Double track through Dover, NH

Yes, the Conway Branch (formerly Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway RR) left the Eastern at a location known as Jewett, Conway JCT, or Brocks Crossing depending on who you ask. It was located a couple hundred yards south of where 91 meets 236 in S. Berwick; the original turntable pit still exists and there is a plaque commerating the various important railroad dates of the JCT...As for the possibile diamond in Dover, I did some reading on http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/sho ... php?t=2722 and now believe that I am wrong in my original statement that there was most likely a diamond. The P&D was originally leased by the Eastern and the Cocheco was originally leased by the B&M thus it unlikely that the two competing railroads would have allowed a diamond to be built (although the B&M would lease the Eastern by 1884).

I just found this photo http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20040 ... snow+train showing a B&M (budd powered) snowtrain departing Dover in February of 1971, the second to last season the snowtrains were run. Also, North Conway could be no longer reached by Halloween of the following year, thus starting the era of mainly gravel and light freight transport for the ( then soon to be) Conway Branch. To the right of the consist you can see the "Lakeport Siding", previously mentioned in this forum, but the P&D spur is out of the picture. This picture gives a pretty good look at the area during the last few years of complete B&M control.

ihdavis1 - that was a Snow Train Special run by Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiast in conjunction with the B&M trying multiple times to abandon the northern part of the Conway Branch. What was suppose to be a one time event turned out to be an annual event. The actual Snow Trains stopped running in the 1950’s.
As for the Conway Branch name, I’m pretty sure that’s been its official name since the B&M took control of it.

Aww, I see, that does make since. When the MEC pulled out of the passenger game in 58' and then the B&M in 61' there wasn't much use of the line other than some freight (and the afforementioned co-run snowtrain) past Ossipee prior to its abandonment in October of 1972. I wish I was old enough to have ridden the line from Rochester's Hayes Station (live right near it) all the way to North Conway; If the line ever gets rehabbed, maybe someday I will get that chance...

The Mass Bay RRE ran two special excursion trains on the
Conway Branch on May 2, 1991. The morning trip ran from
Rochester to the Ossipee pit and return and the afternoon
trip did a Rochester to Sanbornville round trip. At that
time, Guilford still owned the Rollinsford to Rochester
portion of the line, so the trains had to originate in
Rochester.

Guilford nearly killed the trip through its usual incompentcy.
The four coaches on the train had been running on the (then)
Winnipesaukee Railroad, but they had been sold to a Maine
group planning a tourist train on the Rockland branch. The
plan was to use these cars on the Conway Branch trip on
their way to Maine. Guilford was specifically told not to
leave these coaches in Lowell MA. Of course, Guilford did
just that and every window in the four coaches was smashed
by vandals. The damaged coaches arrived at the Ossipee
pit just one week before the schedule fan trips. Amazingly,
some glass company was able to replace all the windows in
time for the trip.

Here's a web site with a few short videos of the fan trips.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8610996292

Yes, I remember seeing those videos before via anothe forum on this site. And Guilford leaving the coaches in Lowell despite repeatedly being told not to, sound exactly like them. In the second video, where the train is headed through Sanbornville, towards the end of the clip it looks as if an old spur lies to the right of the track. Is this actually an old spur or am I just seeing things? Also, if it is a spur, would it be the old connection to the Wolfeboro Railroad that would have been shut down some five or so years before this video was shot, or something else?

ihdavis1 wrote:Yes, I remember seeing those videos before via anothe forum on this site. And Guilford leaving the coaches in Lowell despite repeatedly being told not to, sound exactly like them. In the second video, where the train is headed through Sanbornville, towards the end of the clip it looks as if an old spur lies to the right of the track. Is this actually an old spur or am I just seeing things? Also, if it is a spur, would it be the old connection to the Wolfeboro Railroad that would have been shut down some five or so years before this video was shot, or something else?

Hmmm - looking at a topo from 1928, it seems a spur did wrap around to Lovell Lake (to a lakeside depot?), but it is on the wrong side:
http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=NH

I do remember seeing that topo map before and remember reading somewhere that it was used to access an ice house on Lovell Lake I believe.

I just checked out Google Maps and sure enough you can still see the ROW going to Lovell Lake. You can see the first part of the ROW veering off the Conway Branch just north of Randalls Drive. I’m surprised I never picked that up before when tracing the Conway Branch.

I stumbled upon it a while ago but had completely forgotten about it until I saw the remanants of the spur in the above video and others refreshed my memory via the old topo map. It is interesting that the spur to Lovell Lake is not mentioned in Robert Lindsell's The Rail Lines of Northern New England which documents the Conway Branch under its original name, The Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway Railroad.

Just found this photo http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20100 ... rnville+nh showing a Dover local consist heading towards Ossipee running through Sanbornville, just north of where the location of both the Lovell Lake spur, and the unknown spur.

The unknown spur you are referring to in the picture is the Wolfeboro Branch; the Lovell Spur was a little further south.

Sorry, I should have rephrased my post. With the Wolfeboro branch in the foreground, the location of both the Lovell spur and the unknown spur from the MRRE video would be in the background on the other side of the street, behind the string of gravel cars.

The machine that hosts my site is down, but if you're interested in Dover just after the single tracking, do get a copy of the article from the Feb. 1965 Model Railroader; it discusses the industries, signals, grade crossings etc. in the station area.

I was reading on an online site dedicated to model railroading layouts of the B&M Eastern and Western routes, and the NH Division mainline recently and found that the Conway branch once left the Western route in a wye which at one point had power switches. I was wondering if anyone knew when the northern (east) leg of the wye was removed? I've seen on Google Earth where it once was located but have yet to find any information on its use or abandonment.