Scanned CV Documents:
-Please allow a few minutes for these documents to download, these documents are saved to be very high quality to be legible and represent the originals as closely as possible-
Notice of Public Hearing for the closure of the New London Offices (January 18, 1988)
Interdepartmental Correspondence from Chief Engineer T. J. Faucett (December 19, 1985)
Engineman's Locomotive Report (October 5, 1984)
Requiem for an old friend:
GP 38-2AC 5809 makes its way North over the Horton Cove trestle in Montville, CT in the winter of 1994. (G. Kent Photo)
Growing up adjacent to CV tracks and having boat access to 12 miles of CV waterfront trackage on the Thames River in CT I must have seen hundreds of trains over the years. Growing up, other interests gradually led me away from trackside endeavors. Eventually I went away to college and when I came home the following summer after a year at school and a couple months at sea, I learned that my railroad was gone. The Central Vermont Railway, the last remaining name in old New England railroad heritage had been sold and was operating under a different name. In a way, this saved the railroad from total assimilation by the Canadian National. At the same time, I realized what was in a name. The name that had clung to the locomotives traveling these rails had changed for the first time in over 100 years. My lifetime had been filled watching the freights roll over the Smith Cove trestle in the wee morning hours and watching them return late at night, sometimes after bedtime. I remember laying awake listening to the horn echo down the Thames River Valley. Train watching was little more than looking out the window to see the CV on my side of the river and the Providence and Worcester on the other. In all the years of watching the CV, one event stands out in particular. In the winter of 1994 the CV began running cabooses on all of its freight trains. We decided to photograph the operation while it lasted (The CV running cabooses again!, this is too good to be true!). We positioned ourselves on the North side of the Horton Cove trestle while the train switched AES Thames power plant and Stone Container company. We had been blessed by a dusting of powder light snow and the show was spectacular. In a few short months I would go away to school and in just over a year the CV era would be over. To me, the CV will always be remembered by the image of the 5809 kicking up a cloud of snow trailed by old caboose 4049.
Labor problems caused the CV to run Cabooses in early 1994. CV 4049 trails the train in the above photo after leaving AES Thames power plant. (G. Kent Photo)
