Welcome Back
After a hiatus of nearly four years a revenue passenger train returned to the end of the line in downtown Newport Rhode Island. The Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special made a round trip over the entire thirteen mile length of the Newport Secondary.
The train consisted of two GE centercabs, Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad numbers 14 and 66.
The former still dressed in yellow paint is a GE 80 tonner built in July 1941 as the 5th of the model off the production line. Originally numbered GE 14 it worked at the company's Schenectady plant until being sold and rebuilt in the late 1980s to serve at Northeast Utilities' West Springfield power plant. However, after coal and oil fired units 1 and 2 were shut down in 1999 the locomotive had no purpose. It sat on site there for more than two decades until the NNBR purchased it in 2023 and shipped it to Fall River on a flat car and then had it trucked over to the island and set back on the rails and put back into service.
The latter is freshly repainted into the very attractive paint scheme featuring colors that pay homage to the state of Rhode Island and the omnipresent sea. It wears a newly applied logo for the Grand Bellevue Dinner Train for which it is the regular power. A GE 65-tonner, it was built in 1943 and was most recently numbered USN 65-00566 where it served with a sister unit at the Portsmouth Navy Yard until being replaced with a trackmobile several years ago. In 2024 she and sister unit USN 65-00308, two years her junior, were purchased by Eric Moffett and turcked to Rhode Island with the the 65-00308 being assigned to the Seaview Railroad freight operations at Quonset Business Park.
Trailing the two GEs is the five car consist of the dinner train consisting of:
Generator Car former USAX 89657 built by St. Louis Car Company in 1952 for the US Army as a kitchen car, then later served Amtrak as a baggage car.
Theater Dining Car Atlantic Rose built by the Budd Co. in 1946 as a 46 seat coach for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad as car number 220. It served on the famed Champion and passed to SCL and then ultimately Amtrak before being sold in the 1980s.
Kitchen Car Bellevue Clipper built by the Budd Co. in 1948 as a 52 seat coach for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad where it served on the famed Silver Meteor. It passed to SCL and then ultimately Amtrak before being sold and gutted and rebuilt into a modern full service kitchen in 1987.
Dining Car Aquidneck Spruce was also built by the Budd Company in 1946 as a 54 seat coach for the Pennsylvania Railroad as their number 4051 and originally assigned to pool service on the Champion to Miami in conjunction with the RF&P, ACL, and FEC railroads.
Diner Lounge BC-30 is a Budd RDC-3 built in 1956 for the Pacific Great East Railway. The self propelled car was one of seven the railroad bought which passed to BC Rail and remained in daily scheduled passenger service until discontinued by the province of British Columbia in 2002. It and sister BC-15 spent a couple years on the short lived Wilton Scenic Railroad in New Hampshire before coming to the island in 2007. The car is in the process of being remodeled into a dining car and bar with the headlights and horn operational and used as a shoving platform from the cab.
The train is seen here shoving down right to end of track at MP 0 beside the tiny depot south of Elm Street alongside America's Cup Avenue. Historically this would have been about MP 30 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline.
The little depot is not the original New Haven station as the latter is long gone and this tiny structure, while historic and probably a century old in its own right is a relocated former cemetery office. It is a somewhat reasonable facsimile of what was once located nearby and to see historic photos of the railroad in Newport check out Edward Ozog's fabulous site:
sites.google.com/site/rhodeislandrailroads/home/east-prov...
As for the line itself, this scenic route opened in 1864 and over the years passed from the Old Colony Railroad to the New Haven and Penn Central. Regular passenger service ended in 1938 and freight traffic dwindled. The state bought the lower half of the line to preserve it in 1976 and CR operated this northern section until around 1982 when the P&W assumed the freight rights on the island. Although a few PW moves on the island are known to have taken place they ultimately chose to contract with Conrail to serve their customers in Portsmouth (since CR was still regularly serving Fall River only a few miles away) and an occasional blue CR unit made its way part way down the islandvuntil as late as 1988.
Over the years a succession of tourist and dinner train operators have continued to use the now isolated trackage as there is no longer a connection with the outside rail network since the drawbridge over Tiverton narrows was damaged by a barge collision in the 1988 (ending freight service) and then subsequently removed a couple decades later.
If you're interested in learning more or having dinner on the rails check out their website here: www.thegrandbell.com/
Newport, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025
Welcome Back
After a hiatus of nearly four years a revenue passenger train returned to the end of the line in downtown Newport Rhode Island. The Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special made a round trip over the entire thirteen mile length of the Newport Secondary.
The train consisted of two GE centercabs, Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad numbers 14 and 66.
The former still dressed in yellow paint is a GE 80 tonner built in July 1941 as the 5th of the model off the production line. Originally numbered GE 14 it worked at the company's Schenectady plant until being sold and rebuilt in the late 1980s to serve at Northeast Utilities' West Springfield power plant. However, after coal and oil fired units 1 and 2 were shut down in 1999 the locomotive had no purpose. It sat on site there for more than two decades until the NNBR purchased it in 2023 and shipped it to Fall River on a flat car and then had it trucked over to the island and set back on the rails and put back into service.
The latter is freshly repainted into the very attractive paint scheme featuring colors that pay homage to the state of Rhode Island and the omnipresent sea. It wears a newly applied logo for the Grand Bellevue Dinner Train for which it is the regular power. A GE 65-tonner, it was built in 1943 and was most recently numbered USN 65-00566 where it served with a sister unit at the Portsmouth Navy Yard until being replaced with a trackmobile several years ago. In 2024 she and sister unit USN 65-00308, two years her junior, were purchased by Eric Moffett and turcked to Rhode Island with the the 65-00308 being assigned to the Seaview Railroad freight operations at Quonset Business Park.
Trailing the two GEs is the five car consist of the dinner train consisting of:
Generator Car former USAX 89657 built by St. Louis Car Company in 1952 for the US Army as a kitchen car, then later served Amtrak as a baggage car.
Theater Dining Car Atlantic Rose built by the Budd Co. in 1946 as a 46 seat coach for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad as car number 220. It served on the famed Champion and passed to SCL and then ultimately Amtrak before being sold in the 1980s.
Kitchen Car Bellevue Clipper built by the Budd Co. in 1948 as a 52 seat coach for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad where it served on the famed Silver Meteor. It passed to SCL and then ultimately Amtrak before being sold and gutted and rebuilt into a modern full service kitchen in 1987.
Dining Car Aquidneck Spruce was also built by the Budd Company in 1946 as a 54 seat coach for the Pennsylvania Railroad as their number 4051 and originally assigned to pool service on the Champion to Miami in conjunction with the RF&P, ACL, and FEC railroads.
Diner Lounge BC-30 is a Budd RDC-3 built in 1956 for the Pacific Great East Railway. The self propelled car was one of seven the railroad bought which passed to BC Rail and remained in daily scheduled passenger service until discontinued by the province of British Columbia in 2002. It and sister BC-15 spent a couple years on the short lived Wilton Scenic Railroad in New Hampshire before coming to the island in 2007. The car is in the process of being remodeled into a dining car and bar with the headlights and horn operational and used as a shoving platform from the cab.
The train is seen here shoving down right to end of track at MP 0 beside the tiny depot south of Elm Street alongside America's Cup Avenue. Historically this would have been about MP 30 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline.
The little depot is not the original New Haven station as the latter is long gone and this tiny structure, while historic and probably a century old in its own right is a relocated former cemetery office. It is a somewhat reasonable facsimile of what was once located nearby and to see historic photos of the railroad in Newport check out Edward Ozog's fabulous site:
sites.google.com/site/rhodeislandrailroads/home/east-prov...
As for the line itself, this scenic route opened in 1864 and over the years passed from the Old Colony Railroad to the New Haven and Penn Central. Regular passenger service ended in 1938 and freight traffic dwindled. The state bought the lower half of the line to preserve it in 1976 and CR operated this northern section until around 1982 when the P&W assumed the freight rights on the island. Although a few PW moves on the island are known to have taken place they ultimately chose to contract with Conrail to serve their customers in Portsmouth (since CR was still regularly serving Fall River only a few miles away) and an occasional blue CR unit made its way part way down the islandvuntil as late as 1988.
Over the years a succession of tourist and dinner train operators have continued to use the now isolated trackage as there is no longer a connection with the outside rail network since the drawbridge over Tiverton narrows was damaged by a barge collision in the 1988 (ending freight service) and then subsequently removed a couple decades later.
If you're interested in learning more or having dinner on the rails check out their website here: www.thegrandbell.com/
Newport, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025