{"id":2316,"date":"2011-10-19T10:16:55","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T10:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doddcenter.wordpress.com\/?p=2316"},"modified":"2012-12-03T20:45:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T20:45:06","slug":"the-history-of-the-railroad-in-litchfield-connecticut-photographs-and-a-talk-on-wednesday-october-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2011\/10\/19\/the-history-of-the-railroad-in-litchfield-connecticut-photographs-and-a-talk-on-wednesday-october-26\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of the Railroad in Litchfield, Connecticut &#8212; photographs and a talk on Wednesday, October 26"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2317\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/doddcenter.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/1989-0073_ph1492.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2317\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2317\" src=\"http:\/\/doddcenter.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/1989-0073_ph1492.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2011\/10\/1989-0073_ph1492.jpg 600w, https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2011\/10\/1989-0073_ph1492-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2011\/10\/1989-0073_ph1492-500x286.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2317\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Railroad station in Litchfield, Connecticut, ca. 1900<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On Wednesday, October 26, at 7:00p.m. I will be giving a talk at the Oliver Wolcott Library in Litchfield, Connecticut, about that town&#8217;s railroad history.\u00a0 The story starts with the\u00a0Shepaug Valley Railroad, which opened for business on January 1, 1872, and traveled from Hawleyville to Litchfield in this\u00a0mountainous region of western Connecticut.\u00a0\u00a0After financial difficulties in the 1870s and 1880s\u00a0forced the railroad to restructure,\u00a0the line emerged in 1887 as the Shepaug,\u00a0Litchfield and Northern Railroad, only to come under the control of\u00a0the\u00a0massive New York, New Haven &amp; Hartford Railroad, better known as the New\u00a0Haven Railroad,\u00a0in 1892.\u00a0\u00a0From that time to its final demise in 1948 it was known as the Shepaug Branch of the New Haven Railroad.<\/p>\n<p>As the Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern Railroad it was\u00a0nicknamed the \u201cslow, late and noisy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The\u00a0route\u00a0contained\u00a0almost 200 curves, one tunnel, and several stiff grades.\u00a0\u00a0It was known as the \u201csecond most crooked railroad in the U.S.\u201d (the most crooked was the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway in Marin County, California), measuring 32 miles of track but was actually\u00a017 miles as the crow flies.\u00a0\u00a0Train speed could never exceed 20 miles per hour.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in attending the talk at the Oliver Wolcott Library you can register at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.owlibrary.org\/programs.php\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.owlibrary.org\/programs.php<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can find more photographs from Litchfield&#8217;s railroad past on Flickr, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/doddcenter\/sets\/72157627746164811\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/doddcenter\/sets\/72157627746164811\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, October 26, at 7:00p.m. I will be giving a talk at the Oliver Wolcott Library in Litchfield, Connecticut, about that town&#8217;s railroad history.\u00a0 The story starts with the\u00a0Shepaug Valley Railroad, which opened for business on January 1, 1872, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2011\/10\/19\/the-history-of-the-railroad-in-litchfield-connecticut-photographs-and-a-talk-on-wednesday-october-26\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[81,87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3260,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions\/3260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}