Lowell Junction

Back in the B&M days, the short stretch from the Lowell Jct area over to Tewksbury had many good customers, including Liquid Carbonic, Demoulas, Tewksbury Auto Parts, a couple warehouses/DC's (maybe Cressy Dockham & Anderson Windows), a lumber company, Gilette and either a Weyerhauser or GP facility on the Western Route just south of Lowell Jct where the line goes under I-93. As far as I know, only Liquid Carbonic (now Praxair) still gets cars. Most of those places are long gone, except for Demoulas, who got fed up during the strikes and never did rail again.

The lumber company by praxair gets cars every once and awhile. But its rare.

gunsanplanes wrote:Took these pictures back at the beginning of october. They fit here. copy and paste from the MBTA forum.

To confirm that connecting track still being tied in, the switch off the main:
http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33599

And the opposite switch over on the Lowell juction track, a bit far off but you can make it out:
http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33606

The rail that was dropped off awhile ago. I counted 20 lengths, and the second stack of ties:
http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33600

http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33607

The clearing of the other side of the road. The 2nd pic shoes how large some of the trees had grown:

http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33604


It didn't take too long for the first train to use that newly cleared section of track. I didn't have my camera yesterday, but this unit is still sitting there today.

http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33967



http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33968

http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=33603

There are a few pieces of track equipment now parked at this area. The track coming off the main has safety devices on it, which I usually don't see any of the other times they have parked MoW equipment on it, and they have some rail off the ground and up on a couple of new ties.
They recently moved a good number of ties from the stack next to the main over to the stack lying next to the rail they dropped off....maybe something is about to begin.
I didn't have my camera with me, and I'm not working tomorrow, but I'll have my camera with me for Thursday when I come back in. If anything is going on, I'll get some pics.

The Wye is not due to be rebuilt.

roberttosh wrote:Back in the B&M days, the short stretch from the Lowell Jct area over to Tewksbury had many good customers, including Liquid Carbonic, Demoulas, Tewksbury Auto Parts, a couple warehouses/DC's (maybe Cressy Dockham & Anderson Windows), a lumber company, Gilette and either a Weyerhauser or GP facility on the Western Route just south of Lowell Jct where the line goes under I-93. As far as I know, only Liquid Carbonic (now Praxair) still gets cars. Most of those places are long gone, except for Demoulas, who got fed up during the strikes and never did rail again.

California Paint still gets tank cars of Ti02.

newpylong wrote:The Wye is not due to be rebuilt.

I'm not privelaged to any information on this, I just drive by it going into work, so I guess that's just how it is.
I was hopefull that it would have been otherwise, it would have been nice to see take place.
I was thinking that they might have dropped fresh rail at a place they intended to use it, rather than just staging it there to be moved a second time to where they ultimately will be using it. It wasn't removed rail, I saw a work train backed into there and that rail being taken off from a short string of flat cars.
At any rate, everyone likes pictures to spice up a thread, and I'll see if I can grab a couple if the equipment is still there, and I'll get a great view of that area when the double tracking gets underway.