September 28, 2022 — A friend and I made the short trip out to Bellows Falls, Vermont on September 16 to photograph Green Mountain Railroad ALCo RS-1 #405. Built for the Rutland Railroad in 1951, the diesel was purchased by F. Nelson Blount in 1964 and became the first locomotive on the roster of his new Green Mountain Railroad Corporation. For many years, Green Mountain #405 operated in daily freight service over the very same rails it once plied as Rutland #405. Today the locomotive is used on seasonal passenger excursions and held in reserve as a freight switcher. This makes #405 one of the few locomotives of its age still working the same tracks it was delivered to when new!
We caught #405 switching the Riverside Reload facility, located at the spot that Steamtown called home between 1964 and 1983. Today the site is an important freight location where lumber, salt, propane, and other commodities are unloaded from railcars into trucks for local and regional distribution. Vermont Rail System, the modern-day owner of the Green Mountain Railroad, has been painting a number of its locomotives this summer; this has resulted in a minor locomotive shortage. It is for this reason that old #405 was called up for switching duty in and around Bellows Falls.
Fittingly, #405 is named the “F. Nelson Blount”; the founder of the Green Mountain Railroad who helped save the Rutland Railroad tracks in this area, which are thriving now for regional freight service. The antique locomotive is one of the last prominent physical examples of Blount’s influence left in the Connecticut River valley, and the last Blount locomotive in regular service in this area. But if the full and bustling yard at Riverside, and the survival of the line to Rutland is any indication, you don’t have to look hard to find traces of what he and his associates achieved.
— Rick Kfoury
Steamtown Historical Collective 