Alburg Station

We now come to Alburg which was a very busy place in the railroad heyday. With the advent of the "Island Line" Alburg Village became quite a railroad terminal. The new road connected at Alburg with the "Vermont Central" and the "Rutland and Noyan" branch into Canada. Alburg had it's own roundhouse with full crews working around the clock. A large water tower, and ice house on the lakeside used for "icing" the milk and butter trains, The ice harvesting gave work to many during the winter months. A railroad Y.M.C.A . was also located here with bowling alleys. Alburg Village prospered greatly as a result of the railroad activity. As many as fifteen trains would be arriving and departing daily. It was not unusual for a milk train to be forty cars long.

Up through the 1930's Alburgs economic future certainly looked bright. However internal financial problems of the Rutland RR, the costly 1927 flood, the depression, ever increasing wages and obsolescence, that by 1938, bankruptcy was approaching. WW 2 was a temporary respite but operation continued to deteriorate. Insurmountable demands by the unions, dwindling revenue, a change in the milk market cut the Islands out of the NY milk shed in 1958. A bitter employee strike, all finally forced the closing down of operations and on Sept. 18, 1962, the ICC ordered the complete abandonment of the "Rutland Rail Road" system including all activity in Alburg.

The Rutland Rail Road was dead.................

To see it today you would hardly know a big rail yard was here at one time. Seems the town was so upset with the Rutland closing and the loss of so many jobs that they tried their hardest to erase all past remembrances of the line. If you go there today you would have to agree, they succeeded. The picture above is Rt. 2 right in the middle of town. Part of the rail bed now is a bike path/snowmobile trail.

Picture of rail yard in Alburg

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