Did B&M diesels ever operate in Troy-Rutland psgr service

Contrary to some accounts, after the Hoosac Tunnel electrification was shut down in 1946, the B & M west of the Tunnel was not completely dieselized. Steam was still active into the early 1950s in Mechanicville Yard, the Mechanicville-Selkirk interchange jobs and Troy, NY-Rutland, VT passenger trains. The B & M and Rutland had a run through agreement for passenger trains between Rutland and Troy. The distance was about 85 miles and the B & M portion was about 35 miles. B & M crews and Rutland crews ran through on the route and assignments were probably based on the distance. Since about 40% of the mileage was B & M, B & M crews probably covered the jobs about 5 months of the year and Rutland's the rest. Big question. Did B & M diesels ever power Rutland-Troy passenger trains? Rutland diesels did. There's at least one photo in the Shaughnessy RUTLAND ROAD book of a Rutland diesel on passenger at Johnsonville. There are photos of B & M steam in the later years of the service, usually coming in to Rutland. Just curious if a B & M diesel ever covered this assignment. The Rutland suffered a strike in mid-1953 and when it ended, so too did Rutland passenger service and this run-through. Close to the end of this agreement, the Rutland negotiated trackage rights over B & M-Troy Union-NY Central and Boston & Albany from North Bennington through Troy to Chatham, NY to permit it to abandon its Bennington-Chatham line. These assignments were handled entirely by Rutland crews and there were no set-outs or pick-ups on the trackage rights portion. That Troy Branch must have been quite a place in the late 1940s. Besides B & M trains and B & M-Rutland run through passenger, there were also D & H milk trains using Troy-Eagle Bridge trackage rights. This might have been the only place on the B & M where camelback engines operated. OK back to the question. Did B & M passenger diesels ever cover a Rutland-Troy passenger job?

Try reposting this on the Boston and Maine Yahoo eGroups. They seem to have lots of knowledgeable guys there. I think that you have brought up a good question.

I have never seen a photo of a B&M diesel on a Troy - Rutland train. The last service was, IIRC, a night train with connections to New York City, so it wasn't going to get photographed as much as the Mount Royal. But even so, there would have been a long layover in Rutland, and I haven't seen photos of that either.

I suspect it worked like this: Until the Rutland completely dieselized in 1953, steam facilities had to be available at both ends of the route. A B&M passenger diesel that reached Troy was going to earn the B&M considerably more money by returning to Boston than by running 85 miles to Rutland and waiting most of a day for the return trip. So I expect it was easy for the motive power bureau to assign P-2s to Troy when needed, with a side job as 'protect' power for Boston trains. But if you ask on BM_RR as suggested above, you might get an answer from someone who's researched it in detail.