Lowell Line - Winchester, Woburn, Wilmington Spottings

Aren't there still like 4 Lawrence locals in addition to BO-1? Could have been anything.

Haven’t posted in a while since nothing interesting to report. Today I noticed that D&H boxcar next to the Wilmington cold storage spur is off its trucks and fouling the row. Big excavator on site.

They have construction fencing around that whole lot and a piece blocking the RoW so I haven't been able to see whats going on over there. I'm also only there at night so its hard to snoop around, its very dark.

Box car is gone. It was likely cut up.

Question: Why doesn't the TJX warehouse by the Woburn mall get rail service? They move a TON of good in an out of there. And a lot of it is already multimodal containers on trucks. They seem like an idea customer, and it would be a piece of cake to hook them up to the old industrial spur across the street, and hook that back up to the mainline. By "piece of cake", i mean the hurdles are minimal. The whole area is flat, there is ample physical space for it, it really seems like a no brainer. All night long, trucks are being jockeyed around the place and are coming and going. Given how many tractor-trailer shufflers they have, I wouldn't be surprised if they had rail service and their own trackmobile to shuffle boxcars around too.

Map Link (Shows up as Marshalls Distribution Center):
https://goo.gl/maps/N3c1rcb8h56jthjv9

A spur on the side of the southern leg of Commonwealth Ave could swing around the back of the building and be a massive double or even triple-track siding. Then cross Commerce Way, turn under the power lines and run long the old spur that used to be there. Clearly they have space issues when it comes to trailer storage. But they could potentially have a 1000 ft stretch of double track long the edge of the power lines, that they could get switched out daily, and use their trackmobile to feed them in and out all day long.

I know I'm using my railfan goggles but it just seems like such an obvious candidate for rail service.

the biggest problem i see is that the products they handle at theTJX warehouses appears to be clothing. with the possible exception of intermodal, not much if any railroad garment bizness since the 50s or so..

You have to figure where the source is coming from too, a lot of the shippers sending product to TJX, probably don't have rail access themselves and a lot of the clothing itself probably comes from overseas in those very containers. Logistically it just make a lot more sense the way they do it now, The railroads are still getting a peace of the business with those containers, it's just much more streamlined and far more efficient than direct rail service and I think the management of the railroads prefer it that way.

So is it correct that New England Transrail is trying to come back as a warehouse/transload facility (Wilmington-Woburn Intermodal, LLC)?

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:09 pm So is it correct that New England Transrail is trying to come back as a warehouse/transload facility (Wilmington-Woburn Intermodal, LLC)?

Yes, here's NET's STB filing from 3 years ago that details NET's intent with the site
https://www.stb.gov/filings/all.nsf/ba7 ... 240974.pdf

Overview excerpt:

The Project will consist of three basic areas:
(1) The Northeast corner of the facility, which will contain tracks to unload center-beam
and bulkhead flat cars to be transloaded onto trucks within a covered warehouse structure;
(2) The Center of the facility, which will contain interchange and transloading tracks
allowing the unloading of tank and hopper cars; and
(3) The West side of the facility, which will contain interchange tracks and transloading
tracks allowing the unloading of box cars into a cross-dock warehouse.

Thanks for that info. I am impressed with the scale of this. I guess the boxcar is not dead in Boston!

Believe it when you see it though.

Apparently there is a C&D outfit about to reactivate the former Industrial Way spur
off the northbound track. This would be the former Wilmington Cold Storage/Crusader
Paper spur.

D

The Crusader spur needs a visit from Paul Bunyan

Which building is/was Crusader?

Just out of curiosity I noticed that Crusader Paper moved to North Andover and although they are right next to the rail line, they do not have a spur.

There is another building across the street that looks not related. They have a spur that may/may not be usable. Can't tell by the maps I found. Maybe "SOLO" or "SOLQ" sign on the building.