why did the eastern route fail?

Manalishi wrote:

oldrr wrote:It turns out that the route 1 bypass was put in around 1940, the year that the present Sarah M. Long bridge was opened.

Has anyone else seen that tunnel under the bypass. I call it a tunnel, if you said it was a bridge over the right of way, I wouldn't argue with you.

I happened to stumble upon this old thread on the Eastern. 'oldrr' asked about the tunnel under the bypass. Here's a couple of shots of it taken in the mid-80s.

For better or worse, that tunnel is now gone. As of Septemberish, it was demolished and filled in a Route 1 bypass rebuild.

Are you sure? I didn't think the Long Bridge project extended that far. A quick check of MaineDOT's progress photos and available plans seems to indicate that construction won't extend any farther than Bridge St. Seems like I need to check it out next time I'm through there.

This isn't the first time I've heard of the tunnel being removed either. I guess with the salt air that tunnel/bridge probably wasn't that much better off than the Sara Long was. If you've got the crew, machinery and manpower already there, why not get rid of it now? It probably kept cost down by doing it now vs later and since it has no purpose, it make sense to eliminate it now before a possible safety hazard arises down the road.

The question was "why did the eastern route fail?" Simply put even back in the 1940's and 1950's the Boston and Maine did NOT need two different routes between Boston and Portland. The Eastern Route was a couple of miles shorter but it had drawbridges to deal with, mostly single track and no signals, top speed 60 MPH vs 70 MPH on the Western Route and more speed restrictions for curves etc. The Western Route had stronger intermediate stations as well. It was about 17 miles from Portsmouth to North Berwick and there was no business at least in 1945 in between these stations. The bulk of the business on the Eastern Route was between Boston and Portsmouth and that territory continued to have both good passenger and freight service for a long time after the line between Portsmouth and North Berwick was shut down and torn up. The Boston and Maine suffered from way too many lines that served the same general end points and as a result of this it was difficult for this railroad to show a decent profit or have a decent future. Some of these lines probably lasted longer than made sense at the time. In some cases today there is not even enough business for one line much less two or three different routes serving the same end points.
Noel Weaver

per this link, it definitely was demolished https://www.facebook.com/SarahMildredLo ... =3&theater" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you for confirming that!