READY TO RAMBLE Housatonic Railroad GP35 3601 (ex-PRR/PC/Conrail 2312) poses with Mass Bay RRE’s Berkshire County Rambler at Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum’s Lenox, MA depot, 6/18/2011.
Photo for Callboy by Doug Scott

The Berkshire County Rambler
June 18, 2011

by John Reading

After Mass Bay RRE’s pair of successful excursions on the Housatonic Railroad – the Berkshire Flyer in May 2008 and the Housatonic Flyer in May 2009 – our Trip Committee talked with Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum about operating a third, but shorter, trip. Initially conceived as a “photo special” attractive mainly to railfans, it soon became a “Rambler” – targeting “people who just want to go for a train ride,” as President Steve Butterworth put it. Then at the final planning stages, a “shorter” trip became even shorter, when HRRC found that a bridge south of Great Barrington was not usable for passenger trains. So Mass Bay RRE made up for it with more photo stops – plus staging a meet with BSRM’s regular tourist-train – and over 200 riders and staff came along.

We left BSRM’s handsomely restored ex-New Haven station/museum at Lenox, MA shortly after 10 AM, about 10 minutes behind schedule.