Strasburg Valley Railroad Company

Serving With Pride Since 2004

Run by The Railroad Museum of New England the "Naugy"

Welcome To...    

 Thomaston Ct, home of the historic Naugatuk Railroad operated by the Railroad Museum of New England since 1996. We will be passing out shops today along with most of our collection along the way as weall as a damn. Sit back and relaz as wel let you know got places for photos along the line as well as show some pictures and info here.

                      

 

 

 

                   NAUG History

 

 

The Naugatuck Railroad was chartered May 1845 and organized February 1848. On May 15, 1849, the first section opened, from a junction with the just-completed New York and New Haven Railroad north to Seymour. Extensions opened to Waterbury June 11 and the rest of the way to Winsted September 24, where the Central New England Railway later passed through. On November 1, 1870 the Naugatuck Railroad leased the Watertown and Waterville Railroad, giving it a branch to Waterville. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad leased the Naugatuck on May 24, 1887, and merged it January 31, 1906.

In the mid- to late 1900s, the line was abandoned from Derby Junction north to Ansonia in favor of the original New Haven and Derby Railroad on the other (west) side of the Naugatuck River.

Passenger service north of Waterbury, to Torrington and Winsted, ended in December 1958, and the line was abandoned between Torrington and Winsted in 1963.

The NYNH&H merged into Penn Central in 1969; by then the line north of Waterbury was named the Torrington Secondary Track, and ended at Torrington. On January 1, 1971, the State of Connecticut and the MTA leased passenger and freight operations along the Waterbury Branch to Penn Central.[1] By 1976 Penn

 Central operations were being handled by Conrail.

The CDOT purchased the line between Devon and Torrington in 1982 from Conrail. The line north of Waterbury was leased by CDOT to the Boston and Maine Corporation in 1982, and after B&M discontinued freight service north of Waterbury in 1995, CDOT leased the line to the new Naugatuck Railroad (NAUG). NAUG started operations in September 1996. Operated by the Railroad Museum of New England, NAUG is a heritage railway, primarily an excursion and historic passenger operation, with an irregular freight service (as-needed).

     The Railroad Museum of New England, Inc. is a not-for-profit educational and historical organization, founded in January 1968. The mission of the Railroad Museum of New England (RMNE) is to establish an interpretive facility where the story of the region's rich railroad heritage can be effectively told. We have an extensive collection of New England rolling stock, including locomotives of all types, passenger cars, freight cars, and cabooses. We have New England railroad artifacts dating from the 1840's to the present… everything from tickets to signal towers. As much as we have acquired, all of it remains idle without the dedicated membership.

The museum concept is more than artifacts, it's also a story of the region and the development of society around the railroad. We invite you to become involved in the museum's activities. Join the engine and train crew or exhibits and administrative departments. The operation of a museum and a railroad is interesting and varied. One of the goals of the museum is to allow all of the volunteers to experience all the jobs they are interested in.


A major restoration of The Railroad Museum of New England's Thomaston Station is underway by its members. The station was built in 1881 and sits on a 1.11-acre East Main Street site in Thomaston, CT. The restoration project includes not just the station building itself but also several outbuildings, display tracks, an operating control tower, pedestrian walks, parking lots and a picnic area.


After many years, Railroad Museum of New England (RMNE) volunteers finally have a building to work in.  The 11,700 square foot restoration shop is nearing completion after seven years of planning and construction.  With two through tracks, an inspection pit, wide work areas, good lighting, full insulation and heating, the modern 65 x 180 foot shop will enable restoration and maintenance work to take place year-round on RMNE’s collection of vintage locomotives and cars. NOTE: Thomaston Shop is not open to the public.


 
 
 
The original Naugatuck Railroad was chartered in 1845, to be built between Bridgeport and Winsted, adjacent to the Naugatuck River. Construction began in April, 1848, and was completed by May, 1849. The first regular train service began June 11, 1849. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad began leasing the Naugatuck in 1887; and formally merged it in 1906.

Thomaston Dam was constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers between 1958 and 1960 as a flood control dam. Massive flooding in August 1955 devastated Connecticut, especially the Naugatuck River Valley, where over 100 lost their lives and hundreds of thousand dollars of heavy damage to the railroad occurred. The new dam required the relocation of the New Haven Railroad between Thomaston and East Litchfield, with construction of almost 10 miles of new rail line above the river valley. The new route was opened in 1960 as the dam neared completion.

Passenger service between Waterbury and Winsted was discontinued in 1958. Facing hard economic times as a result of the decline of its New england industrial base in the 1960s, the New Haven Railroad became a part of the Penn Central merger on January 1, 1969. The branch line suffered during the Penn Central years, losing freight customers and falling into disrepair.

In 1976, the State of Connecticut purchased the line between Waterbury and Torrington, and Conrail was named the designated operator. In 1982, Boston & Maine began its lease of the Naugatuck line. Traffic continued to decline, and Boston & Maine (now part of Guilford Rail System) discontinued regular freight service on August 2, 1995. The future of the line was in question.

After two decades of preserving and restoring New England's railroad heritage, RMNE was looking for a new home. The RMNE restored the original Naugatuck Railroad name from 1845 when it obtained a state charter for its new wholly owned operating subsidiary on June 7, 1995. The first passenger trains ran in October of 1996. They currently operate between Thomaston and the Waterville section of Waterbury.

  

 

                   NAUG Roster

 

 New Haven 529

New Haven 529 is an RS-3 1600 HP Diesel road switcher, built by Alco, August 1950 (#78176). The first former New Haven locomotive ever to be preserved, the 529 (class DERS-2c) was a member of a large fleet of RS-3s purchased by the New Haven to retire their final steam power. 529 was rebuilt and upgraded to its current configuration by Alco in 1959. The RS-3s were used over most of the system in all services until the railroad’s demise on December 31, 1968 when the Penn Central took over. Because they were equipped with NH cab signal systems, the PC generally kept the RS-3s in freight service on former NH trackage, and the 529 became 5536. Spared a DeWitt shop rebuilding in the early 1970s, 5536 kept its original Alco model 244 prime mover.

The former NH 529 was sold to Amtrak, reportedly for $1.00 when Amtrak took over the Northeast Corridor on April 1, 1976. The locomotive continued to wear its “funeral black” color scheme applied by the PC but was first renumbered 1338 and 138 shortly thereafter by Amtrak. The 138 continued to operate in New Haven territory on work trains, but occasionally it would rescue a disabled passenger train such as the trouble-prone SPV car runs on the Hartford line. In late July 1985, the final assignments for the locomotive included the Hartford work train, and the shop switcher in New Haven. Replaced by newer engines, the Alco fleet was put up for sale in August 1985 and the RMNE purchased 138 in September of that year. The locomotive was repainted in the 1959 color scheme in October 1986. Extensive cosmetic and mechanical work was done in 1994-95. 529 operated the first RMNE train onto the Naugatuck Railroad in September 1996, and continues to be one of the primary locomotives.

Naugatuck Railroad 2203 GE U23B Diesel

They say that timing is everything. And certainly good timing and an aggressive, proactive approach to preservation lead to the saving of former Providence and Worcester U23B, 2203. What is so significant about a seemingly run-of-the-mill General Electric U-boat? It is the last unit built of the domestic Universal series of locomotives, the initial fleet of locomotives that GE built to break into the marketplace in 1960.

The 2203 was built as Conrail 2798 in June of 1977, the last unit of an order of 10 U23B’s, which made up Conrail’s first purchase of brand new locomotives. She is the last built of the “U-Boat” series of locomotives, of several models numbering more than 3100 units. She would work for Conrail for 14 years before being retired and then sold to the Providence and Worcester Railroad, along with six other U23B’s from the same Conrail order. At the P&W, she would be renumbered to 2203, retrucked from GSC drop equalizer trucks to the then-standard GE FB-2 trucks and would receive a moderate amount of preventive maintenance work that would keep her running for another 10 years. Hauling everything from mixed freight to stone trains, 2203 and her six sisters would prove to be the backbone of the P&W fleet. In June of 2002, P&W would retire the 2203 (as well as the other ex-Conrail U23B’s) in favor of newer GE B39-8 units. After leaving P&W property, 2203 would await her fate in the shops of her new owner, Susquehanna Locomotive & Railcar Services, at Utica, NY.

In October of 2002, volunteers of the Railroad Museum of New England became aware of 2203 having been retired from the P&W and was out of service sitting in Utica. Upon inquiry on the locomotive, its new owner, sympathetic to our cause, made us an offer that we couldn’t refuse – a price at about less than half the market value of the locomotive at that time. After discussion among museum members of the historical significance of the locomotive in addition to what role she would play on the museum’s subsidiary Naugatuck Railroad, we would aggressively seek to bring the historic locomotive to our home rails. As is often the case in preservation efforts, a small group of RMNE members dug deep into their pockets and quickly raised the not-insignificant sum to save this locomotive. Our timing was right for preserving this locomotive: in 2002 after the CSX-NS dismantling of Conrail, the used locomotive market quickly became saturated with old, worn-out GE locomotives. But in the last four years, the used locomotive market has contracted greatly due to many retired locomotives being scrapped, while at the same time many previously retired locomotives being called back into service. This is the case with all the ex-P&W U23B’s, which have found work on the Susquehanna and other shortlines. Had the members of the RMNE waited rather than acting quickly, 2203 would have most certainly been sold off and would be back to work for another shortline railroad. Preservation depends on generosity of its proponents.

After coming home to the Railroad Museum of New England, 2203 was very quickly put into service in June of 2003 on the Naugatuck Railroad, becoming the regular power on weekend excursion runs. In the last four years, the museum’s loyal band of volunteers have done a substantial amount work to keep this locomotive running. In the fall of 2003, a standby onboard heating system was added to the locomotive to keep its engine warm for winter service. Several significant repairs have been made to the engine, including the replacement of a damaged cam shaft segment, changing a defective cylinder, replacement of a failed oil cooler and rebuilding of the failed equipment blower drive shaft. Much work remains to make her a true museum piece. Additional repair and clean up of the diesel engine is needed to get it running in top notch condition. At some point, our hope is to replace the FB-2 trucks with the original style drop equalizer trucks, or so called “AAR-B” trucks. Finally, a complete cosmetic overhaul is needed – repair of the battery boxes and other rotten carbody steel and finishing up with a fresh paint job. While it hasn’t been decided how she will be painted, a safe assumption would be the locomotive will be painted in a New Haven Railroad-inspired paint scheme and lettered for the Naugatuck Railroad. Also at that time, she’ll get her original road number back – 2798.
 

CDOT 2002 (NH 2005) and 2019 (NH 2049) EMD FL9

While NH 2059 is the first FL-9 the Museum requested, it is the third one to arrive at the Museum. In 1985, four FL-9s were transferred by Metro-North to ConnDOT for New York-Danbury, CT service, and were rebuilt and upgraded by Chrome Locomotive in Silvis, Illinois. The four returned to Connecticut wearing the dazzling, original black, red-orange and white “NH” colors of the New Haven’s FL-9 fleet. This well-known color scheme became ConnDOT’s standard decoration. The original four “Chromes” were retired in the fall of 2001. In April 2002, ConnDOT 2019 (former New Haven 2049) and 2002 (former New Haven 2005, the oldest surviving FL9) came to RMNE on a long-term lease. Tired but still operational, they entered the service rotation for the 2002 season on the Naugy passenger train. They were also quite popular when they were used on RMNE’s “Engineer For an Hour” program. Currently stored pending reactivation.
 

New Haven 2525

New Haven 2525 is a U25B 2500 HP road freight Diesel locomotive, built by GE, November 1965 (#35733). The 2525 was the final locomotive built for the New Haven (class DERS-7). This class was built to replace the worn-out 1947 Alco FA fleet (represented by NH 0401). It ran in road freight service on the New Haven's major routes in and out of Cedar Hill Yard near New Haven: to Maybrook, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston. This unit survived the Penn Central takeover and was eventually renumbered 2685, a number that it carried into Conrail. Like the 529, the 2525 stayed on former New Haven territory due to its cab signals. After cab signals were removed on the Hartford line and the Shore Line lost most through freight service, the 2685 roamed the Conrail system, receiving a major engine overhaul in Dec. 1977, after being wrecked on the Boston & Albany Division. It ran only a few more years, being stored in early 1980 and then retired around 1982 as Conrail purchased new motive power. It was stored serviceable at Selkirk and later Altoona. In mid-1985 the decision was made to scrap the 2685 and many of its sister locomotives. Arrangements were made by the RMNE through Conrail to have the locomotive donated and transported to Old Saybrook only weeks before the scheduled scrapping. Thanks to Conrail, another historical locomotive was saved. The 2525 arrived at Essex on Jan. 8, 1986, and was test run in October 1986. The fully-operational unit was restored to its as-built appearance in 1987. Additional work to bring the locomotive into FRA compliance was done in 1992. Unit is currently stored, awaiting a return to service.

RMNE 42

45-ton GE industrial Diesel switcher, built 1942 (#15807) for an unknown original owner (apparently the Rohm & Haas Chemical Co., as #RH-1). Purchased used circa 1969 by Stanley Works to replace a fireless steam switcher; the Diesel carried Stanley number 873. Donated 1993 by Cold Metal Products, which acquired a portion of the Stanley facility, including the locomotive. Powered by two 150 hp six-cylinder Cummins Diesel engines, with one traction motor on each truck. Side rods transmit power to the non-motored axle on each truck. The 45-ton units were built to lighter industrial specifications, while the similar GE 44-tonner was designed for heavier commercial railroad service. In 1993, it was repainted orange by RMNE and numbered 42, for the year of construction.
All History info and engine roster photos from RMNE Website
 
 
                                             NAUG Photos
 
 
                                                                                               
 
                             
                    Click Here For The Offical NAUG Site