Haverhill Line Upgrades (Western Route)

Lowell has done some work to be a tourist attraction. Lawrence...hasn't. I've only been there a few times but there is not much near the station. Good beer, bit of a walk from the station. https://www.thecladdaghpub.com/Home . Not sure where the unsafe areas of Lawrence are or even if it is still the auto theft capital of New England. Your train is safe.

Haverhill- http://www.tapbrewingcompany.com/ - good place. The outdoor patio should be open for a few more weeks. Good view of the river and the railroad bridge. Several other restaurants in the downtown.

MBTA has the $10 weekend unlimited ride.

Yes, Haverhill is a great town with lots of shops and restaurants near the station. I went there once in 2009. That railroad bridge makes for very nice shots, especially in the afternoon.

It looks like if I do make it to Lawrence and this doesn't have much to do with trains, I would visit the Lawrence Heritage History state park. It looks like that pub is not too fart out of the way from my walk from the train station to the Heritage History State Park and Museum. Yes, Lawrence still has a lot of work to be done and I'm going to be out of there well before dark, except on the train. It's possible I may, after Lawrence, head over to Haverhill.

A short walk from the Lawrence platform is the New Balance Factory Outlet Store at 5 South Union. Good timing can lead to good deals. GEarth will show you.

and, if you don't mind a little walking, there are still plenty of sidings in the road on either side of the canal and river. I like to go and imagine what railroading in Lawrence looked like when the textiles and shoes were being manufactured there.

I can assure you Lawrence was a lot busier than it is now, but I presume you know that. Some passenger trains even originated and terminated there, in addition to the gas turbine car that ran the M&L up to Manchester. The B&M ran more freights, and you had camp trains, ski trains, and the Rockingham Racers in season.

Any news on potential completion of the double track through Ballardvale or at this point is that just a pipe dream?

Don't think much will be done until a new station/platform that confirms to ADA requirements is designed and constructed. I just wish they could install a switch south of the street crossing. Of course that would entail signal work. Just seems a waste to have that new installation lay unused.

The existing station meets ADA requirements. The full build accessibility requirements are self inflicted by the Comm. of Mass.

I'm not so sure that's true at all. Roanoke, VA had a problem due to delays on construction and by the time they were ready to get underway the FRA had instituted the full length platform requirement. Same with Springfield, MA.

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Regardless of access requirements, once Ballardvale is double-tracked an east-side platform can't be used by MBTA trains until Andover has platforms on both tracks, or the crossover west of the Central St. underpass is rebuilt as universal.

Ballardvale will most likely be a center platform like Littleton, so it will be compatible with the route regardless of what happens with Andover. The other issue is the Western Route is a high and wide route meaning a gauntlet or freight siding would have to go in too.

Early in this project (now about a decade ago) there was some work on the west side of the existing single track at Ballardvale leading me to think a low/mini-high platform might be coming. But like several other aspects of the job, it was apparently reconsidered and left to nature.

Yes, PTC is active on all MBTA lines including the Haverhill Line and MBTA and Amtrak are running with PTC. Pan Am recently started running some trains with PTC too.

The Federal Regulation requires all trains operating on PTC territory as of January 1st 2021 to have PTC equipped. All MBTA lines fall under the requirement for being PTC-equipped.