Experience with author and filmmaker Jim Jones the colorful ups and downs of Vermont’s famous “Island Line” railroad featuring four drawbridges, three causeways, breathtaking scenery, and fascinating anecdotes. Ride along from Burlington, Starr Farm Beach, Colchester, South Hero, Grand Isle, Camp Abenaki, North Hero, Isle La Motte station, Alburgh and Rouses Point to Montreal.
Vermont native, book author, filmmaker, and veteran broadcast personality James R. “Jim” Jones shares entertaining, fascinating rail tales on this memorable journey from its 1890s construction to operations, development, life along the line, decline, the final strike of 1961, physical abandonment, and recent rebirth as a world-class recreational paradise. Jim concludes with a treasure hunt for remaining buildings, artifacts and equipment. All aboard!
About the presenter
James R. “Jim” Jones, a Burlington, Vermont native, has maintained a lifelong interest in railroading. His love for “underdog trains”—and communities they served—stems from childhood locomotive rides with his father, noted railroad author Robert C. Jones. Jim’s grandfather, Cecil O. Jones, began the family tradition in 1916, when he signed on with Canadian Pacific. Jim has authored three Colorado prairie railroad chronicles and eight local titles, assisted his father on several Vermont books and—to prove he doesn’t have a one-track mind—co-authored former ESPN and AWA wrestling personality Larry Nelson’s Stranglehold: An Intriguing Behind the Scenes Glimpse into the Private World of Professional Wrestling.
