Salem Port Railway, Massachusetts

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Port Railway Salem MA
Route length: 1.74 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Society: last BM
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 from Boston and North Andover
   
 0.00 to Portsmouth
   
 Bay State Street Railway (Bridge Street)
   
 Bay State Street Railway (Fort Avenue)
   
 1.74 Salem Harbor MA (formerly Phillips Wharf)

The Salem Port Railway (also Salem Harbor Branch ) is a railway line in the city of Salem in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is 1.74 kilometers long and connected the port facilities in the city to the railway network. The standard gauge line is closed.

history

The Salem and Lowell Railroad , whose main financier was the industrialist Stephen C. Philips from Salem, built the Peabody – Tewksbury Junction , which joined the Salem line in Peabody, which opened in 1847. At the same time, Philips wanted to connect its industrial facilities in the port of Salem in order to be able to transport its goods by rail. He hired the Essex Railroad , which owned the Salem to Peabody line, to build a branch line that led into the port. It opened at the same time as the Salem & Lowell route in August 1850.

The operation ran the Eastern Railroad , from whose main line the port railway and the line to Peabody and Lowell branched off and which also led the operation on the Essex Railroad, and the Lawrence and Lowell Railroad , which led the operation on the route to Tewksbury Junction, jointly . In 1858 the management was completely transferred to the Eastern, but the Boston and Lowell Railroad acquired a right to use the port railway, as it had leased both the Salem & Lowell and the Lawrence & Lowell at the same time. In the years that followed, Boston & Lowell in particular expanded the port into an important coal transshipment point, and numerous coal trains drove from here via Tewksbury to Lowell and New Hampshire . The Boston and Maine Railroad had leased the Eastern in 1884 and the Boston & Lowell in 1887 and from that time on was the sole operator of the Salem Port Railway. They operated the line until around 1970 and then shut it down.

Route description

The line branches north of the triangular track, which is the connection of the line in the direction of Peabody and Lowell, from the main line from Boston to Portsmouth . It makes a 90 ° curve to the southeast and then runs almost in a straight line parallel to Webb Street towards the coast to branch out in the port area. On Bridge Street and Fort Avenue, streetcar lines crossed the tracks of the level harbor railway. Remnants of the port railway track can still be found in the asphalt at some level crossings.

Sources and further reading

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