Danvers MA rails about to be pulled

The milepost is located near the Chestnut Street crossing. Head up Locust (Rt 35), past Poplar and turn right on Chestnut, (just before the white nursing home). At the crossing, face toward the square and the milepost will be on the left, about 100' down the track, you can see the fence that shows in the photo behind it. I had missed it too until I took my time biking and looking at the entire line. I tried to find the next one a mile north, but the flooding prevented me from getting to the Wenham Street crossing. Not sure if there is another one there or not. I can tell you that further up the line there are several mileposts in the Georgetown area, and I even found one near the Bradford station.

Also at the Chestnut Street crossing, and it is easy to miss, is the electronic signal box for the signals that must have protected the crossing many years ago. It is on a wooden post and covered with vines. It is also on the left as you face downtown. I stumbled on that too as I noticed that there were wire connectors on a couple rail joints, which suggested some sort of crossing protection. I will try and post a photo of that too.

The Chestnut Street crossing was repaired in the 1970's with a special experimental crossing...almost a rubberized ashphalt that they wanted to try out. It was pretty unique. I have photos of the local DPW pulling the crossing...not sure of the date, probably in the mid '80s.

mapquest link:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Danve ... code=BLOCK

Steve

highrail wrote:The milepost is located near the Chestnut Street crossing. Head up Locust (Rt 35), past Poplar and turn right on Chestnut, (just before the white nursing home). At the crossing, face toward the square and the milepost will be on the left, about 100' down the track, you can see the fence that shows in the photo behind it. I had missed it too until I took my time biking and looking at the entire line. I tried to find the next one a mile north, but the flooding prevented me from getting to the Wenham Street crossing. Not sure if there is another one there or not. I can tell you that further up the line there are several mileposts in the Georgetown area, and I even found one near the Bradford station.

Also at the Chestnut Street crossing, and it is easy to miss, is the electronic signal box for the signals that must have protected the crossing many years ago. It is on a wooden post and covered with vines. It is also on the left as you face downtown. I stumbled on that too as I noticed that there were wire connectors on a couple rail joints, which suggested some sort of crossing protection. I will try and post a photo of that too.

The Chestnut Street crossing was repaired in the 1970's with a special experimental crossing...almost a rubberized ashphalt that they wanted to try out. It was pretty unique. I have photos of the local DPW pulling the crossing...not sure of the date, probably in the mid '80s.

mapquest link:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Danve ... code=BLOCK

Steve

many thanx,steve...............andy

removal of rails and hardware continues today at the pine st. crossing(the other side of row, opposite to the side that was removed)
they're taking apart the runaround. same crew. andy

Tues, April 6th
Destruction, er, removal of the rails continues west beyond Collins Street today, near Merrimack Beer Distributor. They will continue to the Peabody line, which is past Rt 114.

Rail removal continues past Merrimac and Seaboard Distributors;
just about up to rte 114. There are 2 crews now working, using 2 fork trucks.
Iron Horse Preservation, a long way from home. their truck has Nevada
plates attached. Somebody must've made it worth their while
Bad A

article in the local paper today about the company pulling the rails:
http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_s ... 22906.html

The section of the line from the trestle at the Waters River (Danvers/Peabody line) to downtown is not being removed at this time.

Still sad to see a once productive line picked apart. "Its efforts also preserve the railroad right of way, albeit without the worn-out tracks." As if they would be able to re-use it for some transit option...doubtful.

They are hard at work, the other day they were taking out the old Elliott Fuels siding. Sad, I remember in my youth there would always be a few cars spotted there.

The article claims the trail will be constructed at no cost to the town - I wish the reporter asked a follow up question or two, such as, will it be paved? I can't imagine it would be for the price. In any case, I am amazed at the speed this is happening, I think the Peabody trail took 10 or 20 years, maybe even more. I think the portion of this line saw some freight as late as 2001.

For once my timing to get some photos before the line was torn out actually worked. The siding at Elliot fuels had three tracks there, and I too remember cars there most of the time. I also recall boxcars tucked onto the siding for sylvannia, located just a short distance from Pine Street. I think the last 2 customers were the beer distibutor and the gas company in Danversport.

rail removal continues on the branch all the way
up to the ipswich river in topsfield. same company
and same equipment. workin' hard. full truck with
picked up rail. i wonder why they skipped pulling
the rail up in parts of danvers.(chestnut st.)awfully close
to people's homes. also, no real access to the tracks. just
my guess. Bad

Badandy wrote:rail removal continues on the branch all the way
up to the ipswich river in topsfield. same company
and same equipment. workin' hard. full truck with
picked up rail. i wonder why they skipped pulling
the rail up in parts of danvers.(chestnut st.)awfully close
to people's homes. also, no real access to the tracks. just
my guess. Bad

Its that NIMBY thing.

Highrail I Have lived in Danvers my whole life and can remember seeing some rail action. It would be great if you could post some of those pictures or if you could email them to me. I walked through the old sylvania plant on sylvan st last week and it looked like they used to push the boxcars right into the building. I know they used to put the boxcars into the building over at the sylvania warehouse behind Mcdonalds that is know wakefield moving and storage i think. I have been searching for pictures and stories about rail service in danvers for years and have had limited success. thank you

Re: the request for photos, a nice one of a train crossing elm str. in danvers was just posted a few days ago on nerail, i think we can thank badandy for that one?

Re: removing these rails, the story is that iron horse is doing the work in exchange for the materials. Well, they have been at it for at least 2 months now, and I cannot understand how the rail can be worth so much - the labor to remove all the rails and ties, and then smooth out the grade for a rail trail? If the rail was worth that much, why didn't the MBTA take it out themselves 4 years ago, when scrap metal was at its peak?

asdfjkl wrote: Re: removing these rails, the story is that iron horse is doing the work in exchange for the materials. Well, they have been at it for at least 2 months now, and I cannot understand how the rail can be worth so much - the labor to remove all the rails and ties, and then smooth out the grade for a rail trail? If the rail was worth that much, why didn't the MBTA take it out themselves 4 years ago, when scrap metal was at its peak?

A lot of the metal isn't scrap, so it gets reused which probably sells for more. That's just my guess.

E.

We believe that we were the last ones to operate in Danvers.

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

There was stretch of track that ran from route 97 to where the Putnamville station was in Danvers, this stretch of track had no grade crossings and was out in the woods. Not much clearing was required.

This video was taken about a year before they tore up the iron.

That stretch of track featured a fairly deep cut and a superelevated curve that had a fairly good angle to it. On the railrider the person on the outside was notiably higher than the person in the inside.

I was surprised to see the superelevated curve but the curve was fairly sharp and since the line orignally was used for passenger service they would want to be able to keep speed up.

Too bad the iron was torn up.

I think this video will get all of you as excited as it got me. Newburyport Branch activity in Wakefield, Lynnfield, Peabody and Danvers with 2 scenes of crossing over route 1! This is pure gold! Enjoy! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER8x6eyh9po