Wilmington – Agamenticus railway line
| Wilmington MA – Agamenticus ME, as of 1999 |
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|---|---|
| Companies: | PAR , MBTA |
| Route length: | 94 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Dual track : | today: Shawsheen – Plaistow, Newfields – Rockingham Jct. and Dover – Rollinsford, formerly: entire route |
The railway Wilmington Agamenticus is a railway line in Massachusetts , New Hampshire and Maine ( United States ). It is around 94 kilometers long and connects the main routes Boston-Lowell and Portland-Portsmouth . It is part of the Boston - Halifax connection . Most of the normal-gauge line is still in operation. Freight traffic is carried out by Pan Am Railways , which also owns the route between Haverhill and Cummings . Long -distance passenger traffic is operated by Amtrak , whose trains use the entire route that is still in operation. The section from Wilmington Junction to Haverhill belongs to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which operates suburban passenger trains on this route. Only the former end sections of the line from Wilmington to Wilmington Junction (4.8 km), where a new line was later built again, and from Cummings to Agamenticus (3.96 km) in the urban area of South Berwick are closed .
history
construction
After the Boston and Lowell Railroad was founded in 1830 , the route of which was to run relatively straight from Boston to Lowell , the small town of Andover wanted a connection to this route. Local investors therefore founded the Andover and Wilmington Railroad in 1833 . In 1835 the main Boston – Lowell line went into operation. Immediately afterwards, construction work began on a branch line that was to lead from Andover to the new railway line by the shortest route possible. Wilmington was chosen as the junction . The line was opened on August 8, 1836.
In 1835, the Boston and Maine Railroad was founded in New Hampshire , which, as the name suggests, wanted to build a railway line from Boston to Maine. However, this company only had a concession for the New Hampshire section. For this reason, the Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts Railroad was founded in Maine in 1836 . On April 7, 1837, the Andover & Wilmington Railroad was renamed the Andover and Haverhill Railroad . In October of the same year, this extended its rail line to Bradford . The Merrimack River , however, represented a natural barrier that had to be overcome first. On April 3, 1839, the Massachusetts railroad company was renamed again, namely Boston and Portland Railroad .
It was not until January 1, 1840, that the bridge over the river and the extension to the border with New Hampshire could be opened. At the same time, the Boston & Maine started operating the first section of their route from the border to East Kingston . The extension to Exeter was opened on June 26, 1840, Newmarket was reached on July 28, 1841 and on September 24, 1841 the Coffins Cut south of Dover , where a temporary terminus was built. The Cocheco River was in the way of rapid expansion here. Nevertheless, the bridge was opened at the end of 1841 and the line was extended to Dover. The provisional terminus was already obsolete after three months.
On January 1, 1842, the three railway companies in the states affected merged to form the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M). The section to South Berwick (now Cummings) in Maine began operating in late 1842. Finally, an agreement was reached with the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth Railroad to share their route to Portland. On February 2, 1843, the railway line was therefore extended to Agamenticus on the Portland – Portsmouth railway line and was thus completed after seven years of construction.
Expansion of the line and partial closure
Since the B&M trains between Wilmington and Boston had to use the already heavily traveled route of the Boston and Lowell Railroad and there were often long waiting times in Wilmington, the company decided to build its own route to Boston , which opened in July 1845 could. It joined the existing line in the new Wilmington Junction station. The section from Wilmington to Wilmington Junction was no longer operated by Boston & Maine, but as a branch line by Boston & Lowell. However, three years later the section was closed and the Boston & Maine dismantled the tracks. In the 1870s, Boston & Lowell rebuilt the route, but on a route further east. Also in 1848 the Ballardvale - North Andover section was closed and replaced by a new route via Lawrence .
The third section of the Wilmington – Agamenticus railway line, which no longer exists today, was also shut down in the 19th century. After quarrels with the Eastern Railroad , the fiercest competitor for the traffic to Maine, over the joint use of the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth Railroad, the Boston & Maine broke the contract in 1870 and built their own line from South Berwick to Portland in 1873 opened. Traffic on the South Berwick – Agamenticus section was immediately suspended. The line remained operational for a few years, but was dismantled in 1879.
The increasing volume of traffic on the railroad meant that Boston & Maine gradually expanded the line to double-track. The Wilmington Junction – Andover section had been double-tracked since the 1850s, and from 1888 the second track was gradually extended to Dover, which it did not reach until 1912. By 1920, the entire line to South Berwick was double-tracked.
The collapse of a bridge over the Oyster River south of Durham in 1910 meant that the route in the urban area of Durham was rehabilitated and moved a few hundred meters to the west. The new route had also become necessary because a double-track expansion in the Durham thoroughfare was out of the question. Another minor route relocation resulted in 1928 when a bridge north of Newmarket had to be renewed.
Decline and today's operation
Since 1946, Boston & Maine has been using diesel locomotives in front of their freight trains on the route , the passenger trains initially remained under steam. The last steam locomotives ran in 1952. In 1958, Interstate 95 was completed, which runs almost parallel to the Wilmington – Agamenticus railway line. The resulting sharp drop in transport numbers finally led to the cessation of passenger services between Dover and Cummings in January 1965. Around this time the second track was dismantled between Wilmington Junction and Ballardvale, between Plaistow and Newfields, between Rockingham and Dover and between Rollinsford and Cummings. A daily pair of trains ran between Boston and Dover until June 30, 1967. After that, only one daily pair of trains ran to Haverhill, which, however, also ran for the last time in June 1976. Passenger traffic was therefore suspended on the entire route.
In December 1979, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) resumed passenger services to Haverhill. Guilford Transportation has operated freight transport since the Boston & Maine Railroad went bankrupt in 1983 and was reorganized into Pan Am Railways in 2006 .
In the early 1990s, plans began for an Amtrak connection from Boston to Portland, which should use the route between Wilmington Junction and Cummings. Due to financial difficulties, the planned opening date in 1995 could not be kept and it was not until December 15, 2001 that the first Downeaster rolled over the railway line to Portland, after new railway stations were built in Exeter, Durham and Dover from 1999. Today, five Amtrak express trains run each day on the route in each direction.
Route description
The Wilmington – Agamenticus railway branched north of Wilmington from the Boston – Lowell railway line and initially led in a north-northeast direction. The exact course can no longer be traced today, as the route is overbuilt by new settlements. At Wilmington Junction the line meets the Boston line and the Wilmington line, which was built in 1874. The railway runs with relatively few bends to Ballardvale. Here today's route turns to the northwest, while the original route continued north-northeast. Today, High Street in Andover and Waverly Road in North Andover are on the former railway line. Shortly after North Andover, today's route, which is double-tracked here, joins again when coming from the west. Today's route continues west through Lawrence, where a route from Lowell and one from Manchester converge.
The route now runs along the banks of the Merrimack River , which it crosses at Haverhill . This is where the MBTA's suburban trains end. The route initially turns to the northwest to continue again in the northeast direction at the level of the state line to New Hampshire. From here it goes relatively straight to Exeter , and further along the Squamscott River to Newfields . The route now heads north to Durham and then turns northeast. The route continues through Dover and crosses the state border to Maine with the Salmon Falls River . Immediately afterwards, Cummings is reached, where the route branches off to Portland . The old route to Agamenticus can still be clearly seen, although it has been closed since 1879. It continues in an easterly direction and after about three kilometers it joins the Portland – Portsmouth railway line, which has now also been closed .
Accidents
On January 6, 1853, about three kilometers north of Andover, an express train from Boston to Lawrence derailed. A car fell down the bank. Three passengers were killed, including an 11-year-old boy who was the only living child of Franklin Pierce , who had been elected US President a few weeks earlier . Pierce and his wife survived the disaster. However, the loss of the son had a major impact on the president's tenure.
literature
- Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 1995, ISBN 0-942147-02-2 .
- 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
- Information from MBTA on the Haverhill Line
- Boston & Maine Historical Society
- Directory of stations with route miles on the Boston – Portland route from 1923
Individual evidence
- ^ Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 1999, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
- ^ Official timetable of the Downeaster from May 2008
- ↑ Karr 1995, p. 239f.