Lowell activity.

Weekend was slow. Picked up some today. Trains are down to about 45 cars max as one just hiballed thru here eastward. Sounded like two engines but due a cut of cars from the Lawerance steet bridge to past my house headless. ????. The 3008 was moving cuts of empty hoppers and empty lumber cars around the Lowell depot area.

Track work mostly here. The machine that brushes the ballast and angles it was working yesterday between the Hail St. bridge and the depot end under the parking garage. Glad my car was not in the garage,that machine was raising dust. The machine was doing the same in Wiggenville when I got home. Seems to be down to 1 train each way. Car count was up yesterday though. No hangers at all.

Two engines and cars westbound have been holding at the Concord river bridge since this morning. This afternoon two HCLX greens and a Pam-Am 600 pulled a line to the Hail St. bridge and then reversed back under the bridge westward. They came back at one point and are idle eastbound at the old trian depot now. There was a cut of cars on the depot siding and the 707 connected with that and moved it eastward a bit. The lowell yard is as full as i've seen it in a while and so are the sidings.

Not much of a yard left there... There are only the #1 and #2 turnouts. I guess you could call the rip tracks (down straight/wall tracks) part of the yard. I don't even think the Bleachery leads are still there are they? Last time I looked there wasn't even a page in the timetable for the yard anymore.

There is still a significant yard left in the weeds on the NH Division just south of BY. I forgot what they used to call this one, perhaps Dave H. remembers.

The two yards they once had here are long gone. There was one that ran north south by the Meadowstreet crossing. Had 10 sets of tracks but was short. 150 yards at best. Does have a real high light tower that still stands. The other switching yard streched from the Lundberg St bridge to the 6 arch bridge over the Concord river heading south. This yard had about the same amount of tracks 10 or so but was longer by far. Many a night I would hear them switching cars. The B & M switcher getting a running start then releasing the cars for the cut. The sound of them clicking over the track joints rolling rolling rolling, then the big bang when they coupled up with the cars already there. Mr Fitz and his crew unlocking and changing the switches in all weather late at night. It was a great place to grow up along the tracks for sure.

newpylong wrote:Not much of a yard left there... There are only the #1 and #2 turnouts. I guess you could call the rip tracks (down straight/wall tracks) part of the yard. I don't even think the Bleachery leads are still there are they? Last time I looked there wasn't even a page in the timetable for the yard anymore.

There is still a significant yard left in the weeds on the NH Division just south of BY. I forgot what they used to call this one, perhaps Dave H. remembers.

Does New South Yard sound right?

Wow, it seems like yesterday, but one look at the Bleachery and you realize how much mother nature can do in 26 years. Let's see if I can remember, going from west to east (or north to south if you're on the New Hampshire Division) there was the TURNOUT and the NEW SIDE, across Gorham Street was the BLEACHERY, and just past Lundberg Street overhead bridge was the FAIRGROUNDS and the NEW YARD. Now, going way back to pre 1948, there were two signal towers, one at Hale Street and the other at Bleachery, both were retired and replaced by Lowell Tower when the B&M CTC'd the New Hampshire Division in 1948. There were also three passenger stations in Lowell in the modern era, Lowell station, Bleachery station, and Wigginville. Lowell always was a busy RR junction, I remember as a young man just hiring out on the B&M and working in Lowell yard in the mid 1970's, there would always be at least 5 switch engines and 1 road engine based out of the Bleachery just to cover the switching and local freight assingnments. My hero and mentor, Yardmaster Clark Shay said to me my first day "Welcome to f---kin ray-road town USA kid, hope you brought your lunch, 'cause you're gonna be busy", boy was he right, no matter what trick you worked, IT WAS BUSY. Now, Lowell is just a shadow of its former self, sure is hard to believe, and even sadder to have watched its demise over the last 40 years.

The yards are officially kaput as railroad properties. Pan Am sold them to the state 3 years ago this week as part of the huge land swap deal for the Green Line Extension and Northpoint: http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma. ... 020711.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Both yards are to be re-sold for redevelopment after all the necessary environmental mitigation is done. They'll only exist for a few more years as derelict urban ruins until the land is cleared, the tracks torn out, and any remaining yard structures leveled. All rights to Lowell Line freight tracks from the Concord River Bridge to the station were also given to the T so Bleachery interlocking can be relocated west of the station. Wye with the ex-Framingham & Lowell will go, the lead tracks to the ex-yards will go with the ROW stripped down to just the 2 mainline tracks, and freights on the Lowell Branch will peel out for good behind the station losing their last crossovers east of the station. Southbound jobs to Billerica won't be able to pause in Lowell any longer, and Pan Am's going to use this separation to further consolidate Lowell ops in Lawrence.

Whatever's left...not a lot of it going to be stopping over in Lowell after all these changes go through. So get your looks for the next couple years before freight in the area gets taken down another peg.

And to follow up on Dave H's remarks, Lowell Tower was one of my favorite
towers to work. It was almost like the minor leagues for train dispatchers. Invaluable
experience garnered there.

When I was there the tracks from the tower to the Turnout were New Side, New Hampshire
mainlines north & south, the Lawrence mainline, Turnouts 1-2-3. Never saw much action
on the north leg of the wye, though the south leg was used to go down to Interstate(?) and
set off or pickup cars.

The New Yard off the NHRML southbound main down at the Concord River & Lundberg Street.
Bleachery was accessed by two power switches - Bleachery and Bleachery Lead. The Bleachery
went all the way down across the river to South Lowell.

As for Clark Shay, one of his funniest moments was when the circus train came by on the way
to Boston. Clark would call Lowell Tower and request to be tipped off when it approaching
so the boys could come out and wave to their relatives.

D

Friday into yesterday was busy with 8 trains passing thru that I seen. Right now both tracks thru Wigginville are clear. Much thanks for the input on this forum. Special thanks to Dave S. for the Wigginville pics. GP40 was it the tower down off Maple St. that you worked in? I still see activity there although I could just be maintenance crews as there hads been allot of that lately. Funny I don't remember Clark Shay. My sister worked for the B & M from 1979-1990 and when she first started me lived on Moore Ave. right behind the freight office. I would walk the tracks home from school in good weather back then and remember the 10 cent Cokes in the machine there and there was a big round hand wash sink in the locker room. I did know MR Fitz as I hung around with his daughters however all the guy's that worked in the Lowell yard were always pleasant to us kids. Yes it does not take long for mother nature to take back even a railyard. I don't doubt F-Lines as to what real estate transactions have taken place however I don't see there being any re-development in either yard anytime soon. There is only about 300 feet of from the Meadowcroft St. crossing to the Zanini's property @ Exchange place. The commuter tracks in the rear
are not going anyhere so it not really that big a piece of land. The yard running south from Lundberg St. to the river although larger abuts residential property and there are access problems also. Tearing up old railroad beds is extremely costly this is why the railroads don't do it.

That was Dave H providing the Wigginsville pictures....

Yes, Lowell Tower was off Maple/Gorham St. Signal Department uses it.

I only met Clark Shay once or twice. And sadly, he never got to enjoy his retirement.
Understand he passed away less than two weeks from taking the pension.

D

Yes my mistake there on the surname abbreviation. I type fast and don't use much spell chek.Clark is not the first person that I have heard of that died very shortly after their retirement. I remember that instead of SSI, my sister, had Railroad retirement taken out of her pay. Knowing her she still has it coming. Was it you that mentioned the automatic switches? There was two or three of them right behind the Shaunessy school next to the 3 light tower that was there. As a kid they were tracks you stayed away from for fear of getting your foot caught. I heard them switch many times walking by. Then there were a bunch of them just in front of the yard office that you had to stay away from also. As for activity here today, I'm not doing much but the 612 & 604PA & HCLX 7192 have dropped off a cut of cars somewhere west of here and just came back by eastbound and are holding up before Lowell Jct.

Good memories. I grew up on the entire opposite side of the state so my experience in Lowell and railroading are from the last 10 years.

10 years is still ten years. Today there was a cut of cars that were sided heading west out of Wiggenville that are gone now. The old 505 was pushing empty lumber cars w/ a few other eastward in the Lowell yard. Two Guilford engines solo just headed east past here.

I met Clark Shay when I was doing traffic studies in Lowell in the summer of 1977. I recently found the drawing I did, of the track layout from the station through the Bleachery Yard, I will scan it and put it on-line one of these days. In that era, there were still customers up on the stub of the old NH line towards Lawrence and the spurs down toward the Merrimack were still active.