Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Before the Days of Steel Rails

               
     (From the earliest days of railroading until after the Civil War, rails were made of iron. This story,  by Watson B. Berry, appeared in Railroad Magazine in March, 1946, and is a graphic description of "the way things used to be."  The O.& L.C. Railroad operated between Ogdensburg and Rouses Point and in 1901 was purchased by the Rutland Railroad. It was abandoned in 1961.)

     Sherman's March to the Sea put the finishing  touches on Bill Grant's training for a career as railroad blacksmith on the old Ogdensburg & Lake Champlain. Bill spent months tearing up Confederate railroads and and laying others, repairing vast quantities of "sick" iron so that supplies might roll southward following the army of the North. When he came home from the war, he found the O&LC building a blacksmith shop at Lawrence to relieve pressure on the overloaded shops at Malone, Ogdensburg and Rouse's  Point. Bill them became the "village blacksmith."

New York Central Station, Ossining, N.Y.