The Eastern Railroad revisited

All -

Due to the changes/upgrades to the site, the pictures disappeared from the original "The Eastern Railroad - South Berwick to Wells" thread rendering it rather useless. Therefore I've decided to recreate the thread as I've acquired additional material since the original thread was created.

I've hiked and photographed the old Eastern ROW the last couple of years from Conway Jct. in South Berwick to Arundel and I thought you might like to see the results. As most of you know, in 1952 the Eastern ROW, starting from the end of the Sarah Long bridge (Portsmouth/Kittery), has been paved over as Route 236 all the way to Jewett Station in South Berwick. From there, pretty much to Portland, the Eastern is intact, even 65 years after the rails were removed.

By the way, for those that don't know, you can click on each photo to enlarge.

Turntable pit at Conway Jct. in South Berwick. Starting here, the Eastern splits off from Rt. 236 and heads towards Portland.

Looking south towards Route 91. The other 2 shots are just past Conway Jct. This is the crossing of the Great Works River - the bridge long gone - probably as scrap in the 1950s.

Agamenticus station location today, just a few yards south of Emery's Bridge Rd. And the same view a century ago, looking south toward Conway Jct.

Opposite view, looking north towards N. Berwick.

Just a stones's throw from the Agamenticus depot, the B&M came through here and crossed Agamenticus Rd. to meet the Eastern at South Berwick Jct.

Lovers Brook Crossing. A lot of work went into crossing this small stream judging by the size of the granite blocks and the scope of the stone work.

Thank you for re-posting these!

Thanks for bringing this thread back. Those pictures are great, especially the then and now..

The Eastern built a causeway to cross Knights Pond, cutting it in half with no culvert to link both halves.
The remains of a "Style-B" semaphore signal concrete base. Bottom photo, the semaphore signal pole can just be seen in this 1952 photo from a 1991 issue of the B&M Bulletin. Almost 70 years of trees and brush have reclaimed much of the causeway in comparing the current photos to the 1952 photo.

1) Dennett Road Crossing - North Berwick. The granite abutments were intact when I first passed through in 2000. But whatever gas company that had built their gas line over the old Eastern ROW was told to bury it after 9/11. That's what I was told. Sadly, in doing so, they removed the granite abutments, now gone forever.

2) Cow crossing, just south of the Dennett Road crossing. I could be mistaken but I believe a farmer, 175 years ago, made an arrangement with the railroad to provide a tunnel so his cows could pass from one pasture to another.

Tunnel/arch, east side. This is the Hussey Brook crossing, North Berwick. Hard to believe a railroad once ran above it.

Tunnel/arch west side, Hussey Brook crossing. Note the keystone with '1842' incised into it.

The remains of a telegraph pole crossbar near the Hussey Brook crossing. (Bottom) ROW southbound. Or westbound in B&M parlance.

The Eastern crossed the Great Works river again just south of North Berwick station. Just up the river the B&M also crossed the Great Works river but the B&M decided to build a stone double arch instead of a granite block abutment/steel bridge configuration. The B&M and Eastern were only a few hundred feet apart from each other at this point and would cross just beyond North Berwick station.

Just south of the North Berwick depot, the same view looking toward South Berwick in 1952 and today. The section house was razed in 1952 when the tracks were torn up. The blue house in the modern photo was obscured by trees in the 1952 photo. The house to the right of the blue house in the current photo still stands and is indicated by the red arrow in both photos. The two other buildings attached to that house in the 1952 photo were torn down in the 1990s.

A big 'thank you' to Tom from the North Berwick Historical Society for his recollections and his help identifying the buildings in the 1952 photo.