Why so little modern railroading in NH??

I was just looking at a book and it made me wonder:

Why does New Hampshire have so little active rail, when it seems the whole state was once riddled with trackage?

Is it that there is no manufacturing? No quarries or mills? No nothing?? It seems hard to believe that NH has less rail-style industry than "high-tech" Massachusetts.

What happened to NH rail?

JD

NellsChoo wrote:Is it that there is no manufacturing?

Not enough that are steady rail customers.

No quarries or mills?

Same. The ones that are left do not ship by rail.

No nothing??

Well, wait... that's a double negative!

What happened to NH rail?

The cost of doing business forced out much of the heavy industry that once used rail. It's been on a slow, steady decline since the postwar era all around the Northeast.

Not enough customers means no trains.

-otto-

There truly isn't much left. Lumber no longer is a major factor in New Hampshire. Most of the major cities are in the south where you will still find trains. B&M abandoned most of its track there in bankruptcy. The cars and trucks are more accesiblle to the north than trains. But even though little is left in modern, they do have many good tourist lines to honor there past. Hobo is ex-B&M. Conway is ex-B&M/MEC, and Clarks is an old logging line. Plus there is the cog railway.

NellsChoo wrote: It seems hard to believe that NH has less rail-style industry than "high-tech" Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is losing rail coverage too. In a few years most freight won't even run to Boston. But Massachusetts has a larger port/coastline than New Hampshire. There are more distribution centers, which create more intermodal. More people in larger cities requires passenger. More lines that are neccessary to accessing the state such as the only two east west lines having the two prime mountain passes in the state. There is still manufacturing in the western part of the state. Its the quickest way to go north from connecticut. And sending products in warrants more trains. There is a larger population which means more consumer goods, especially to Boston. And five railroads(CSX,NECR,NS,PAR,P&W,CSOR) give the option of getting into the state rather than just PAR for NH. And finnally historic southern mainlines ran to Boston. The NEC still carries freight along with passenger. And the old New Haven trackage has become now still active railines.

Little heavy MFG left in NH or VT. Trucking is more flexible and can run on state/federal owned highways to just about anywhere. Maybe if Wal-Mart could use rail to bring in more goods from China railroads might survive.

Too many lines especially in Northern New England are one industry lines or maybe I should even say one customer lines.
A paper mill closes and there is no more business for that line and it gets shutdown or abandoned. Today there are examples
on Pan Am and others where a lines serves a single customer who does a pretty good business with that particular line.
Take away that customer and bingo, nothing is left. I don't think Vermont is quite as desparate as New Hampshire is and I
am not too sure about Maine. Too many lumber and paper mills have shut down and when they did they took the railroad
with them too.
The one thing that has saved some trackage is the tourist train operators along with state ownership. What does the future
hold? I don't know, maybe some lines will still remain, maybe the state of New Hampshire will see the sense of passenger
train service between Concord and Boston which would certainally make that line safe. We can only hope for the best here.
Vermont probably has a greater diversity of freight business and I think much of the trackage in Vermont will hold on for the
present. Again, passenger service if it stays will help but this is far from certain today.
It could get interesting and railroading could be in for some more difficult times in the future.
Noel Weaver

atsf sp wrote:There truly isn't much left. Lumber no longer is a major factor in New Hampshire. Most of the major cities are in the south where you will still find trains. B&M abandoned most of its track there in bankruptcy. The cars and trucks are more accesiblle to the north than trains. But even though little is left in modern, they do have many good tourist lines to honor there past. Hobo is ex-B&M. Conway is ex-B&M/MEC, and Clarks is an old logging line. Plus there is the cog railway.

Actually the railroad at Clark's (White Mountain Central) was built as a tourist line for Clark's. It uses equipment from logging railroads around the area, but the line currently in use did not exist before Clark's.

I still think it is sad how much business has been lost on New England... and America as a whole.

I think that commuter trains from NH to Boston would be great. Didn't they try that in the 1980s? Why didn't that work out? I bet there are far more people living up there now, commuting south to work.

What claim-to-fame did NH have in the past? By that I mean Maine was known for wood and 'taters, etc. What was big business in New Hampshire?

JD

NellsChoo wrote:I think that commuter trains from NH to Boston would be great. Didn't they try that in the 1980s? Why didn't that work out? I bet there are far more people living up there now, commuting south to work.

Please continue the MBTA-to-Concord discussion here:

http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=60819

Let's leave this thread for the discussion of freight.

>>What was big business in New Hampshire?

Outbound - manufactured wood products in multitudinous forms - mills that produced finished lumber, furniture, wagon bodies, shoe pegs, bobbins for textile machinery, paper, boxes and barrels in the days before cardboard, even wood dough, sawdust, wood chips and tanbark.

Inbound - stuff that won't grow around here, business travelers, tourists.

There just isn't enough heavy industry around here that could make economical use of freight rail.

PBM

RedLantern wrote:Actually the railroad at Clark's (White Mountain Central) was built as a tourist line for Clark's. It uses equipment from logging railroads around the area, but the line currently in use did not exist before Clark's.

Right. I knew something was from the area and it was the engines.

Noel Weaver wrote: don't think Vermont is quite as desparate as New Hampshire is and I
am not too sure about Maine. Too many lumber and paper mills have shut down and when they did they took the railroad
with them too.

Maine is struggling now too. Mills are closing and business is going down. New England is just not a good railroad territory for heavy traffic and railroad survival.

atsf sp wrote: Maine is struggling now too. Mills are closing and business is going down. New England is just not a good railroad territory for heavy traffic and railroad survival.

I'd amend that to say "Northern New England"-- the Providence & Worcester seems to do OK, there's still plenty of action on the CSX Boston Line, and now you've got NS's "Pan Am Southern" jv and whatever that may bring...

Other factors:
When Guilford was at its greatest size, the decision was made to use the then-Guilford D&H instead of the Conn. River for Canadian bridge traffic, and the upper Conn. River was allowed to fall into disrepair. When D&H was released from Guilford and then picked up by CP, CP was too sharp to share rates with Guilford for bridge traffic and had given up on Vermont -- thus NH -- anyways because of a lack of reliable connection with Guilford.
Instead of upgrading the Berlin line infrastructure for larger loads, the paper traffic was basically surrendured to SLR, which despite some older power and relatively short mileage through NH, could easily be called a modern railroad. Depending on the paper's destination Guilford will actually get a piece of the payment when loads are interchanged at Lewiston Jct.

Just as a historical aside, more than twenty years ago Don Phillips wrote a memorable column in Trains about the demise of railroading in New Hampshire, after viewing the dormant MEC Mountain Sub in Whitefield while covering the NH presidential primary for the Washington Post, his employer at the time. And except for the revival of passenger service on the B&M Portland Division in the form of the Downeaster, it's mostly been all downhill since then, for the reasons other folks have listed. Very sad.

That and the turn around required by some of our possible customers can not be met because of "connecting" "railroads".