempton, PA in 1972, it operated from 1963-1967 or so at Kempton. Then it went to Edaville RR as a display piece at some point after 1985, it last operated in 1984 on the Wolfeboro and is now at Grafton and Upton and is for sale.

 

[JCitron]

At the present time, the only outside connection for the Conway Scenic is at Whitefield, or really Hazens where they interchange with the VRS. The company that owns the CSR also runs freight and is pushing to get the southern end in Portland. VRS is, as I said, working the northern end. CSX still owns the ROW in places and from what I understand the companies are working with CSX to take over the lines. It didn't help that the Maine State government was really nasty about restoring the freight service from Portland. One of the legislators acted as though he was obviously being paid by one of the rail-to-trail groups and put up a fight against CSR taking over. What happened after that, who knows. There's currently a trail over part of the line north of Portland that was put in illegally by a local group that runs parallel to the tracks near Sebago Lake.

Dwight didn't include the B&M branch due to the line being in really, really poor condition. There's also a really steep grade heading into Conway just before the yard. There has been some track extensions and rebuilding around Conway to allow for better train storage and switching and to allow for longer trains.

NH is definitely anti-rail and has been for as long as I can remember. They refuse to pay for Amtrak Downeaster service yet enjoy the benefits paid for by Massachusetts on the south and Maine on the north. This also applies to the western line running up to Burlington Vermont through Springfield MA. MA and Vermont pay for that one while New Hampshire again gets the free ride.

There is another steam tourist line up along the Pemigewasset River near Route 93. This I think is the New Hampshire Central and they run trains on a stub that belonged to the B&M at one time. This line was part of the once extensive lumbering operation found in the White Mountains. This railroad is something I may model someday even as a modern tourist line with modern freight.

 

[rwk]

I just found out that Conway Scenic is clearing the Quebec Junction wye below Hazens. Maybe so they can turn the 7470 steam locomotive when they run it that far. They only ran to Hazens or the ball signal at Whitefield for special occasions. If Vermont Rail is restoring the track past the ball signal to St. Johnsbury, VT it looks like some parts are gone or overgrown in Whitefield and some crossings paved over and some parts go through backyards. The track the other way from Hazens to the east that is not Conway Scenic, where does that go? There is double track from Hazens to Whitefield but Conway's track merges into the other track at Hazens then there is a switch for the second track. The second track crosses over the other on a diamond at the ball signal. I looked this up on satellite maps. I want to recreate the Conway Scenic in Trainz, using a gfisher loop route which has Whitefield and St. Johnsbury, and an MEC Mountain Div. route from the defunct Control Point Simulations, and my own flat baseboards added on to them. I'm using Google Ruler to measure distances on the railroad between Bartlett, NH and Conway, NH and north of Crawford Station to Whitefield for the blank baseboard parts..

 

[JCitron]

I just found out that Conway Scenic is clearing the Quebec Junction wye below Hazens. Maybe so they can turn the 7470 steam locomotive when they run it that far. They only ran to Hazens or the ball signal at Whitefield for special occasions. If Vermont Rail is restoring the track past the ball signal to St. Johnsbury, VT it looks like some parts are gone or overgrown in Whitefield and some crossings paved over and some parts go through backyards. The track the other way from Hazens to the east that is not Conway Scenic, where does that go? There is double track from Hazens to Whitefield but Conway's track merges into the other track at Hazens then there is a switch for the second track. The second track crosses over the other on a diamond at the ball signal. I looked this up on satellite maps. I want to recreate the Conway Scenic in Trainz, using a gfisher loop route which has Whitefield and St. Johnsbury, and an MEC Mountain Div. route from the defunct Control Point Simulations, and my own flat baseboards added on to them. I'm using Google Ruler to measure distances on the railroad between Bartlett, NH and Conway, NH and north of Crawford Station to Whitefield for the blank baseboard parts..

I believe that track that you mentioned is a former line that went through Bethlehem, NH. The line used to loop around but was ripped up in parts by Guilford years ago.

The VRS is doing a bunch of clearing and plans to work on the portion between St. Johnsbury and Gilman last or in the future. That end has many washouts, paved over crossings, and backyard encroachments.

For more information on the restoration work, check the videos by Southcoast Rail Videos.

South Coast Rail Videos

Railroad videos from Southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the rest of New England focusing on rail revitalization and restoration! Home to the best documentation of South Coast Rail project construction from start to finish. This channel is owned privately and not affiliated with any...

www.youtube.com

 

[RobertManley]

I tried Fishlips site on Wayback but none of the links work for the cdp file. The DEM on the DLS goes from White River, Jct. south to Brattleboro, VT but the non-DLS one goes north of White River Jct. to St. Johnsbury, VT. I thought somebody archived most of his DEM's? I merged a few gfisher Vermont and NH routes together, and I need at least the section from Wells River, VT to White River Jct. VT to merge the DLS blank route with my merged routes. I can merge the DLS White River to Brattleboro route to a Bellows Falls to Rutland route I have then merge a Rutland to Whitehall, NY route to it.

Any update?

 

[rwk]

We have a Bethlehem near me in eastern PA, my late father worked at the former Bethlehem Steel, he passed on March 8, 1986. My mom passed on June 14, 2022 in the hospital. Yes, according to Google maps the line from Whitefield down to a point south of St. Johnsbury is mostly a rail trail now and was an ex-B&M line. Ok, why did B&M though end at North Conway coming up from the south but have a line in Whitefield? And why were the tracks abandoned past Whitefield but Conway Scenic got the tracks from Maine state line near North Conway to Hazens in the early 90's? It looks like there is a lot of work to do to reopen the tracks past Whitefield with all the breaches, washouts, trees in tracks, and paved crossings. I kind of wish Conway Scenic could go farther with its tourist trains but the ride from North Conway to Fabyan Station is already 5 1/2 hours.

 

[JCitron]

We have a Bethlehem near me in eastern PA, my late father worked at the former Bethlehem Steel, he passed on March 8, 1986. My mom passed on June 14, 2022 in the hospital. Yes, according to Google maps the line from Whitefield down to a point south of St. Johnsbury is mostly a rail trail now and was an ex-B&M line. Ok, why did B&M though end at North Conway coming up from the south but have a line in Whitefield? And why were the tracks abandoned past Whitefield but Conway Scenic got the tracks from Maine state line near North Conway to Hazens in the early 90's? It looks like there is a lot of work to do to reopen the tracks past Whitefield with all the breaches, washouts, trees in tracks, and paved crossings. I kind of wish Conway Scenic could go farther with its tourist trains but the ride from North Conway to Fabyan Station is already 5 1/2 hours.

The line from Rochester to Conway was abandoned in 1971 or 1972 by the bankrupt Boston and Maine. They left the tracks in place then everything grew in on the tracks when they stopped running trains. The line was also really steep above Ossipee in places and really, really steep coming into Conway from Madison. There's a video on YouTube showing a single-car freight, yes, only a single boxcar being brought up to a customer in Bartlett that had to travel up from Rochester. Back then this required a full crew. With dwindling customers, mostly because New Hampshire encouraged road traffic and let the railroads die with no assistance, it wasn't worth the effort to maintain or keep the line open.

In 1983, Guilford took over the MEC and B&M, and in 1985 they shut down the MEC Mountain Division. That's the line that runs through the White Mountains from Portland to St. Johnsbury, VT. The CSR had been running trains on the remaining stub of the B&M from Conway to Intervale, the place where the MEC and B&M interchanged cars. After Guilford abandoned the line, they took over the line up through the Notch to Fabyan after 1985.

The line became truly deplorable after 198 as the line languished and was allowed to rot. Guilford refused to sell the line to any operator including the states and the tracks weeded over and washed out. Guilford, did sell to the states, however, would not sell the complete line and kept some pieces in their control to prevent anyone from ever operating on it.

A portion of the Portland to Intervale was used for both the Downeaster as its terminus in Portland and to serve a few customers. The customers left, thanks to Guilford not servicing them and the line weeded over. Some local rails to trails group built their own trail on a portion of the Portland to Intervale section without permission and it's still in place. That will have to be removed and replaced should the line come back online.

The portion around Whitefield was operated by the New Hampshire and Vermont. The line from Whitefield to Littleton was abandoned and turned into a trail. The trail people won on this section of the line and the NH & VT was recently purchased by the Vermont Rail System who is intent on reopening the line. Since CSX still owns portions of this line, due to its purchase of Guilford/PAR, they are in discussion with VRS about the line.

Yes, there are big portions washed out between St. Johnsbury and Whitefield. That image is deceiving because there are no trails on that portion of the line. There's some ballast still in places since it was last used in the 90s. The washouts and rebuilding doesn't appear to stop VRS from wanting to open the line. They've already cleared some of the brush up to Gilman where they are setting up an intermodal facility and encouraging other industries to move into that area where Gilman Paper was located. They're currently serving customers down in Hazens and Fabyan from what I hear and they're looking at rebuilding the line up to Berlin. There's a lot of smaller industries up there that can use rail service.

I'm sorry to hear about your parents. I lost my mom on December 11, 2018, and my dad on February 1, 2025. I've been through Bethlehem, PA on the way to see my aunt in uncle in Blandon.

 

[rwk]

I remember reading about Conway Scenic trains that went as far as the ball signal diamond in Whitefield, these were special all day excursions. The track is not really passable past that, well maybe the ex-B&M past the station which is a Dunkin Donuts now I saw on Google Street View. There are half paved over grade crossings in Whitefield on Google Street View, Conway Scenic still has a longer excursion each year called the Club 740 excursion, it goes at least as far as Quebec Junction or Hazens I believe. Normal Notch trains now only go as far as Crawfords Station, they used to have a 5 1/2 hour ride to Fabyans Station but that appears to be gone on the official railroad website. And the 7470 steam locomotive appears to be down right now. When that happens, all their trains are diesel powered because they have no backup steam locomotive but the MEC 501 2-8-0 will be restored to operation in the future. It is at North Conway. The only tourist railroads with regularly operating steam in New England are the Essex Valley Railroad in Connecticut, and the Clark's Trading Post RR in Lincoln, NH.

 

[JCitron]

I remember reading about Conway Scenic trains that went as far as the ball signal diamond in Whitefield, these were special all day excursions. The track is not really passable past that, well maybe the ex-B&M past the station which is a Dunkin Donuts now I saw on Google Street View. There are half paved over grade crossings in Whitefield on Google Street View, Conway Scenic still has a longer excursion each year called the Club 740 excursion, it goes at least as far as Quebec Junction or Hazens I believe. Normal Notch trains now only go as far as Crawfords Station, they used to have a 5 1/2 hour ride to Fabyans Station but that appears to be gone on the official railroad website. And the 7470 steam locomotive appears to be down right now. When that happens, all their trains are diesel powered because they have no backup steam locomotive but the MEC 501 2-8-0 will be restored to operation in the future. It is at North Conway. The only tourist railroads with regularly operating steam in New England are the Essex Valley Railroad in Connecticut, and the Clark's Trading Post RR in Lincoln, NH.

The VRS is rebuilding those crossings. Watch the videos created by the author of that YouTube channel I posted. At the moment, the Flying Yankee is located at North Conway. There are plans, at some point in the future, to run the train on the Mountain Division. It would be great to take it from Portland all the way to St. Johnsbury.

The other long rides may have been too long for the public and the crew and were probably operating at a loss. This would explain why they were pulled from the schedule at least for now.

 

[rwk]

So you were saying John that the ex-B&M south of Conway Station run around track to the gravel pit south of Ossipee is a lost cause? Three miles were used from Silver Lake station in Madison to the north several years ago but that tourist operation is defunct, it was called the Silver Lake Railroad. It's a shame that Conway Scenic couldn't even get that section, but there is a big breach in the row I believe where it went right through Coleman Concrete in Conway, it appears on satellite maps that the tracks are gone or buried by a dirt road. Could they possibly operate tourist trains into Maine in the future if they buy the ex-MEC into Maine? Hopefully the rail trail people don't win. But the link to the south toward Boston looks to be forever severed. The Mt. Whittier and Ossipee stations still stand, but look to be in sad shape in photos and the tracks are overgrown with only the rails showing in spots. AMM made the Silver Lake, Mt. Whittier, and Ossipee stations in Trainz, they are now hosted at Approach Medium I believe. I have the North Conway station that Dave Snow made at my request, it's on the DLS with a few revisions to correct a few things. There is a custom Crawfords station in the MEC Mountain Div. route from the defunct Control Point Simulations. I don't think that station is publicly available right now, as well as the route. I'm expanding the route north and south for my own use. I want to recreate the Conway Scenic.