Branford Steam Railroad


Branford Steam Railroad is an industrial railroad
serving the Tilcon Connecticut stone quarry in
North Branford, Connecticut in the United States.
It exchanges freight with the Providence and Worcester Railroad and with
the Buchanan Marine Company.

History

Louis A. Fisk was a politically connected businessman from Branford, Connecticut
who had by the 1890s built a trotting park for horses called the Branford Driving
Park.
To attract more visitors Fisk built a Damascus Railway that
offered connections with the Shore Line Division of the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. In 1900 the creation of the
Palisades Interstate Park Commission of New York and New Jersey
forced the closing of basalt quarries along the Hudson River.
This led to an increased demand for stone from Connecticut quarries.
Louis Fisk would eventually open a quarry on Totoket Mountain in North Branford.
On March 19, 1903, Fisk obtained authorization from the Connecticut General Assembly
to incorporate the Branford Steam Railroad in order
to take over the property of and succeed the Damascus Railway.
At the time the name "Steam Railroad" was used to
distinguish the new railroad from the nearby Branford Electric Railway which was a separate streetcar system.
By April 29, 1909, Fisk obtained authority from the General Assembly
for the Branford Steam Railroad to lay additional tracks southward to
a dock he owned at Juniper Point on Long Island Sound.
In 1914, owners of the property incorporated the
New Haven Trap Rock Company and opened the quarry for
business under that name. Within a few years members of the New Haven Blakeslee
family, who ran the C.W. Blakeslee and Sons construction firm that had
originally started in 1844, were running the New Haven Trap Rock Company and Fisk
was no longer involved with the quarry.
The quarry company was the primary customer of the Branford Steam
Railroad. Trap rock from the quarry was used for various construction
projects including road paving, building foundations, and
railroad ballast. The histories
of both companies were closely tied with one another.
At the height of steam operations there were, within the quarry complex,
a set of four to six small 0-4-0T
saddletank locomotives moving the stone laden
gondola cars around. They supplied steam shovels with empty
cars and moved loaded cars to the crusher.
In addition there were two heavier 0-4-0T saddletank
locomotives to move the loads of crushed rock down the of
railroad either to Juniper Point for loading into barges or to exchange
with the New Haven Railroad.
In 1923 the Angelo Tomasso company started working in Connecticut, but was not yet
affiliated with the North Branford quarry or the Branford Steam Railroad.
In 1935 the New Haven Trap Rock Company merged with the Connecticut Quarries Company,
and in February of that year the management reincorporated the company
under the New Haven Trap Rock Company name. The merger expanded the scope of
quarry activities of the company such that it operated six Connecticut quarries,
located in Cheshire, Granby,
Middlefield, New Britain, and
Rocky Hill, as well as at North Branford. At
North Branford, meanwhile, the company removed its quarry trackage
and disposed of the smaller 15-short-ton quarry locomotives, but continued
shipping stone out of the quarry on the Branford Steam road.
of the type used on the Branford Steam starting in the 1950s.
In 1956 the company purchased two GE center cab diesels to handle
the duty of pulling stone from the North Branford crusher.
Although the steam locomotives were retained for a few years after that
to perform yard switching duties the era of steam on the
Branford Steam Railroad was nearing an end. In January 1960 the
company's third diesel, No. 5, a switcher that was originally
New York, New Haven and Hartford No. 0813, was purchased.
Just as steam locomotives gave way to diesels on the line in the 1950s
so too did the rolling stock change as the side-dump gondola cars gave way to
triple-bay hopper cars lettered for the New Haven
Trap Rock Company. Whereas the steam locomotives had been lettered for the
same company, some of the new diesels
ironically carried the lettering of "The Branford Steam Railroad"
despite the fact that it no longer was a steam railroad.
In the late 1960s or early 1970s the New Haven Trap Rock Company was
sold to the Ashland Paving and Construction division of Ashland Inc.
then of Ashland, Kentucky. By the time of the sale the North Branford
quarry was considered the world's largest single-face trap rock quarry with a
frontage of and was Connecticut's largest supplier of
crushed stone.
Thomas Tilling Ltd. purchased the construction group
of Ashland in 1979. Tomasso became known as Tilcon Tomasso,
a division of Tilcon Warren, Inc. a wholly owned
subsidiary of Tilling Ltd. In 1984 Tilcon Inc. was acquired by the
British Tyre and Rubber Company. The company's name was changed to
Tilcon Connecticut in 1990.
In 1996 Tilcon Connecticut was sold to CRH plc of Dublin, Ireland.

Disposition

The Branford Steam Railroad continues to operate today carrying
quarried stone to exchange with the Providence and Worcester Railroad as
well as to Buchanan Marine barges at Juniper Point. Fisk's prescience in choosing a
name to distinguish his freight railroad from the Branford Electric
Railway seems almost humorous today in that the organization that
operates the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven
calls itself the Branford Electric Railway Association. The BERA
continues to operate the Branford Electric Railway line and
has done so since 1945. Hence the need to distinguish the two similarly
named organizations and railway lines continue.
The New Haven Trap Rock Company Steam Engine No. 43 that used to
operate on the Branford Steam Railroad is now held at
Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
It was donated to the Steamtown organization in 1962
and was moved to Scranton with the collection.
Besides No, 43 another locomotive was also saved No.38 built by H.K. Porter in 1912
for C.W. Blakelee and Sons. For there operation known as New Haven Trap Rock, in Branford, Ct
The engine was sold in 1962 to the Edaville corp, at North Walpole, NH which became part of the
Steamtown Collection.
The engine stayed with the Steamtown collection until 1988, at that time the museum moved out of Vermont
to its new home of Scranton, Pa.
On October 29th, 1988 the National Park service held and Auction to get rid of access equipment in Scranton, Pa. The day of the 29th the engine when to the Auction block, with other pieces of equipment. The engine was sold and ended up at a Truck stop for display, in Branford, Ct, since that time, the locomotive was sold again in 2017, to a private individual, that is now restoring the locomotive back to operation.