Named freights

Did the railroad ever have these? I'm old enough to remember RW-1 [Rigby to Worcester] coming by FA tower in Lawrence, and the 2nd trick operator considered it a hot one. The Rocket comes to mind. Yes? No? Any names at all on the B&M?

If you go to the B &M Group on Yahoo Groups, you will get plenty of answers-and yes they had names! I have several B&M Freight Train Symbol Books, that give the names, the official company names,not the crews "nicknames".

Some of the fast B&M Freights were continuations of MEC names. MEC's most famous fright was the "Morning Glory", an early AM fast frieght out of Bangor, for Rigby, with only a stop at Waterville-at least in the 1920's.

I have some of these Freight Train Symbol books, but they are temporarily stored in boxes in our garage, as we are redoing "my library room".

"The Maine Bullet" was a famous fast freight handled by the MEC,B&M and New Haven to NYC. The "Rocket" was a TOFC train, run by BAR,MEC and B&M, and continued for a while under Guilford. Guilford even officially called one freight, "The Press Runner", with ADVERTISED 48 hr. service from Maine paper mills, to publishers in the midwest!

Will try & dig the symbols books out in next couple of days.

Of course, the number of "unoffcial nicknames" was very long-and often funny-but usually "valid". Good example was "The Mortgage Payer", the Lowell to Hillsborough(NH) way freight that is written up in Neal's book, "
"High Green & Bark Peelers".

Bud

The East Deerfield to Keene local freight (at least from Dole Junction to Keene) could have been called 'The Turtle' at least in it's last several years of Newleywedesque speed limits.

There were two name trains on the Boston-White River Junction-Wells River route. The outbound train (BU-1) was called The North Star, and the inbound (UB-2) was The Coaster.

Wells River was just a Register station, as the trains ran to/from Montreal under Canadian Pacific numbers 901 & 902 without the names.

Duane Goodman

Guilford had an intermodal train in the early days that was called The East Wind.

Wasn't there a local freight up to Gloucseter and Rockport called the "Camel's Hump"?

Did the Cheshire witness any regular name freights?

One of the Boston-Salem haulers was unofficially named "The Camel" by the
1950s. After the Newburyport draw was closed, the name was applied to
B-21, which ran Boston-Salem 6/week with 30+ cars and then worked to
Newburyport Wed-Sat and Rockport or Topsfield the other days. I only
rode it inbound, when it picked up at Salem, Lynn Sand & Stone in
Swampscott and the Lynn yard down by GE, and crossed the marsh with
50+ cars and a single GP-9.

The "Oil Job" was so named in official B&M documents - it worked the
Chelsea Creek terminals out of Boston.

According to Tom Nelligan's excellent book, "Bluebirds & Minutemen", there was a CV/B&M expedited piggyback service 1978-1984 called "THE ROCKET."
-Alan S.-

In Ralph Fisher's book, "Vanishing Markers" some of the other jobs were: High Car, which went up the Western Route. It handled cars bound north of Salem, on the Eastern Route. It handled the cars that could not go through the Salem Tunnel.

jbvb wrote:One of the Boston-Salem haulers was unofficially named "The Camel" by the
1950s. After the Newburyport draw was closed, the name was applied to
B-21, which ran Boston-Salem 6/week with 30+ cars and then worked to
Newburyport Wed-Sat and Rockport or Topsfield the other days. I only
rode it inbound, when it picked up at Salem, Lynn Sand & Stone in
Swampscott and the Lynn yard down by GE, and crossed the marsh with
50+ cars and a single GP-9.

The "Oil Job" was so named in official B&M documents - it worked the
Chelsea Creek terminals out of Boston.

how would it work rockport and topsfield? was there a wye in newburyport at the eastern and newburyport branch so it could travel south down the branch?

"or"

Rockport one day, Topsfield another.

In the 70's and 80's before it all went away,
there was the "Chelsea Goat", which went
to Revere/E.Boston. The "Boston Switcher"
did the Saugus Branch, Medford Branch or
other stuff. By the time I got on, they never
went past West Lynn. The "Camel" may have
morphed into the Boston Switcher.

When Monsanto was still open, there was the
"Monsanto Switcher", a second trick job
that went out just before and back in after
the PM rush hour.

D

Circa 1954, the 'Camel' was the morning Mystic Jct. - Salem hauler, so named because an H-3 0-8-0 could make two round trips without taking water. The 'Oil Job' was called later in the day. It had basically the same duties, moving freight between Mystic Jct. and Salem, but it also handled oil from the Chelsea Creek terminals. It wouldn't surprise me if this was because there was no room for a siding at the junction, so they had to make the set-out and pick-up in the interval between passenger trains.

Post-1965, B-21 went to Rockport two days a week, Newburyport two days a week and Danvers the other two. I know Nbpt. was Wed. & Sat., but I don't have my Symbol Book for that era handy, so I can't say which was Mon. & Thu. and which was Tue. & Fri.

Wasn't another Eastern Route train called Morning Glory?