PV&T #277 in an approximation of the old A&ALCo's paint scheme

When the PV&T purchased the LW&C, it got a large collection of bizarre equipment. 277 (ex LW&C 1065) originally came from the A&ALCo’s logging railroad, which got it from the Boston & Maine in 1889, which got it from the Northern Railroad (#35) as part of that takeover.

The A&ALCo used it first as a work engine to build their logging railroad over the mountains between Campton & Parsons Vale, then put it into service as a logging engine, where it underwent enough wrecks and rebuildings to get to the shape it’s in now.

277 kept being used for hauling timber out of the woods after the LW&C’s 1908 purchase of the A&ALCo, and it didn’t go out of service until the timber stands were all cut in the late 1920s. It next went back into service to run the wire train when the PV&T purchased and reelectrified the LW&C at 3kvdc, but by 1937 that work was finished it went back into storage, where it was promptly forgotten about for 18 years.

In 1955, 277 was rediscovered when cleaning out the enginehouse, and retired LW&C workers convinced the PV&T to let them restore it to operation. It steamed again in the summer of 1966, and was used for a few years running excursions between Lincoln & Conway before the PV&T donated it to Steamtown as a classic example of a working New Hampshire woods engine.

  • Copyright © 2024 by Jessica L. Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us) unless otherwise noted
    Wed Feb 08 01:30:53 PST 2023