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The history of Rhode Island is truly remarkable. The Story of Rhode Island is my humble attempt to tell you some of the stories about the people, places, and events that have made Rhode Island the state it is today.
To learn more about the show visit the Story of Rhode Island Podcast website at https://www.storyofrhodeisland.com/
The birth of the Wood River Branch Railroad was nothing short of a small miracle.
Not only was part of the line built at the site of one of Rhode Island’s deadliest train disasters but it was also created during the Financial Panic of 1873, a crisis that crippled banks, businesses, and railroad investment across the country.
Yet despite these challenges the line was up and running by the summer of 1874. Stretching from Wood River Junction, past Woodville and into Hope Valley, the railroad gave local mill communities the connection they dreamed of.
But as we’re about to see, those communities would have to constantly fight to keep their railroad alive.
Over the next several decades, the line would endure a relentless series of devastating setbacks, each one threatening to end it for good.
But time and time again, the communities it served found ways to keep it alive. Even now, long after the railroad has been abandoned and most of its physical traces have disappeared, that fight continues—only today it is a fight to ensure the line’s legacy withstands the test of time.
This is Forgotten Railroads of Rhode Island, where we uncover the hidden tracks, lost stations, and forgotten stories of the state’s vanished railroads.
And today, we’re continuing the story of the Wood River Branch Railroad.
The Railroad’s Struggles
, the Wood River Branch Railroad was walking a financial tightrope From the very beginning
Not only was it burdened with construction debt, but whatever profits it managed to earn were often wiped out by interest payments on the very bonds that built the line.
And yet, despite that instability, the railroad quickly became essential.
The communities along the Wood River depended on it for nearly everything. Businesses relied on the line to bring in raw materials and ship finished goods, while the railroad depended on those same businesses to survive.
And At the center of that relationship was the wood river branch’s single most important customer: the Nichols and Langworthy Machine Company.
Based in Hope Valley, the company produced steam boilers and textile machinery used across New England. Its facility was so large that it justified its own railroad siding. And for a time, Amos G. Nichols served as president of both the company and the railroad. He even named the line’s first locomotive Gardner Nichols in honor of his father.
For decades, that partnership kept the railroad alive.
Until, suddenly, it didn’t.
On April 13th, 1909, a fire broke out inside the Nichols and Langworthy complex and quickly consumed the building. By the time it was over, the massive shop was gone.
Although part of the facility was eventually rebuilt, it returned at only a fraction of its original size—and without Nichols and Langworthy. With demand for textile machinery already declining, the company chose to shut down for good.
It was a devastating blow.
Overnight, the railroad lost its largest customer and Freight traffic dropped by 30 percent.
But worse was still to come.
In November of 1927, heavy rains swept across New England, triggering one of the most destructive floods in the region’s history. Rivers overflowed, villages were submerged, and railroads were torn apart.
And The Wood River Branch was no exception.
Across the line were at least half a dozen washouts, each one requiring major repairs—repairs that a struggling short line could barely afford.
Faced with that reality, stockholders met on November 16 and voted to allow the railroad to be abandoned.
After more than fifty years, it was over.
Except—it wasn’t.
Seventy-five local businessmen gathered at Odd Fellows Hall in Hope Valley and pushed back. They argued that losing the railroad would raise shipping costs and deal a serious blow to the local economy.
Petitions circulated and Newspaper editorials followed. The message was clear: the community wanted the railroad saved.
And eventually, it worked.
The New Haven Railroad stepped in and took control of the line. Under its management, operations were improved, and for the first time in nearly twenty years, the Wood River Branch was able to cover its expenses.
For once, the future looked stable.
Then came Black Tuesday.
The stock market crash of October 29th, 1929 triggered a nationwide depression that hit Rhode Island’s mill towns especially hard. Within months, numerous mills along the line shut down.
The few that remained opened drastically reduced operations.
And much of the freight that still moved through the region began shifting to trucks instead of rail.
The railroad’s business collapsed.
Operations were eventually reduced to an on-demand service run by a single employee: engineer Otis A. Larkin.
Larkin did everything—he was an engineer, conductor, brakeman, baggage handler, maintenance worker, and anything else the line needed
But Even that wasn’t enough.
The line was still losing money.
At that point, the New Haven Railroad made its decision.
The Wood River Branch had to go.
But once again, just before the end, someone stepped in.
Roy Rawlings.
Originally from Illinois, Rawlings had reportedly arrived in Hope Valley by riding a freight car east. There, he built Rawlings’ World Record Feed, a seven-story grain mill known for producing some of the largest chickens in southern New England.
During the depression, his business and the railroad became inseparable. The mill depended on the railroad for transportation, and the railroad now depended on the mill for survival.
So in 1937, Rawlings did something remarkable.
He purchased the entire railroad—for just $301.
And once again, the line was saved.
Operations under Rawlings were informal but effective. The railroad continued to run on demand, and workers often shifted between jobs at the mill and the railroad.
Freight trains sometimes stopped along the tracks while crews picked blueberries or cleared animals off the line.
Rawlings even built his own inspection vehicle using discarded wheels, old station seats, and metal piping, naming it the President’s Special.
Although by no means profitable, The railroad remained in business
And it stayed that way, even as Rawlings stepped back due to illness. Control passed to his daughter, Lucy Rawlings Tootell, a formidable business leader described by her own husband as a “force of nature.”
At a time when women rarely held such roles, she was reportedly the only female railroad executive in the United States.
Under her leadership, and with the mill sustaining it, the railroad endured through World War II.
It seemed that as long as the Rawlings family was there, the line would survive.
But even they could not stop what was coming.
The End of the Line
It was the night of March 14th 1947 when the Rawlings grains mill caught on fire.
The fire trucks arrived as quickly as they could, but it was already too late.
Flames had erupted inside the towering building, and the grain and feed stored within it quickly turned the structure into fuel. Within minutes the fire was raging out of control as residents gathered in the night to watch the blaze consume one of Hope Valley’s largest landmarks.
By midnight the entire mill had been destroyed.
With Roy Rawlings now retired and living in Florida, there was little incentive to rebuild the mill.
And so The business closed for good.
For the Wood River Branch Railroad, the loss was catastrophic.
Rawlings Mill accounted for roughly ninety percent of the railroad’s freight traffic and had been covering the line’s operating deficits for years.
Without the mill, the railroad had no reason to exist.
The Rawlings attempted to sell the line, but no buyers could be found so pieces of the railroad were gradually sold off to local businesses. Anything that could not be sold was dismantled, and the rails were eventually removed.
And so, Finally, after more than seventy years of struggle, the Wood River Branch Railroad was abandoned once and for all .
Today, very little remains of the line.
Aside from portions of its old right-of-way having been converted into hiking trails and a few stone abutments from one of its old bridges still sitting in the Wood River, its almost line was never there to begin with. Even the site of Richmond Switch crash shows no evidence of the carnage that once occurred there.
And considering how small the railroad was, it would be easy to assume that its story would simply fade away.
But those who loved the line refused to let it disappear. Lucy Rawlings Tootell preserved photographs, documents, and artifacts; Joanne Boothroyd Kennedy turned those relics into her book Two Tickets on the Wood River Train; and the Langworthy Library in Hope Valley now safeguards both collections for future generations.
Because of their efforts, the Wood River Branch Railroad endures—not in steel or timbers, but in memory, in stories, and in the spirit of the communities that fought to keep it alive. To this day, Its legacy survives, carried forward by the people who refuse to let it be forgotten.
I’d like to give a Special thanks to the Langworthy Library, especially Martha Baton in the archives department; the Richmond Historical Society; the Clark Memorial Library; and the Hopkinton Historical Association for their support and for sharing extensive railroad-related documents. For this project.”