by David Flint
The Stephentown railroad station that served the old Rutland Railroad is no more. On Tuesday of this week Dave Goodermote was busy with a trackhoe demolishing the landmark that had fallen into a very decrepit state. Decrepit or not, many people around town have expressed sadness at its loss.
Paul Sykes does not remember the days of passenger service, but he recalls in his younger days that there was a lot of freight coming into Stephentown on the Rutland. It was his job to run across the street with the Chevy pickup to collect the dry goods, groceries and other supplies for the Walter C. Sykes Store from the railroad car parked on a siding by the station.
The Stephentown Historical Society tried to purchase the building in the 1980s but ran into problems with getting a clear title. Dale Flansburg, a railroad buff from Germantown, also made an offer to buy the building some years back but was unable to agree on a price with the owner at that time who also owned the Stephentown Hotel. So over the years the old station just sat there and deteriorated.
The current owner, Frank Zwack, Sr., said the building was dangerous in the state that it was in and vandals had been in there recently starting fires. He was afraid someone would be injured or killed in there and so decided it was best to tear it down. He believed it could have been saved 15 or 20 years ago, before it came into his ownership, but now he considered it “way beyond repair.” Zwack recalled that in the early 1950s he helped to unload the last freight car that arrived at the station. It had a load of backhoes sent down from Vermont.
Historical Society records indicate that the Lebanon Springs Railroad consolidated with the Bennington & Rutland Railroad in 1870 to form the Harlem Extension Railroad Company, with service from Chatham extending all the way up to Bennington and beyond. A succession of mergers and acquisitions ended in 1901 with the “Chatham Division,” now part of the Rutland Railroad. The New York Central company assumed control of the Rutland in 1904.
The first milk train ran from Ogdensburg to Chatham in 1909. Students from Stephentown, Cherry Plain and Petersburgh
travelled to school in Berlin on the Rutland Railroad at the special rate of five cents a ride.
Katherine Wells wrote in Memories of Berlin that, “the social highlight of each day was for the townspeople to gather at the station in the evening to watch the evening train arrive. If the town baseball team had a game in a neighboring town, the players often used the railroad for transportation. When they did, the whole town met the train in support of the local athletes. There might be returning residents or perhaps visitors to see. Then the group would go to the post office and wait while the evening mail was being sorted.” Undoubtedly the railroad station in Stephentown provided a similar gathering place.
By 1938 better roads and motorized transportation had reduced the need for trains, and the Rutland went into receivership. The company recovered and attempted with equipment upgrades to win back freight business. Passenger traffic on the Chatham or “Corkscrew Division” ceased in 1926. The company then provided bus service up until 1931. Passenger excursion trains ran once a year for four years starting in the fall of 1948. In 1952 the Interstate Commerce Division granted the Rutland permission to abandon the Chatham branch and on August 7, 1953, the last rail on the line was taken up.
Stations on the Corkscrew Division included North Bennington, Bennington, Mt. Anthony, Bee Hive Crossing, Petersburgh Junction, North Petersburgh, Petersburgh, Berlin, Center Berlin, Cherry Plain, North Stephentown, Stephentown, Wyomanock, Lebanon Springs, New Lebanon, Center Lebanon, Adams Crossing, Brainard, Riders, Old Chatham and Chatham. The Stephentown station building and the Berlin station, now known as the Watipi building, were among very few that remained.