Iron Horse Park (North Billerica)

How did you get that close? The one time we tried to take a peek in the area, a cop in an unmarked cruiser started to follow us until we left!

Yeah I got asked to leave a few times before myself. Mostly just followed out though like you, heheh.
Most people have told me it's easy as long as you are stealthy. Not that I'd make a habit of going there all the time. From the looks of things they aren't really watching it as much, someone told me alot of Guilford's police were laid off recently...(???) Or maybe they don't care as much as long as you aren't trashing stuff? We saw not another soul the entire time there.

I just wanted to see the place really bad, I have a few hundred pictures of the whole place I just don't want to throw them around everywhere and make myself look like a serial trespasser...

I took another walk in for fun, and I guess there is some new activity here as well. Some buses are gone, all the EMD engines that were stored in the building are outside now, and the most shocking was the complete destruction of the snow plow. I have no idea how the hell they did it, it's in little pieces, even the wheels were broken up.

I thought the Budds were gone because there was alot of foliage cut down, but they're there.

*

steveh wrote:Incredible. Did they attemp to offer it to any group from preservation?

Probably not, but they did have a plow or plows listed for sale on their web site for quite some time. This may have been one of the plows that was for sale, and nobody came forward to buy it, so they scrapped it.

Wow. I would LOVE to go over there and destroy some busses! Are they just waiting to be junked? So it wouldn't be so bad would it? What I'd REALLY like to do is play bus-bumper cars. OH OH OH even better, lets line up a bunch of busses on one of the tracks and take one of the old locomotives and smash them all up. Breaking stuff is so much fun !

hehe
when you do that tell me and Ill come play with you

l008com wrote:Wow. I would LOVE to go over there and destroy some busses! Are they just waiting to be junked? So it wouldn't be so bad would it? What I'd REALLY like to do is play bus-bumper cars. OH OH OH even better, lets line up a bunch of busses on one of the tracks and take one of the old locomotives and smash them all up. Breaking stuff is so much fun !

And im sure tresspassing and getting arrested you will enjoy so much. Hey, i won't bail you out!

haha, yeah, um...I'd have to recommend against doing that...yeah...that'd be great...mmkay?

You'd be lucky to get in to begin with so I wouldn't advise throwing crap at the buses, hehe.

Some great (but blurry) footage of Billerica in 1995:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0DDEdNfso

Chris

Cool vid, I miss all that stuff.

Pretty much all the buses are now gone from the place, other than maybe one engineless RTS and the trackless trolleys. A lot of stuff from inside the shops is gone as well, there used to be Hi-Rail equipment, train parts like boxes of new brake calipers, etc. Not that there is a lack of RR related junk and old machines inside at this point either....

I hear the lumber company in Iron Horse is interested in the building, as they already use part of one end for lumber storage. They may actually be tearing it down but I can't confirm that.

Does Guilford/PanAm even own the shop building anymore? They certainly don't do anything with it and it's condemned.

If it's condemned, how do they use part of it for lumber storage?

bigbronco85 wrote:Pretty much all the buses are now gone from the place, other than maybe one engineless RTS and the trackless trolleys. A lot of stuff from inside the shops is gone as well, there used to be Hi-Rail equipment, train parts like boxes of new brake calipers, etc. Not that there is a lack of RR related junk and old machines inside at this point either....

I hear the lumber company in Iron Horse is interested in the building, as they already use part of one end for lumber storage. They may actually be tearing it down but I can't confirm that.

Does Guilford even own the shop building anymore? They certainly don't do anything with it and it's condemned.

That's what I'd like to know.

There are large flatbed trailers parked inside one end of the building, and it looks like the roof was repaired over that whole section. The rest of the building's roof is in horrible shape, systems like the heat and all that would never work, the upper levels seem a bit dodgy but mostly dirty, etc...and one part is all collapsed, the lower roof section in the middle of the two large open sections.

Although I don't think the building itself is collapsing or anything like that.

It's marked with those red X signs denoting that it's condemned.

I think they should fix it and use it, although it would suck because it's an amazing structure inside in it's current condition. Lots of history.

Was Iron Horse Park once completely railroad dedicated? It looks like all of the buildings, no matter what company they house, have large train doors in them, or evidence of what used to be train doors. I didn't see much trackage closer to High St. though.

bigbronco85 wrote:That's what I'd like to know.

There are large flatbed trailers parked inside one end of the building, and it looks like the roof was repaired over that whole section. The rest of the building's roof is in horrible shape, systems like the heat and all that would never work, the upper levels seem a bit dodgy but mostly dirty, etc...and one part is all collapsed, the lower roof section in the middle of the two large open sections.

Although I don't think the building itself is collapsing or anything like that.

It's marked with those red X signs denoting that it's condemned.

I think they should fix it and use it, although it would suck because it's an amazing structure inside in it's current condition. Lots of history.

Was Iron Horse Park once completely railroad dedicated? It looks like all of the buildings, no matter what company they house, have large train doors in them, or evidence of what used to be train doors. I didn't see much trackage closer to High St. though.

Interesting to hear this about Iron Horse Park. The last time I was there was in 1982. I biked in from Andover, and did a little bit of exploring. The guard didn't seem to care although I did get yelled at once.

Anyway the Billerica Shops were the Boston & Maine's building and rebuilding shops during their better times. Old maps show quite an extensive yard and track layout. I'm sure today, most likely worse than in 1982, there is even more ripped out. I remember back in '82 there was a printing company and a lumber company that received goods by rail. I think that came in on the what's left of the Bedford Branch.

John

Talking to people I know, it seems lately you can park in the PAR lot and walk right in and no one cares. Guy I know did a band photo shoot there and about 3 carloads of loud people just walked over to the shop area and they started taking pictures for an album cover or something.

However, I would take this conjecture with a huge grain of salt... viewer discretion is advised. The times I went there I was always really stealthy, I didn't want to be caught where I shouldn't have been and I wanted to see the place too. There is paperwork and logs going back to 1860 in the shop building, it's mostly water damaged though and hard to get to.