NH&I 1967 - 1969

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photos property of JC McHugh collection 

The NH&I railroad in spite of it's founders dreams in 1966 was not going to be a nationally reconized tourist attraction. The inability of the early stockholders and management to realize this fact early on, along with a large paid staff, extragivant spending, numerous derailments, and many mechanical issues with the operating equipment, caused the NH&I to sink futher into dept during 1967, 1968, & 1969. 

There were several other small de-railments between 1967 and 1969 that the NH&I had Jimmy McHugh assist them with. The New Hope & Ivyland was always a cash strapped operation from it's beginning, and the management would always hand Jimmy McHugh a pocket full of railroad tickets and stock certificates because they could not affort to pay for the services provided by the McHugh company.

The New Hope & Ivyland Railroad paint scheme from 1966 through 1969 had several changes made to the locomotives and passenger equipment during this time period. 

The locomotives wore "as some may call it, the 'circus herald logo", applied to the tenders. The #1533 wore it until 1970 when it was removed by the former V.F.S.R. group, and the #40 wore it until it was rebuilt by the McHugh company in 1974. The NH&I herald was specially design for the newly formed NH&I - Steam Trains, Inc. group in 1966 and it was the lines corporate logo until 1977 when it had to be no longer used because of legal reasons. The white pin stripe along the entire edge of the #1533's tender was removed in 1968, and #40's was there until 1972.

The passenger coaches paint schemes 1966 - 1969. The four open window cars were painted red with lite grey under the windows on the sides along with the roofs. The three sealed window airconditioned cars were painted all blue. All of the seven cars once they arrived at New Hope had the large yellow 'circus style bold' NH&I lettering applied, with the handrails painted white. Two of the open window cars, #1424 & #1505 also had 'circus style emblems' painted onto the center lower sides and at each end of the cars.

The NH&I three sealed window airconditioned cars were always problem cars for the and after the winter of 1967 the 'three blue liners' were taken out of service. One blue liner #1525 would be modified into a open air car and it would be placed into service in April 1967 retaining it's blue paint scheme.

The 4-6-0 #1533 would remain under steam during the lines first winter 1966 - 1967 and it proved to be very hard mechanically and operationally on the locomotive. The #1533 would be taken out of service in mid April 1967. The 2-8-0 #40 would enter service as the NH&I's operating steam locomotive in mid April 1967 until late August 1967. Then 0-6-0 #9 would be breifly placed into service in late August 1967 for a few weeks until it was taken out of service when 4-6-0 #1533 was placed back into service again in September 1967. 

The 1968 steam passenger tourist season would begin with the #1533 being taken out of service in April. The #40 was breifly operated as the NH&I's steam locomotive, however it was taken out of service basically because superintend Frank Menair did not like the locomotive #40 and the crews found #1533 easier to fire. The 0-6-0 #9 did not operate during the 1968 season.

In April 1968 the open air car #1525 was painted completely red and had 'circus scrolls' at each ens of the car, an oval placed in the center of the car letter ROUGE, and large circus style letter applied above the windows NEW HOPE & IVYLAND RR.  

In early December 1969 the NH&I was going to operate the last train and close it's doors forever because of the large amount of dept that they could not pay. Len Smolsky  & Jimmy Jones remained the NH&I's last two paid full time employees and were to be the locomotive crew of #9 on a Saturday freigth train. Only several weeks prior former NH&I employee Frank Menair resigned as superintendent and was hired by the McHugh Bros company. Frank Menair remained a part time paid NH&I employee until the end of January 1970. Len Smolsky, invited Jimmy & JC McHugh to ride along for what was thought to be the last run at the NH&I. The train crew consister of Len Smoskly who always prefered to not be on the steam locomotives and was conductor, Frank Menair was engineer of #9 and Jimmy Jones was fireman. Jimmy & JC McHugh rode in #9's cab on the return to New Hope from Buckingham Valley north. Also on board the train was a group of people from the former defunked 'Valley Fordge Scenic Railroad' that were invited to ride along that day. This former VFSR group saved the NH&I for the short term giving it a new breath of life when it merged with the NH&I in early January 1970.. This group brought with them $17,000.00 in  'cash money', along with a several passenger cars. It was thought this quick infusion of cash would keep the NH&I out of imediate foreclosure. At this point of time is when volunteers were introduced to the NH&I as non-paid operating crews. 

The merger of the NH&I and former V.F.S.R. group is what saved it in December of 1969, and if that did not happen the NH&I would have been a thing of the past. However many in the former V.F.S.R. group were pure 'foamer railfan types' and would cause major issues for the NH&I in just a few short weeks. The good will and work of some in the group was not enough to compensate for the many additional problems and issues others would cause for the NH&I in the next two years. The ex-CN #1533 a 4-6-0 type steam locomotive would suffer from abused when being operated by some of the former VFSR group, and this would eventaully lead to #1533 being permitally taken out of service.