Lowell – Lawrence Railway

Lowell MA-Lawrence MA

Route length:

20 km

Society:

		by Lowell (Merrimack Street)
	0.00	Lowell MA Bleachery
		to Boston
		to Lowell Junction
		Concord River
		Interstate 495
		Bay State Street Railway (Main Street)
		from Lowell
	3.70	Wamesit MA (formerly Wamesit-on-Mace)
		to Lowell Junction
	6.71	Tewksbury Center MA
		Port Tewksbury State Hospital
	8.00	Tewksbury Junction MA
		according to Peabody
	8.29	Lawrence Junction MA
		Lowell Junction – Lowell route
		Bay State Street Railway (Lowell Street)
	11.28	Haggetts
		Interstate 495 / Interstate 93
	14.68	West Andover MA
		Pikes siding
		Bay State Street Railway (South Broadway)
		from Wilmington
	18.31	South Lawrence MA (formerly wedge station )
		to Manchester
		after Agamenticus
		Merrimack River
	approx. 20	Lawrence MA (Amesbury Street)

The railway line Lowell Lawrence (also Lawrence Branch ) is a railway line in Middlesex County and Essex County in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is around 20 kilometers long and connects the towns of Lowell , Tewksbury , Andover and Lawrence . The standard gauge line is almost completely closed, only a few industrial connections in South Lawrence are still served by the Pan Am Railways .

history

On March 27, 1846, the Lowell and Andover Railroad Company received a concession to build and operate a railway line from Lowell via Tewksbury to Lawrence. The company was formally incorporated on October 16 of that year and renamed the Lowell and Lawrence Railroad Company on February 15, 1848 . The construction of the line began in 1847 and on July 1, 1848, the railway from Lowell to South Lawrence went into operation. The railway company initially ran the company itself, but the Boston and Lowell Railroad , from whose main line the railway branched off in Lowell , leased the line on October 1, 1858 and was now operating. They finally acquired the line on July 2, 1879. In 1880, the Boston & Lowell opened its own terminus in Lawrence to bring the trains closer to the city center without having to use the tracks of the Boston and Maine Railroad , the main competitor of the Boston & Lowell was.

In 1887, however, Boston & Maine leased Boston & Lowell and took over management of the route. The terminus in Lawrence on Amesbury Street was still in use. In 1895, Boston & Maine built their own connecting line to Lowell Bleachery from their partially parallel Lowell Junction – Lowell railway . In addition, a connecting track was installed in Wamesit. The trains from the direction of Lawrence and Tewksbury now used this route between Wamesit and Lowell Bleachery, which has two tracks and is slightly shorter. The old route between Bleachery and Wamesit was retained for occasional freight traffic. In 1924, Boston & Maine stopped passenger services on the route. In 1926 the section from Tewksbury Center to Pikes Siding and the terminus in Lawrence were shut down. In 1936, the barely traveled stretch between Bleachery and Wamesit followed. Finally, around 1983, the route from Wamesit to Tewksbury Center was shut down. A freight connection east of Wamesit was served for a few years longer. The remaining short section from Pikes Siding to South Lawrence went to Guilford Transportation in 1983 , which has been operating under the name Pan Am Railways since 2006 .

Route description

The line branches off the main line from Boston at the Lowell Bleachery freight yard and initially heads east. It crosses the Concord River and after just under four kilometers reaches Wamesit station, where the route touches the Lowell Junction – Lowell line that still exists today. A connecting track built in 1895 served the trains going to Lowell to cross over to this route. The Lawrence Branch now continues in a south-easterly direction through the center of Tewksbury, where the Tewksbury Center station was. Here it turns north-east and reaches Tewksbury Junction, an important junction where the Peabody line joins a triangular track. To transfer to trains on this route, which continued to both Lowell and Lawrence, there was a stop at Lawrence Junction at the northern end of the triangular track .

From here the route continues north and crosses the Lowell Junction – Lowell line. Haggetts Station was at the Lowell Street level crossing . The train continues along the west bank of Haggetts Pond and turns north-east. In the further course, the interstate of Interstate 495 and Interstate 93 covers the railway line today . A short distance further north was the West Andover stop, which, however, was hardly used due to the great distance from the center of Andover. The train now continues through the city of Lawrence. At the level of Glenn Street is the industrial connection Pikes Siding , which is still served. The line then reaches the former South Lawrence station. This was built as a wedge station . The western wing was formed by the Lowell line, the eastern wing by the Boston & Maine main line. Shortly after the junction in South Lawrence, the line turns to Boston & Lowell's own terminus. The bridge on this branch over the southern channel is still in place, but the one over the Merrimack River has been dismantled. The area of the former terminus next to Amesbury Street is built over.

passenger traffic

In 1869, three pairs of trains Lowell – Tewksbury Junction – Salem and four pairs of trains ran daily from Lowell to Lawrence over the route. In the 1870s, Boston & Lowell introduced train routes from Boston or Wilmington to Lawrence via Lawrence Junction, which changed to the Tewksbury railway in Wilmington Junction and continued over the connecting curve after the Salem Junction stop in the direction of Lawrence. In 1881 ten pairs of trains were available on this route, with an additional train running on Wednesdays. In addition, there were three pairs of trains from Salem to Lowell and five trains from Lowell to Lawrence, which continued to operate.

The offer was significantly reduced after the opening of several interurban trams connecting Lawrence, Tewksbury and Lowell. In 1901, in addition to the three trains from Salem and five trains from Lawrence to Lowell, only four pairs of trains ran on the route from Boston to Lawrence, three of which were discontinued by 1916. On Sundays, passenger traffic stopped on the route. There were further restrictions in the wake of increasing individual traffic after the end of the First World War. In 1920 there were only two trains each from Lawrence and Salem to Lowell, and the one remaining pair of trains from Boston via Wilmington Junction and Salem Junction only ran to South Lawrence. In August 1924, passenger traffic was stopped.

Sources and further reading

Individual evidence

↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.

literature

Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1995. ISBN 0-942147-02-2
Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010. ISBN 1-874745-12-9

Web links

B&M Corporate History, 1914, page 99 (PDF; 6.9 MB) ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
List of stations (with miles) and staff from 1923 (English)

[1] see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.