Boston - Portland - Bangor, Express Passenger Service

Thank you for the clarification somehow I misread it as Bangor - Boston in three hours (yes, that's a very creative misread....). Certainly perfectly possible 3' Portland - Bangor.

I'm enjoying this discussion quite a bit especially as it is such a good reminder of the B&M/MEC's outlook on passenger service in that era which saw Bangor - Boston as essentially a single passenger corridor.

For your reading pleasure and edification, Eric Bowen at streamliner schedules most graciously added The Flying Yankee's April 26, 1936 schedule as published in the Official Railway Guide of May 1936.

Point of information: In this thread and others, i see reference to different "roads". specifically,

what is the Lower Road?
What is the Back road?
What is the Western route?

(A description that encompasses station stops would be very helpful.)


I will check them out on my (recently acquired) B & M PTT from November 1957, because apparently once a route gets a colloquial name, it sticks forever.

Thanks.

Maine Central operated parallel mainlines between Waterville and Yarmouth (Royal Junction). The mainline presently owned and operated by Pan Am was known as the Back Road. The other mainline, which ran along the Kennebec River, was known as the Lower Road. The section of the Lower Road from Brunswick to Royal Junction is still owned by Pan Am and is referred to by them as the Brunswick Branch. The portion of the Lower Road from Brunswick to Augusta is owned by Maine DOT.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Cent ... d_mainline


The Western Route was one of Boston & Maine's primary mainlines, the other being the Eastern Route (which was originally the Eastern Railroad).

To elaborate on the B&M portion of the above, the historical Western Route was the current MBTA Reading/Haverhill line between North Station and Wilmington Junction (north of Reading), and the current Downeaster route from Wilmington Junction to Portland. The historical Eastern Route was the current MBTA Boston-Beverly-Newburyport line, the mostly abandoned or dormant B&M trackage from Newburyport to Portsmouth and Kittery, and an abandoned alternate route between Kittery and Portland that largely paralleled the existing DE line. By the early 20th century the Western had become the B&M's primary Boston-Portland routing.

Thanks, Tom. I was going to try to explain the B&M piece more thoroughly, but I'm under the weather and my brain isn't firing on all cylinders at the moment. I was hoping someone else would chime in.

MEC407 wrote:Maine Central operated parallel mainlines between Waterville and Yarmouth (Royal Junction). The mainline presently owned and operated by Pan Am was known as the Back Road. The other mainline, which ran along the Kennebec River, was known as the Lower Road. The section of the Lower Road from Brunswick to Royal Junction is still owned by Pan Am and is referred to by them as the Brunswick Branch. The portion of the Lower Road from Brunswick to Augusta is owned by Maine DOT.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Cent ... d_mainline

I would also note that the Lower Road also includes the segment from Augusta to Waterville that is still owned by PAR.

mr. mick wrote:I will check them out on my (recently acquired) B & M PTT from November 1957, because apparently once a route gets a colloquial name, it sticks forever.

Thanks.

I would note that these names for the ex-Maine Central main lines are probably in fact quite old. The point is that it probably has not become merely "fashion" for people with an interest in these lines to use such terms only since the end of the Maine Central. Rather, these terms were almost certainly used since the time of the creation of the Maine Central in the late 1800's, and may have been the "official" company names at one time. As such they have a great deal more history and oral tradition attached to them than just nostalgia.

The front cover of my September 26, 1948 Maine Central ETT reads as follows:

INDEX
Page
Speed Schedule 1
Portland to Bangor (Lower Road) 2-3
Bangor to Portland (Lower Road) 4-5
Royal Junction to Waterville (Back Road) 6
Waterville to Royal Junction (Back Road) 7
...etc.

PBM

So the reference to "Lower Road" is relative to Bangor??

As in the "upper" part of the railroad would be Bangor to Vanceboro??

Interesting.

I never heard references to upper and lower parts of the railroad when I worked there relating to lines east of
Waterville. The "Low Road" between Waterville and Royal Jct. always seemed to be a higher priority line and
was considered part of the Portland to Bangor mainline while the "Back Road" via Lewiston had more of a
secondary line status. The Back Road was listed separately in the employee timetables. The Back Road had
the ABS mostly discontinued while it was maintained intact on the Low Road. The Low Road had 112lb rail
installed in the 1940-1950 period while the Back Road remained 100lb into the late 1970's. Most of the passenger
trains were routed via the Low Road....and so on. The "Low Road" and "Back Road" labels were simply used to
identify the two lines in-house...there really isn't any more to it than that.

In addition to the Low Road- Back Road labels the Lewiston Lower Branch from Brunswick to Lewiston was
called that because it terminated at the "Lower Station" in Lewiston on Main St. instead of the "Upper Station"
on Middle St. serving the Back Road.

S1f3432 wrote:I never heard references to upper and lower parts of the railroad when I worked there relating to lines east of
Waterville. The "Low Road" between Waterville and Royal Jct. always seemed to be a higher priority line and
was considered part of the Portland to Bangor mainline while the "Back Road" via Lewiston had more of a
secondary line status.

I find this a very interesting statement for a series of different reasons.

In particular, do you have a sense as to why GRS chose the Back Road over the Lower Road when they rationalized the freight main lines in the 80s? The Back Road actually has one of the steepest grades on the entire MEC system from Winthrop to Readfield, while the Lower Road could accurately be describe as a near "water level" route.

S1f3432 wrote:The Back Road was listed separately in the employee timetables. The Back Road had
the ABS mostly discontinued while it was maintained intact on the Low Road.

First and foremost, I can certainly testify to what would almost without a doubt appear to be the fact that the Lower Road's ABS signals were maintained very late into the Maine Central era (if not well into the Guilford and part of the MDOT/Maine Coast era as well). I believe that I have actually seen one of the signals working one time when Maine Coast was running the line.

Second, I also find it interesting to know that the Back Road did in fact have some kind of "full" ABS installation at one time, as opposed to the "islands" we see today. Given the MEC's historical freight volumes this would seem to follow but I think only one or two other people have ever mentioned this before and even then perhaps only obliquely.

S1f3432 wrote:The Low Road had 112lb rail installed in the 1940-1950 period while the Back Road remained 100lb into the late 1970's.

I have also noticed the 112# stick rail in some places with stamp dates ca. 1943 (Lackawanna). Can you or anyone else speak to when the 115# upgrade was conducted? It seems as if there may have been some major trackwork conducted in the late 60's and early 70's.

S1f3432 wrote:Most of the passenger trains were routed via the Low Road....and so on. The "Low Road" and "Back Road" labels were simply used to identify the two lines in-house...there really isn't any more to it than that.

Thanks for the great perspective!

As late as a 1955 timetable, three named trains still ran between Boston and Bangor. The FLYING YANKEE would leave Boston at 12p and arrive in Bangor at approximately 5:20p(five hours, twenty minutes). That included seven stops in between the end points while covering the Back Road via Lewiston and Winthrop. It's southbound half left Bangor at 4:30p and would usually make Boston by 10:15p(five hours, forty five minutes).

The PINE TREE left Boston around 4:45p and would reach Bangor via the Lower Road and Augusta by 10:25p(5hrs, 40 min). The southbound would leave Bangor at 6:40a and reach Boston around 12:45p(6hrs, 5min). These runs had eight stops in between their points.

The KENNEBEC is the one I don't hear much about. It ran the same route as the PINE TREE and had the same stops. It left Boston at 9:30a and would reach Bangor at about 3:50p(6hrs, 20min). Its Bangor counterpart departed the northern terminal at 2:05p and would reach Boston at approximately 7:30p(5hrs, 25min).

Apparently, times were quite a bit longer than twenty years before.

In a previous life eons ago I was employed as a MEC signal maintainer and the "old heads" working back then spent
quite a bit of time filling me in on what things used to be like. The Back Road was in fact entirely ABS until after
passenger service was discontinued. The stretch from a mile west of Danville to a mile east of the Fairgrounds in
Lewiston was primarily to protect the Lewiston switch job and freights that spent a lot of time switching Danville
Jct. and the Rumford Jct. siding just east of Danville. Same was true at Leeds Jct. where RD1/DR2, WI2/IW1 and
the Livermore Falls roadswitcher, as well as RB1 and RB3 could tie up the main for hours. On the Low Road the ABS
was in service at the time of the 1986 strike (when I left) and was discontinued sometime after GRS gave it up as a
through route. MEC started replacing the 100lb rail on the Back Road in 1977- I can remember having to bond new
115lb stick rail east of the Fairgrounds in the summer of 1977. There was a 5 year track rehab program in conjunction
with the New England Regional Commission (NERCOM) where the various railroads paid for material and equipment
and NERCOM paid for labor with preferential hiring aimed at returning Viet Nam vets. This was a period where a lot of
ballast and ties got installed on the Back Road and the Mountain Subdivision.