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Quechee Gorge Village

Leathe says he feels the village attracts the same amount of people because of this. The gorge is not isolated, it is located on the main throughway.

Leathe has been the general manager of the village for a year and worked at the location for six years before that.

"It was originally a timber museum, called Timber Rail Village and Museum," Leathe says. The first two owners went bankrupt, and the current owner purchased the village in the late 1980s, Leathe says.

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"He got rid of the museum, carved the property up into rental property," says Leathe of the current owner.

Quechee Gorge Village now consists of a craft center, country store, antique mall, the Christmas Loft, New England Candles and a stained glass studio. The Vermont Toy and Train Museum was recently added. It includes toys from the 50s forward and model railroads.

"There are two giant scale model railroads," Leathe says. In reference to the museum, Leathe says, the village has gone "full circle."

The current owner also brought a diner in and refurbished it. Leathe says and this is a great added option.

"It combines shopping and dining as an attraction, so it's a destination and not just a place to shop," Leathe says. This gives families and tourists the option of spending the entire day because there are lots of different things to do.

After Carowinds railroad was removed after far too few seasons, the Melodia became part of the George Roose collection; and the two 4-4-0s (one new, and one surplus 60s model from Pioneer City) went to Timber Rail Village in Vermont. Melodia was stored at Wild World in Largo, Maryland, and went through a thorough overhaul at Shop Services in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa for former owner Bill Norred. Mr. Norred kept the locomotive in Southern California, and after his death, it was sold to the Pacific Coast Narrow Gauge Railroad in Santa Margarita, California. The Carowinds #2 Crown wound up passing through Shop Services in 1993, and emerged after a complete transformation as the Katherine. It coincidentally also operates in California at Michael Jackson Neverland Ranch. The old Pioneer City locomotive is on static display (joining the ranks of the first Six Gun engine in Underground Atlanta) at the Huntsville, Alabama depot museum. Carowinds of Fort Mill, South Carolina purchased both this rebuilt former 0-6-2T (1897 vintage Porter) turned 2-6-2 named "Melodia" which was reboilered and "tendered" by Crown. She now resides at the Pacific Coast Narrow-Gauge Railroad in Central California as well as a new Crown 4-4-0 seen at South of the Border in Dillon, SC. It was rebuilt by Shop Services of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa after some time as a display at Timber Rail Village near Quechee, Vermont and became #1 of the Neverland Valley Railroad in Los Olivos, CA owned by none other than Michael Jackson.

Crown gave in to the internal combustion rush, and started offering.....