The 2026 Franklin County Railroad Calendar, referred to by its creators as a “picture book concealed as a calendar,” is now available in stores and online, with 13 old photos of railroad scenes in the Greenfield area, Orange, and Vermont.
The calendar features historical commentary by Alden Dreyer, who also selected the photos for the 12 months and the cover. The calendar is published by Dave Allen.
“I love it,” Allen said. “I think it came out pretty well.”
This is the 18th edition of the calendar, which can be purchased online at shorturl.at/fXblv or at the businesses mentioned at shorturl.at/cEGUw. The calendars retail for $15.
“It’s a labor of love for both us,” Dreyer said of Allen and himself. “I enjoy the research and I like getting the knowledge out there.”
The January page consists of Roger Borrup’s photo of Greenfield & Montague Transportation Area Car. No. 106 crossing the Connecticut River on April 18, 1934. The one from February depicts a freight train wading through water following a flood in Orange and August shows a Boston and Maine freight train just east of the North Street overpass in Buckland.
Dreyer said he is “scraping the bottom of the barrel” because he uses photos only once. He also said he does his best to showcase “the corners of Franklin County.”
“You could do just a whole calendar of just Greenfield Depot, with no problem,” he said.
Dreyer said he is particularly fond of the calendar’s cover photo of a B&M 4-6-2 Class P-2a 3646, built by Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1911 as part of an order for 40 identical Engines, on the eastbound track at South River in far western Deerfield.
The annual railroad calendars started with help from Peter Miller, a Greenfield historian who died in 2021. Allen said the two became friends and Miller would bring old photos to Dreyer’s business, Old Maps, at 21 Mohawk Trail in Greenfield.
Allen said many of the old photos need to be carefully edited because they have gotten decayed or washed out over the decades.
