Railfan - Tom Nelligan

CP 937 is about to depart north from St Johnsbury. This train is destined for Windsor, Ontario on Aug 6, 1967.

If you are a fan of New England railroading I am sure you have seen Tom Nelligan's photo work back in the 1970's and 1980's. He also has published a number of books on New England subjects. As a Canadian when he published a book on VIA I had to get it as I love how he composes his photos. I had corresponded over the past couple of years with Tom for permission to post his photos on this blog and for more information. He has a lot of knowledge about New England. I was surprised to find out through an e-mail thread began by Jim Dufour that Tom had passed away at age 70 on April 9, 2021. 

It appears that Tom had been battling cancer for the past two years. His major contributions to on-line rail photo sites now makes sense. It had been a long time since I had seen any of Tom's work then about 2017 one could find photos everywhere. One site has almost 1200 photos. I think this is great that he put in the effort to share so much of his work. I think we can all learn from this as we age. Maybe we should begin looking through what photos we have and begin posting some of the good stuff...because if we don't our kids will just file it somewhere, most likely the landfill and computer files deleted. Tom was a big minor league baseball fan, maybe we all can hoist a drink in Tom's honor while watching a game...George Dutka

This was a venture into Canadian Railroads by Tom.

One of my favourite books offered by Tom Nelligan.

The NH has been gone for three years when Tom took this photo of PC 33 at Walpole, Ma, The station was built in 1883. The train is headed to Franklin in May 1972.

The Montrealer is pulling down for its station stop in St. Albans, Vermont. A crew change will take place here. The Canadian crew is seen in the foreground on Sept 28, 1979.