Shepaug Railroad

Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern Railroad

South portal of the tunnel in Washington, May 28, 2012
Locale	Hawleyville, CT to Litchfield, CT
Dates of operation	1871–1891 / 1948
Predecessor	Shepaug Valley Railroad (1868-1873) Shepaug Railroad (1873-1887)
Successor	Housatonic (1891-1898) NYNH&H (1898-1948)
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Length	32.28 mi (52 km)
Headquarters	Litchfield

The Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern Railroad was a short independent railroad in western Connecticut that was chartered as the Shepaug Valley Railroad in 1868 and operated from 1872 to 1891 when it was taken over by the Housatonic Railroad. In 1898 the Housatonic operation was assumed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NH). As the Litchfield Division of the NH the line was operated until abandonment in 1948. Much of the line remains as a rail trail.

"Shepaug" in the railroad's name derived from the name of the Shepaug River, followed by most of the line, which in turn was a Mohegan name that meant "rocky water".

The railroad was chartered in 1866 or 1868 and opened for operation on December 7, 1871 as the Shepaug Valley Railroad. J. Deming Perkins was the company's first president. Henry R. Colt was the treasurer and Edwin McNeill was the superintendent. Regular service to Litchfield started by January 11, 1872. Due to the expense of building and maintaining the line through rocky rural terrain the railroad suffered low profitability throughout its existence. To help pay creditors it was reorganized as the Shepaug Railroad in 1873 and was again reorganized as the Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern (or SL&N) on May 9, 1887.

The first three 30–ton 4-4-0 steam locomotives to run on the Shepaug line were from the Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey named Shepaug, Weatinaug, and Waramaug. In addition to passenger traffic the railroad shipped freight. Gail Borden's condensed milk business had started operation in the Burrville section of Torrington in the 1860s. Thanks to strong sales during the civil war that business was quite profitable and was looking to expand in the 1870s. A new Borden creamery was built and started shipping dairy products out of Washington Depot soon after the start of operations on the SL&N. Other significant freight shippers included stone quarries near Roxbury and New Preston (marble and granite) and ice cut from Bantam Lake.