Hardwick and Woodbury Railroad

The Green Mountains of Vermont have long been known for the quantity and quality of their granite and marble, but the weight of the stone combined with difficulty of carving granite largely prevented the development of a stone-cutting industry in northern Vermont until some marble quarries opened in the Hardwick area in the middle of the 19th century. The first "finishing shed," where the rough-hewn stone was cut, shaped and polished, was built in Hardwick in 1870. Granite quarries opened on Robeson Mountain in nearby Woodbury, Vermont’s largest deposit of building granite, in the 1870s but transportation limitations prevented much development of the industry. The construction of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railway to Hardwick in 1872 (it later became the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad) enabled the shipping of quantities of northern Vermont stone to the outer world Though it had limited granite of its own, Hardwick became a granite-cutting center hosting a dozen sheds finishing granite by 1890. Rough-cut granite was brought from the quarries to and through the town in heavy horse-drawn wagons, which caused congestion and damaged roads and bridges. Largely as a result of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, granite became a very popular building material for commercial and government buildings. transportation of the stone to the finishing sheds was problematic: it was slow and difficult, and caused significant damage to the roads. The limitations of horse-drawn wagons would prevent much further growth in the local industry. Transportation was somewhat easier in the winter, as the frozen ground would not give way, and snow allowed the use of sleds, which encountered less friction. and the new government’s interest in improving the community’s infrastructure, including its streets, intensified the interest in an alternative means of transportation for the granite. Meanwhile, the Village’s establishment of piped water, a fire department, and an electric department allowed for further growth of industry. The opening of a rail link to the competing Barre quarries raised the spectre of the local industry’s being out-competed. The St.J.&L.C. was asked to extend the Hardwick Branch to the quarries in Woodbury but, already in a weak financial condition and facing unfavorable economic conditions, declined. ==Incorporation and construction==

Faced with lack of interest from other quarters, the quarry owners decided to build their own railroad. The Hardwick and Woodbury Railroad Company was chartered ("for the purpose, and with the right, of building a railroad... from some point on the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain R.R. in the town of Hardwick to the mountain quarry of the Woodbury Granite Company in the town of Woodbury" ) by an act of the state legislature November 23, 1894, with the stipulation that construction must begin within two years, and be completed in five. The larger local granite companies and many of their officers bought stock, as did a number of townspeople. The new company held its first regular meeting in March 1895. The directors of the railroad promised equal treatment of all local granite companies and free construction of siding tracks during 1897. The larger quarries were served by multiple sidings; the Gray quarry had at least six, but these were removed and rebuilt as convenient to serve the quarrying areas. The finished railroad had 43 curves with a maximum curve of 21 degrees. Stub switches were used throughout. The two main-line switchbacks were dubbed the Thomas and Fletcher switchbacks. There were nine unprotected grade crossings of roads. However, the railroad’s use of link-and-pin couplers meant that the brakemen had the most dangerous work on the railroad, and several were killed or injured. (another had occurred during construction Hardwick became an important granite center and its population mushroomed; town boosters proclaimed it to be the "building granite capital of the world." ==Operations==

As might be expected of a railroad built for an industrial purpose, the H&W’s business was dominated by freight. Passenger revenue was less than 1% of freight revenue. with only two directors representing other quarrying interests. By 1908, those two had left the board and the company was firmly in the control of the WGC. Limited by the switchbacks, train length averaged ten to fifteen cars in the busy years; the largest train was reported to have been 22 cars long. The largest single load carried was a 61-ton stone from the "White" quarry of the WGC. The railroad’s earnings varied widely with the demand for granite, but on at least one occasion the profits were sufficient to justify paying a 6% dividend on common stock and 12% on preferred. Railroad operations were of three varieties: main line hauling, quarry switching, and yard switching. Main line hauling involved running trains up and down the mountain, bringing supplies up, and stone down. Quarry switching was moving loaded and empty cars among the sidings at the quarries, and composing them into trains. Yard switching involved moving cars to, from, and within the yard, and especially the finishing sheds, assembling trains, and exchanging cars with the St.J.&L.C. at Granite Junction. The company had two train crews, a main line crew and a yard crew. The main line crew performed the quarry switching as well as the runs up and down the mountain, and consisted of a conductor, engineer, fireman, and two brakemen (one at each end of the train). This crew typically made two round trips a day between the quarries and Hardwick. The locomotive was always placed at the downhill end of the train, where its braking power could be used to slow the whole train. Flat cars had manual brakes, which would be set and released by the brakemen on orders from the engineer. The Shay locomotives used considerable amounts of water, which could be replenished at three points along the route: the stream by Buffalo Crossing, a low spot between Burnham Hill and Foster Summit, and a tank at the quarries. The yard area around Buffalo Crossing had such facilities as a coal pit, a car repair shop, a sawmill and electric power plant. A coal trestle served both the power plant and the locomotives, which remained below the trestle on a loading siding, allowing their tenders to be loaded with coal from the coal cars above using gravity. Locomotives were repaired in the engine house in the West End. Other facilities included a track scale, which allowed car weights—and thus shipping charges—to be calculated. ==Decline==

The business arc of the Hardwick & Woodbury was typical of most short line, single-industry railroads. The number of trains declined to one per week, and the workforce was cut until only three employees were left. The years 1930–31 saw 11 local quarries go out of business. Operation of the railroad by the St.J.&L.C. continued until abandonment of the line south of Buffalo Crossing was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in October 1934. When the H&W stopped operating it owed the St.J.&L.C. a substantial debt. The spur was railbanked, but is not included in the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. ==Rolling stock==

Locomotives The railroad’s first locomotive was the 4-4-0 Hinkley rod locomotive it leased from the Boston & Maine. The long flatcars could carry , while the cars had a capacity. The first finished stone shipped on this car was for a mausoleum in Chicago, and it seems likely that the car was designed with that sort of shipments in mind. This design was widely copied. ==Legacy==

woodland. rendering of the postcard photograph of H&W Locomotive No. 3 pulling the "quarry train" appears on this stock certificate. The abandonment and removal of the railroad's track left a trail through the hillside pastures, which have reverted to woods. A portion of the roadbed leading to the quarries is now Fletcher Quarry Road and Quarry Road in Woodbury, serving the one Robeson Mountain quarry still in operation. Decades after the abandonment, some of the right-of-way, from near Buffalo Crossing to the Woodbury Town Forest, found a new use as the Hardwick-Woodbury Rail Trail (also known as the Hardwick-Woodbury Recreation Trail). The postcard photograph of Locomotive No. 3 pulling a trainload of granite blocks saw continued life in other forms. The picture became something of a "stock photo" in the 1920s and was reproduced—typically without attribution—far from Vermont. This included such circumstances as stock certificates of, for example, the Virginia Alberene Corporation (see photo), which used a short-line industrial railroad to move blocks of soapstone. The E.H. Blossom well-deck car has also been modeled. The small size of the railroad led to a number of jokes about it. As early as 1902, W.H. Fullerton, a director of the H&W, The story was re-told in the Woodbury and Hardwick area for decades. ==References==