Ethanol Trains to Revere

oh. what is the point of that, they have no reverse? haha.


my father worked in the necco plant doing some construction work 15 years ago or so. the warehouse was stacked full of candy as far as you could see. this was in may or something. that one warehouse was just for walmarts halloween supply. walmart has gotten even bigger since then.

As far back as I can remember , the Necco in Revere was a lumber yard, not sure if it utilized the rail.

Necco vs: Eastern Route track. Not quite level enough to gain access by rail.

DJLDRUMS wrote:...25 years ago it would have kept going on the Eastern Route...

Really? I thought the bridge at Newburyport was taken out a lot earlier than that.

Wikipedia says service to N-port ended in 1976 (NETransit history confirms) and beyond N-port abandoned in 1982 (not confirmed, but seems likely). The bridge is still there, just permanently open.

they could have continued to the danvers branch/essex which would have been a loop of sorts but i think most the essex railroad has been gone for 40 years anyway

This is probably a dumb question, but how would they have gotten from Newburyport back onto the freight main line (old western route) to get to Maine?

They would have kept going north and paralled the coast right up to Portland.

On the Eastern Route? Those tracks were pulled up a lot longer than 25 years ago. B&M stopped using the Eastern Route tracks between Portland and Kittery/Portsmouth in 1945, and by 1965 the tracks were gone. We're talking 47-67 years ago.

Why did you ask the question is you know the history of the line then? lol. Who is "they" in the context of "how did they get to Portland?" Are you talking about the OCS or something else? I thought we were talking about the Eastern when it was intact here...

newpylong wrote:Who is "they" in the context of "how did they get to Portland?"

The same "they" that you were referring to when you wrote this:

newpylong wrote:They would have kept going north and paralled the coast right up to Portland.

In other words, the "it" that Don was referring to when he wrote this:

DJLDRUMS wrote:That's a fact, 25 years ago it would have kept going on the Eastern Route right into NH and Maine on it's way to Waterville

Just trying to figure out how that would have worked 25 years ago if the tracks have been gone for almost 50 years. I wasn't being snarky; it was a legitimate question. Maybe you all know something that I don't...

Oh okay. The Portsmouth Branch or whatever it was called at the time would have been an option...

That makes sense. Certainly would have been an interesting round-about way to get back to Maine!

YEah most of the traffic at that time was originating from West Cambridge yard next to Boston so they would have little need to go direct to Maine from the northern ends of the Eastern,

I believe you meant to say East Cambridge/Somerville yards, not West Cambridge.
W. Cambridge yard was out to Alewife Brook and primarily used for BO-1 & BO-2
traffic for that location, the Watertown, Bemis, Lexington, Central Mass branches and mainline
stuff to S.Acton.

But to stay with the Revere angle, the Irving oil loads from Revere in the 80's would be
brought out to W. Cambridge (North Yard) for SAED to grab nightly except Saturday/Sunday.
SAED would go out the Lowell line on Saturdays. This all ended when EDSA/SAED were rerouted to the
Lowell mainline.

Dave