Manchester-Lawrence still in use (Freight Discussion)?

1. 10 to 15 years for commuter rail!? Never will happen, not on this line, though that could be ideal for the capital corridor up to Nashua and maybe just maybe Manchester. Concord is probably 20 to 30 years. After Concord you might get a Portsmouth/Kittery commuter rail but that probably 30 to 40 years away. So in 50 to 60 years we might see commuter trains operating through Windham at best.

2. The state owns the row and would have to go out for bid. And the state would be responsible for the dollars in maintenance.

3. A) Where is there room along the ROW for any industry? Salem is all commercial retail big box stores, Windham is all residential, farm and conservation land, Derry is half swamp, residential and commercial retail. That leaves Londonderry by exit 5 which is light industry at best. North of exit 5 is dead, tunneling or going around the airport will avoid getting close to the light industry near the airport. Maybe 100 years from now they will extend commuter rail past exit 5.
B) car loads? Railroad's are more interested in terminals for the small stuff where it can be transferred to trucks. It's a money loosing adventure when servicing small customers individually, that's why these kinds of branches have died off. The only reason Salem lasted as long as it did is because they had too. As soon as the last customer shut down the railroad couldn't get out fast enough and it doesn't want it back.

Iv'e heard the same exact things from when Railroad.net discussed the Cape Flyer. People were saying no demand, no nothing, no anything. And now we have that train headed down the cape and back. Same thing with the Grafton and Upton's Propane facility. What have we learned today, children? A whole bunch of naysayers doesn't always mean it's never going to happen. So i'm just going to take these posts with a grain of salt and sit on it. especially since Salem Said itself they would Rezone when rail rolls around. Windham? i can understand them (Or, us) because were essentially the rich snobs who would never want industry anywhere in town. NHRRA posted in 2008 or so that there were 15 industries they talked about in Derry and Londonderry ALONE. Imagine the other towns located there.

There's a big difference between MA and NH and the G&U vs the M&L. For one MA is paying to have commuter rail service, NH doesn't currently have the means to pay for commuter rail thus, no commuter rail. The G&U has 3 things going for itself that the M&L doesn't have:
1 - Track to run on
2 - no space for industry (you keep saying Salem will rezone for industrial yet everything is zone for commercial retail and built up as such and has no room left to rezone for industrial use. Maybe they should've kept it zoned for such back when the line was still active but that wasn't the case. What industry that is left is grandfathered in and if and when such properties go up for sale will sell for a higher price to a commercial retail developer which happened with the plaza that Best Buy is in. With the G&U, there is room to build industry but most of the G&U business is all transloads on G&U land and is not subject to local and state laws, which includes zoning.
3 - Privately owned vs. State owned.

Don't compare the Cape Flyer to anything that requires the re-laying of track. When the M&L's rails were pulled up, that was sealing it's fate for a *long* time. The Cape Flyer was, literally, lease a train, put up a couple of signs, advertise and go. It was *cheap*, therefore, it was *possible*.

This may be true. However, It doesn't really deny the fact that a whole bunch of railroad.net users deemed the cape flyer "not going to happen", or "A waste of money".

I was looking at some zoning maps for the towns along the corridor, and astonishingly, Windham actually zoned some industry along the corridor to the southeast of the town. It is specified as a restricted amount of industrial, but..

My guess would be Windham found some open space and zoned it for possible future industrial expansion......but not railroad revitalization. The Windham segment was the first to go on the M&L so I very highly doubt they would zone it based on the railroad. Im sure the railroad is not on the mind of those doing the zoning and developing and since it was abandoned so long ago, many of them probably weren't even alive to remember when it was active, much less healthy and profitable.

In my studies of the M&L, I have come to a conclusion. Reactivation and reuse would be nice, but we're wasting our time hoping and holding our breath. Sometimes we just have to be glad we still have photographs of it, but most importantly people who were alive to witness it that we can talk to. "If" the M&L is ever used again, and thats a HUGE "if", it will be so long from now that those who saw it when it was actually in use probably won't still be around, so don't waste your time waiting and go and meet them. Ask them what it was like. Live it through them. Some things are just gone, and the M&L is one of them. It had its day, and now it lives on in the pages of history. I'm sorry that I never saw it in use, just like I never saw the Goffstown Branch, or the Claremont Branch, or even my hometown branch, the Portsmouth Branch. Theres only so much you can do. But don't let your interest die there, do everything you can to preserve the memory of what it was so that future generations will not forget.

NHV 669 wrote:If there was hope, the fact that PAR abandoned even the minimal stub in Lawrence LESS THAN A YEAR ago should clue you in (a fact already mentioned SEVERAL times)

Right, because Guilford has NEVER abandoned anything which could feasibly be saved.

The business about the CapeFlyer being done as the result of its simplicity to implement is simply how it cut South Coast Rail in line for an added service. The fact of the matter is about 10 years ago the RR.net professionals deemed it was totally unfeasible, yet it got fast tracked by multiple agencies within a decade. The point that sometimes the optimist's mind conjures a bit of merit is certainly a relevant and valid one to this discussion. As far as the G&U point, I don't know how much it relates to the propane facility but certainly prior to 2008 the casual observer would have gawked at any talks of reactivating that line, and they'd have been wrong.

This simply would have been a point made and forgotten about if the naysayers weren't so avid in their saying of nay. Stop pretending like you know the future better than anyone else. I wouldn't bet $5 on ever seeing a freight train travel alongside route 28 in Salem again, but to speak of its feasibility, oh boy you bet! Much of what was done in the second half of the 20th century is going to be undone, that's a simple inevitability. And when it happens, we're going to see certain things return to a state resembling what they were, and that includes rail. That doesn't mean that every branch line that ever was will resume with F units and GP9s chugging past signal towers hooping train orders, but you're going to see some of the shadows filling in again. Railroads will never return to the metropolises that they built (think of the B&M yards in East Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, etc... anyone who said they'd ever get that land back would be absolutely certifiable), which makes the outskirts of economic centers like Derry and Lawrence and the like the prime spots for industrial redevelopment.

You don't have to think I'm right, but it's not possible to tell me or anyone else that you can attest otherwise.

What part of "those weren't ever abandoned / rails never pulled up" vs. "this was completely and totally abandoned / rails all scrapped" is so hard to differentiate when gaming the odds? Those examples have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The difference between de-abandoning and reconstructing what was abandoned and reactivating an OOS line under self-ownership and self-funding like G&U or finding a better use for continuously passenger-active rails like the Cape is so unbelievably huge I don't see how anyone could mistake them for the same lump.

Denigrate the "RR.net professionals" with excessive snark all you want...they don't seem to have any trouble telling such divergent cases apart.

I live just a couple of minutes from Salem and have seen that railroad bed many times.

But I agree that the last train has come and gone and there will never be another one. I would love to see one, but it will be highly doubtful that there will be another.


Think about this, the tracks are gone. They are not going to lay down more track.

they might. roadbed is still there...all they need is track and ballast (ref: Andover double tracking).

I don't know. I would love to see it happen, but it's too far fetched.

eustis22 » Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:31 pm
they might. roadbed is still there...all they need is track and ballast (ref: Andover double tracking).

Differences between the Andover double-tracking and the Manchester-Lawrence re-tracking include that Andover has traffic, too much in fact for a single track, and the Andover project has money, money serving as an index of political priority. Lack of traffic and lack of political support, let alone priority, are two deficiencies the M&L has in overwhelming quantity.

The point is that there is no way they can get that branch back up and running.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:What part of "those weren't ever abandoned / rails never pulled up" vs. "this was completely and totally abandoned / rails all scrapped" is so hard to differentiate when gaming the odds? Those examples have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The difference between de-abandoning and reconstructing what was abandoned and reactivating an OOS line under self-ownership and self-funding like G&U or finding a better use for continuously passenger-active rails like the Cape is so unbelievably huge I don't see how anyone could mistake them for the same lump.

Denigrate the "RR.net professionals" with excessive snark all you want...they don't seem to have any trouble telling such divergent cases apart.

What part of

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:

CRail wrote:This simply would have been a point made and forgotten about if the naysayers weren't so avid in their saying of nay. Stop pretending like you know the future better than anyone else. I wouldn't bet $5 on ever seeing a freight train travel alongside route 28 in Salem again, but to speak of its feasibility, oh boy you bet! Much of what was done in the second half of the 20th century is going to be undone, that's a simple inevitability. And when it happens, we're going to see certain things return to a state resembling what they were, and that includes rail. That doesn't mean that every branch line that ever was will resume with F units and GP9s chugging past signal towers hooping train orders, but you're going to see some of the shadows filling in again. Railroads will never return to the metropolises that they built (think of the B&M yards in East Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, etc... anyone who said they'd ever get that land back would be absolutely certifiable), which makes the outskirts of economic centers like Derry and Lawrence and the like the prime spots for industrial redevelopment.

You don't have to think I'm right, but it's not possible to tell me or anyone else that you can attest otherwise.

is so hard to differentiate from an argument that something is GOING to happen. This isn't, "it will happen"/"no it won't," it's "it could happen/no it won't/ok, maybe not, but it could/no it won't/you don't know that it won't/it wont!"...

I want you to try something new: After you read a post, stop. Don't touch the keyboard. Wait. Think... keep thinking... now that you're done, think some more (get my drift?)... Stop autoreplying at a million words per minute with your needle stuck. When I can argue your points with a previous quote of my own, you're just wasting everyone's time and screen space (especially when the immediately previous post is quoted to its entirety). You don't think that rail line will ever come back (nor do I, actually), we have that concept, the horse is dead. The future can't be proven, however, so stop trying.