Portsmouth – Bow Junction railway line

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Portsmouth NH – Bow Junction NH,
as of 1999
Society: PAR
Route length: 63 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 from Portland
Station without passenger traffic
 0.00 Portsmouth NH
   
 to Boston
   
 approx. 5 Pickering NH
   
 6.17 Greenland NH
   
 10.14 Bayside NH
   
 12.69 Stratham NH
   
 Squamscott River
   
 Branch towards Wilmington
   
 15.86 Rockingham Junction NH
   
 (formerly Newmarket Junction, Rockingham)
   
 Wilmington – Agamenticus route
   
 Branch towards Wilmington
   
 21.36 Littlefield NH
   
 23.00 Hedding NH (formerly East Epping)
   
 Branch towards Worcester
   
 Worcester – Rochester route
   
 27.60 Epping NH
   
 Branch towards Rochester
   
 31.39 West Epping NH
   
 36.71 Raymond NH
   
 39.71 Onway Lake NH
   
 43.01 East Candia NH
   
 46.63 Candia NH
   
 to Manchester
   
 approx. 51.5 Rowes Corner NH
   
 Concord Tram (Merrimack Street)
   
 from Center Barnstead
   
 by Hooksett
   
 approx. 58 Suncook NH
   
 approx. 61 Pembroke NH
   
 Concord tram (early track loop )
   
 Merrimack River
   
 Concord tram (end of the track loop )
   
 End of line / industrial connection
   
 from Nashua
Station without passenger traffic
 approx. 63 Bow Junction NH (formerly Bow Mills)
Route - straight ahead
 after Concord

The Portsmouth – Bow Junction railway is an approximately 63 kilometers long single-track railway line in New Hampshire ( United States ). Today there is only the 15.86 kilometer section from Portsmouth to Rockingham Junction, which is owned by Pan Am Railways and is regularly used by freight.

history

The New Hampshire railroad network, which existed in the mid-1840s, had a pronounced north-south orientation. There were hardly any cross-sections. In order to connect the three existing main lines, the Portsmouth and Concord Railroad was founded in 1845 . The licensed route should lead from Portsmouth to a point on the Concord Railroad south of the capital Concord , which was called Bow Junction. Two supplementary contracts to the concession provided for branches from Candia to Manchester and from Suncook to Hooksett . The railway line was built from Portsmouth in the summer of 1847 and opened in sections. In December 1849, the track reached Epping , where the Nashua and Rochester Railroad would later cross. The extension to Raymond went into operation in September 1850. In August 1852, the entire line to Bow Mills station on the Nashua – Concord railway line, which was also renamed Bow Junction , was opened. The passenger trains ran to Concord from the start, there was only one goods shed in Bow Junction.

After the railway company went bankrupt, the Concord and Portsmouth Railroad took over the route in 1857 . In 1858 the Concord Railroad leased the train. Since they feared competition for the traffic from Manchester to Concord with the now planned construction of the two licensed branch lines to Manchester and Hooksett, they succeeded in closing the Candia – Suncook section with the opening of the line to Manchester . In 1862 the first section of the railway line was shut down and subsequently dismantled. The Portsmouth trains now ran to Manchester. The Bow Junction – Suncook section was bought by the Concord Railroad and initially operated as a branch line.

In 1869 the Suncook Valley Railroad was opened, the route of which branched off in Suncook. For topographical reasons, the line had to be built in such a way that the trains from Bow Junction initially drove a short distance into the former line towards Portsmouth, where a hairpin was created. On December 20, 1952, this line was shut down and dismantled the following year.

The eastern part of the route Portsmouth – Candia was still operated by Concord & Portsmouth. The lease with the Concord Railroad was transferred to the Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1889 and finally to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1895 . Boston & Maine bought the majority of shares in Concord & Portsmouth in 1940 and finally in 1944 the entire railway company including the railway line.

Pure passenger trains ran for the last time in 1954. Mixed trains ran until the early 1960s . In 1982 the line from Rockingham Junction to Candia was finally closed, after no trains left west of Raymond the year before. The operational management of the remaining stretch of the route was incumbent on Guilford Transportation from 1983 , which operated under the name Pan Am Railways from 2006 . Today the line is the only rail link from Portsmouth to the rest of the rail network and is used several times a day.

Route description

The line branches off in Portsmouth from the main line of the former Eastern Railroad and heads west until just before Suncook. The track is winding and steep because it does not run along a river. Shortly before Rockingham, the train crosses the Squamscott River . The line crosses two other railway lines at Rockingham and Epping at the same level. There were rail connections at both crossings. From Rockingham the tracks are dismantled and the route now serves as a hiking trail. The section from Candia to Suncook, which was closed in 1862, is no longer recognizable. The route first ran west from Candia before turning north before Suncook. The last section to Bow Junction ran along the Merrimack River , which the railway crossed in Pembroke. The bridge was demolished after its closure in 1953. The last stretch of the route is still available today as an industrial connection.

Sources and further information

Individual evidence
  1. ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 1999.
  2. ↑ Distance kilometers from www.trainweb.org
literature
  • Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .
Web links