Deerfield River Railroad (The extension of the HT&W)

I know it has been asked before if the Hoosac Tunnel & Wilmington RR ever actually extended beyond Wilmington. Many have answered no. In a way this answer is right, however trackage did indeed extend beyond Wilmington. This trackage was actually built under the original charter which was used to build the HT&W (at the time called the Deerfield River Railroad). The Deerfield River Railroad continued as a narrow guage system extending north west into Searsburg, and up to Somerset. Its purpose was primarily for logging but it also had obligations for people transport, as well as dam construction.


Anyways, I dug up a great article on the subject from "The northern logger and timber processor" May 1969. Take a look (sorry about to poor quality, i'll try to transcribe this article depending on how well OCR software can read most of it!)


http://hoosactunnel.net/HTW/images/Some ... OGGING.PDF

Thanks.


Without elaboration I made some comment in last HT&W thread does anybody know if anything was exchanged with the Deerfield River RR. At Mountain Mills? I think I suggested theres more up that way to snoop out.(i.e.further north)


Kind of curious if anything still exists but I think I saw some comment by National Forest of a logging RR row a number of years back.

(I have not looked at .pdf yet)

I remember this question, but at the time I didnt know the answer.


Yes and No.

Prior to 1916 THE HT&W was 3 foot gauge, which was the same as the DRRR. There was a connection at the mountains mills. In 1916 when standard gauge was adopted on the HT&W the compatability was lost. some track sections at mountain mills did remain until the death of the DRRR which contained both 3 foot and standard gauge rail (there might be a picture in the PDF demonstrating this).

Unfortunately all of this is under water now except for a few foundations at a local picnic area on the west side of harriman reservoir.