Portland – Lunenburg railway line

Portland ME – Lunenburg VT, as of 1999
Timetable and map of the route from 1879
Route length:	174.3 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Dual track :	-
Society:	PAR , CSRR
Legend former connection railway to GTR 0.0 Portland ME Commercial St ("Yard 8") to Portsmouth after Cummings 1.6 Boston & Maine Junction (Hp. Until 1888) to Rockland Link from Rockland to Cummings Connecting track from the direction of Cummings Interstate 295 Portland ME Amtrak train station Interstate 95 Connecting curves according to Deering and Rochester Portland – Rochester line Connection curve from Deering 7.2 Westbrook-Cumberland Mills ME Presumpscot River Goods connection 15.9 South Windham ME 17.7 Newhall ME Presumpscot River 20.3 White Rock ME 25.4 Sebago Lake ME Sebago Lake ? Smiths Mill 31.2 Richville ME 38.1 Steep Falls ME 40.9 Mattocks ME (formerly East Baldwin) 49.4 Cornish ME (formerly Baldwin) 52.3 West Baldwin ME 56.8 Bridgton Junction ME according to Harrison (610 mm gauge) Saco River 57.8 Hiram ME 68.1 Brownfield ME 78.5 Fryeburg ME State Border Maine / New Hampshire 85.8 Center Conway NH (formerly Conway Center) Saco River 90.0 Redstone NH 94.0 North Conway NH by Jewett ME 97.2 Intervale Junction NH 102.7 Glen & Jackson NH (formerly Glen Station) Rocky Branch Railroad East Branch Railroad Ellis River 111.9 Bartlett NH (formerly Upper Bartlett) Bartlett and Albany Railroad Saco River Saco River Saco River 118.8 Sawyers NH (formerly Sawyer River) Sawyer River Railroad 121.7 Notchland NH (until 1931 Bemis) 124.3 Carrigain NH Saco Valley Railroad 126.4 Frankenstein Trestle over the Willey Brook (245m) 128.5 Willey House NH 135.4 Crawford's NH (formerly Crawford Notch) 140.5 Bretton Woods NH (formerly Mount Pleasant House) Ammonoosuc River 141.8 Bretton Woods-Fabyan NH (formerly Fabyans) Wing Road – Mount Washington route Mount Washington connecting track approx. 143 White Mountain House NH approx. 146 Zealand NH 149.0 Twin Mountains NH approx. 153 Carroll NH 158.5 Quebec Junction NH to Lime Ridge, Quebec Connecting track 161.1 Hazen's NH approx. 164 Whitefield – Berlin route Connection curve Johns River 165.1 Whitefield NH 170.3 Scott Junction NH (formerly Scott) Woodsville – Groveton route Johns River Connection curve to Woodsville Johns River Connecticut River (NH / VT state line) 174.3 Lunenburg VT after Maquam

The Portland – Lunenburg railway is a railway line in Maine , New Hampshire and Vermont ( United States ). It is 174.3 kilometers long. Most of the normal-gauge line is closed or out of service. The Portland – Cumberland Mills section is now operated by Pan Am Railways exclusively for freight traffic. The Conway Scenic Railroad operates a tourist train between Intervale Junction and Fabyans . You also own the subsequent stretch to Hazens . Only the sections from Westbrook to the state border between Maine and New Hampshire and the Hazens – Whitefield section in New Hampshire are officially closed, but the sections from the Maine / New Hampshire border to Intervale Junction and Whitefield – Lunenburg are also out of service.

history

The city of Portland had an interest in breaking the Grand Trunk Railway's monopoly on transport to Canada. This had completed its Portland – Montréal line in 1853. In addition, the city was to be connected to the White Mountains , which were already a destination for many tourists in the 19th century. Another possible connection in the direction of Chicago was also planned. For this purpose, the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad was founded in early 1869 . It was supposed to build a railway line from Portland through the White Mountains and Vermont to Ogdensburg (New York) . Other railway companies soon began to build the western sections of the planned route, so that Portland & Ogdensburg limited itself to the section located in Maine and New Hampshire.

Construction began from Portland and in the same year the first trains were able to run to Fryeburg on the New Hampshire border. In Fryeburg the climb into the White Mountains begins, so that the construction speed has now decreased drastically. North Conway was reached in 1871, Glen in 1872, Bartlett in 1873, Bemis on August 31, 1874, and finally Fabyans on August 7, 1875 . From there, the trains first used the Wing Road – Mount Washington railway to Wing Road , which the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad had opened in 1874, and from Wing Road to Scott the Woodsville – Groveton railway of the same railway company. In Wing Road it was necessary to relocate the locomotive, as there was no connecting curve towards Scott. The section from Scott to Lunenburg just across the Vermont border went into operation in December 1875. Subsequently, the Essex County Railroad had built their section, the St. Johnsbury – Lunenburg railway line .

From 1886 the owner of the line operated under the name Portland and Ogdensburg Railway . This company was leased in 1888 by the Maine Central Railroad (MEC), which it finally bought in 1943. The route has been designated by the MEC as the Mountain Division . Shortly thereafter, the Maine Central Railroad built the missing section of the route from Fabyans to Scott, which opened in 1889. Several express trains passing through Boston, including the train known as Mountaineer (Boston – St. Johnsbury) from 1939 , ran on the route. In 1891, new representative station buildings in the Queen Anne style were built in Crawford and Fabyans .

Several forest railways brought wood from the forests of the White Mountains to sawmills on the Saco River , the products of which were in turn transported away by the MEC. These were in detail:

• the Rocky Branch Railroad from Glen Station to the uninhabited Sargent's Purchase district , which operated from 1907 to 1914,
• the East Branch Railroad from Glen Station to Jackson from 1916 to 1919,
• the Bartlett and Albany Railroad from Bartlett heading north from 1887 to 1893, which had acquired its tracks and vehicles used from the Eastern Railroad ,
• the Sawyer River Railroad from Sawyer River station along the river of the same name to Livermore , which operated from 1877 to 1928 and is therefore one of the longest-lived forest railways in New England, and
• the Saco Valley Railroad from Carrigain north along the Saco River.

Along with passengers, wood was thus the main freight transported by the railway.

After the Second World War , as everywhere in the United States, the number of transports dropped dramatically. On September 5, 1955, through traffic ended via Intervale Junction to Boston. The North Wind and Night White Mountains , which last operated from Portland with Budd Rail Diesel Cars , were also withdrawn from service in 1956. The last passenger train on the Portland – St. Johnsbury drove on April 26, 1958.

In 1978, the state of New Hampshire raised the rail line in Bartlett, so that the level crossing over the much-used Route 302 could be omitted. Nevertheless, the new owner of the railway, Guilford Transportation , stopped freight traffic between Westbrook and Lunenburg on September 2, 1983 . On June 24, 1984, Guilford Transportation leased the Whitefield – Lunenburg section to the Twin State Railroad , which resumed freight traffic, but stopped it for good in 1999 due to a lack of customers. The route is not officially closed, but is no longer used regularly.

The section Fryeburg – Hazens bought the state of New Hampshire and leased the section Intervale Junction – Hazens on July 13, 1994 to the Conway Scenic Railroad . The Conway Scenic Railroad has been running the section to Bartlett since December 17, 1994, according to the schedule since May 1995, with tourist trains. Since the spring of 1996 the trains have been running to Crawford's Notch, and partly to Fabyans. Trains only run occasionally to Whitefield.

The line from an industrial connection north of Westbrook to Fryeburg has been officially closed since October 12, 1995, but has not yet been dismantled. In 1998 the section from Hazens to Whitefield, which is completely parallel to the Whitefield Junction – Berlin railway line , was also closed . In Hazens and Whitefield track connections were built to this line so that all trains can now run over this line.

Route description

Maine

Brownfield Railway Station , 1912

The route begins in Portland south of the center at Commercial Street station and leaves the premises in a westerly direction. Today there is only a barely used freight yard here. Shortly thereafter, the route turns northwest, passes under the main line of Pan Am Railways and continues along the Fore River. In this section the line is closed. The Fore River Parkway is to be built on part of this route. Shortly before crossing under Interstate 295 , the connecting curve from the direction of Boston turns from the east onto the route that has been used by Amtrak's Downeaster trains since 2001 . The Portland Transportation Center is just a few hundred meters away from the Amtrak terminus . The station has a small reception building that was inaugurated in 1996 and also serves as a bus station.

In the further course, the line crosses the four-lane Congress Street at ground level, crosses under Interstate 95 and after a few kilometers reaches the former Cumberland Mills junction station in Westbrook . There are several industrial connections on this section of the route. The train station, where the Portland – Rochester railway previously crossed, is now just a junction. In both directions, the track ends after a few hundred meters at industrial connections. The formerly crossing track has been shut down and dismantled. Shortly behind the train station there is another industrial connection where the line now ends. The track in the further course is not dismantled, but partly so overgrown that the line is currently unusable. The route runs along the Presumpscot River , which is crossed several times.

After about 25 kilometers, you will reach Sebago Lake , on the western bank of which the railway runs. It crosses a branch of the lake on a dam, which is interrupted by a narrow bridge. The Rich Mill Pond is also crossed by a dam. Here the route initially turns west to reach the Saco River at Steep Falls , which it continues to follow. Shortly before crossing the river in Hiram, the narrow-gauge railway line of the Bridgton and Harrison Railroad branched off until 1941 . The Bridgton Junction station was built here as a transfer station , at which the trains on the main line only stopped following the narrow-gauge railway, in the end only one train per day.

Shortly before Fryeburg , the route leads at some distance along Lovewell Pond and then turns immediately west. Immediately behind the Fryeburg train station, the route crosses the border to New Hampshire.

New Hampshire

A few kilometers after the state border, the railway crosses the Saco River and continues northwest through the villages that make up the city of Conway . In North Conway , the tracks are on North-South Road. Such through-passages in public roads were also common in North America for main routes, but are now mostly closed. North of the city is the junction Intervale Junction where the trains from Boston used to run on the White Mountains route. Today the Conway Scenic Railroad uses this junction on summer weekends and other selected dates. This is where the ascent into the White Mountains begins and the character of the route changes to a winding mountain railway.

Following the Saco River, the route gains more and more height until the apex at Crawford Notch is reached at about 594  m . The route has gradients of up to 3.5% in this section. In the vicinity of Crawford Notch, a 245-meter long yoke bridge had to be built over the Willey Brook, which became known as the Frankenstein Trestle . It was named after Godfrey Frankenstein , a local artist. The bridge was replaced by a steel structure in 1895.

Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH.

A few kilometers north of Crawford Notch begins the valley of the Ammonoosuc River , which the railway now follows. North of the railway is the famous Mount Washington Hotel , where the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference took place. The former Fabyans crossing station is now the terminus of most of the excursion trains on the Conway Scenic Railroad. Only a few trains a year continue to Whitefield. The station building at Fabyans, like the one at Crawford Notch, was inaugurated in 1891. This is where the Wing Road – Mount Washington railway crossed , which took you to the Mount Washington Cog Railway , which is still in service today .

The railway now runs on the north bank of the Ammonoosuc River in a westerly direction to the train station in Twin Mountain . Here the route turns to the north and leads through an extensive forest area to the disused track triangle Quebec Junction, from where the Quebec Junction – Lime Ridge railway used to run to Canada. Shortly thereafter, the line reaches Hazens and now runs in a westerly direction parallel to the Whitefield Junction – Berlin railway line . In 1998 a track connection to this railway line was built in Hazens and the trains have been using this line ever since. The section of the main line to Lunenburg was closed. Shortly before Whitefield , the route crosses this route. At the intersection, where a connecting curve was also built in 1998, there was never a stop, but only a few hundred meters further on in Whitefield itself.

From here the line is not closed, but has not been used regularly since 1999. The train leaves Whitefield northwards along the Johns River and shortly thereafter reaches Scott , where there used to be a junction station. A connecting curve enabled traffic from Woodsville to Lunenburg and served the trains from Portland from 1875 to 1889, since only then was the intermediate section from Fabyans to this point opened. A few kilometers further, the train crosses the Connecticut River and turns west into its valley. The river also forms the state border to Vermont. Shortly behind the river bridge is the Lunenburg train station , where the line merges into the Lunenburg – Maquam railway line .

literature

• Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 1999, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
• Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .

Web links

• Pan Am Railways
• History of the Maine Railroad

Individual evidence