F. Nelson Blount - Railroads

Railroads

Blount used some of the money he made in the seafood industry to purchase the narrow gauge Edaville Railroad in South Carver, Massachusetts, in the mid-1950s. The Edaville Railroad had narrow gauge engines from Maine, but Blount soon began acquiring standard gauge steam locomotives and cars, in part to save a vanishing technological heritage. Some locomotives were initially displayed at 'Engine City', a part of Pleasure Island amusement park near Wakefield, Massachusetts. Space constraints soon forced Blount to look for a new home for his collection, and in 1959 he purchased an engine house and railroad yard from the Boston and Maine Railroad in North Walpole, New Hampshire, with equipment arriving there in late 1960. Blount called his collection and museum 'Steamtown', and the first train ran in 1961. Problems with leasing railroad track and federal regulators led to Steamtown trains running out of Keene, New Hampshire, in 1962. Promised support for Steamtown from the state of New Hampshire never materialized, leading to yet another switch, back to North Walpole, in 1963. This was the first year the collection was open to the public (as opposed to just train rides), and soon the North Walpole site was seen to be too small for the many visitors who came.

In 1964, Steamtown began the move to Bellows Falls, Vermont, to a site recently abandoned by the Rutland Railroad. Work was more or less complete there by 1966, but the next summer Blount died in an aircraft crash. Without his funds, Steamtown fell on hard times, and the harsh winters helped speed deterioration of much of the collection. It moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1984 but did not do well there either. In 1986, the federal government stepped in and established the Steamtown National Historic Site, which officially opened in 1995.