This colorful RS3 is the picture of short line spirit on this five-degree January 7th, 1988, as the Battenkill short line is moving its first cars in 15 days. Its interchange railroad, Guilford Transportation Industries, had been in the throws of a serious strike based around subsidiary Springfield Terminal Company, and few trains were running. Short line customers were starving for cars, and we railfans had a feeling that any run of the Battenkill could be its last. Thankfully, it was not. The Battenkill is still running today, and with the same former-Vermont Railway, nee-Lehigh & Hudson River, RS3. During the strike, Battenkill's president Ron Crowd actually became a Guilford hire so that he could get his own inbound cars for customers. Ron recalled that he knew the strike was real when he and the BKRR crew met the former-D&H local that delivered cars to the Battenkill, and D&H president Charlie McKenna was at the throttle.
Photographs where trains and people mix, weather it's street running, plant switching or carrying a unit grain train out of an elevator, it will be put here.
