Iron Horse Park (North Billerica)

[KEN PATRICK]

newpylong: the pleadings in grafton v. g&urr are germane in this issue. You should advise town mgmt of this case. I believe a decision is soon. However, as i have opined , federal pre-emption does not cover transloading facilities. Transloading must comply with town by-laws. The federal legislation is generalized to 'railroad operations'. The grafton facility would hold 320,000 gals of propane. STB has another g&urr case involving wood pellets. The plaintiffs have added a washington heavy-hitter railroad lawyer to their case. My read is the lawyer would not get involved unless optimistic that this case presents STB with the chance to finally define what congress failed to do. ken patrick

[Red Wing]

It appears to me that the Billerica's big issue is fire suppression. This would seem to be a reasonable request with all the activity that occurs there.

[BostonUrbEx]

With talk of stipulations that the MBTA's new Orange Line and Red Line car bid being required to be built in Massachusetts, any chance this could be the site for them to be built? They could even receive materials via rail (or just use 3 or 495 like they probably will...) and send completed cars out by rail. I can't imagine too many places which would be as ideal as here.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

With talk of stipulations that the MBTA's new Orange Line and Red Line car bid being required to be built in Massachusetts, any chance this could be the site for them to be built? They could even receive materials via rail (or just use 3 or 495 like they probably will...) and send completed cars out by rail. I can't imagine too many places which would be as ideal as here.

Except that the shops are derelict and the whole area is chemically contaminated to hell. There's nowhere on it that could be quickly converted into an active factory. It's like Readville Yard 5 on the site of the old NH shops. It's now finally been remediated thanks to grants attached to the Fairmount Line improvements project and can finally have new structures built on it if the T sees fit, but before that happened they were restricted to using it in more or less derelict "as-is" condition as little more than a place to assemble track panels and stage southside work consists. The only thing the T (which owns all the property) can use Billerica for is outdoor staging for vehicle dispersal. The Blue Line 0600's, Flyer TT's, and lots and lots of retired RTS buses were all trucked out there before moving on to the scrappers.

It's a shame they won't come up with the remediation money to knock the too-far-gone shops down and clean up the site. It's such a GOLDEN area for redevelopment as a freight farm. Unfortunately since PAR isn't the landowner--the state is--they really can't be the initiating party on that. Much as the new regime is probably licking its chops at the long-term future potential there.

[MEC407]

One of the buildings at Iron Horse Park burned to the ground over the weekend.

From the Lowell Sun:

An old, out-of-service hydrant in Iron Horse Park did not help extinguish a Sunday brush fire, which quickly turned into a significant blaze that leveled an old storage building for the railroad, according to Billerica Deputy Chief Tom Ferraro.

When a fire engine responded at 4:02 p.m., firefighters used 500 gallons of water in about five minutes, Ferraro said. Billerica firefighters then tried to use the industrial park's private hydrant, but it was out of service, he said.

Firefighters had to go 1,000 feet away to connect to a working hydrant, and by the time they came back, the blustery conditions had extended the blaze into 1700 Iron Horse Park, a dilapidated old storage building owned by Pan-Am Railways, according to Ferraro.
. . .
"The heat and humidity were brutal," Ferraro said. "The guys worked extremely hard and did a fantastic job containing it so it wouldn't get into any of the occupied buildings."

There was some damage to materials in Sanford Company's yard, he said. In addition, he believes there was some heat damage to the MBTA vehicles stored across from the blaze.

Read more at: http://www.lowellsun.com/news/ci_233763 ... e-response" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Is anybody pushing an effort to get some environmental remediation funding to clean up this site so somebody can finally do something with it? It's pretty much forever consigned to being a dead zone as long as the contamination prevents erecting new structures on the shops site.

[newpylong]

Well, it is a Superfund site so there has already been substantial federal funds spent on remediation of the adjacent area. If the MBTA wanted to do something on the site of the old shops themselves I am sure they would make a further effort. As of now I guess they don't see the need for facility expansion. There are always the rumors of them rebuilding the shops for heavy repairs but who knows.

The rest of the site (Shaffer Landfill) is actually going to be shortly sold by the town to an energy company who is going to build the largest solar farm in the state and assume all liabilities and back taxes. It should be quite a site to see from the train.

[riffian]

From recently uploaded Google Earth images it appears that Iron Horse Park has had substantial cleanup since I was last there three, or four years ago. All of the derelict locos are gone and much of the other "junk" appears gone too. there was a good deal of rail material and derelict fright cars, including one of the B&M milk cars, all appear gone. The lumber reload also appears to be a booming business and must count as one of PanAm's largest customers in Eastern Mass.

[Sir Ray]

Reviewing this thread, I decide to again check the Bing & Google views of Iron Horse Park.

Now, one thing I found interesting was the views of Siegel Egg (former Purity Warehouse),
Google and many Bing views show a siding curving thru the parking lot to an roll-up train entrance in the building, the siding protected by concrete barriers (to prevent vehicles from fouling the tracks I suppose). This matches Wayne Johnson's photo of the site being switched from Sep 2009. OK so far.
However, quite a few of the angle views in Bing show there being no siding, and the parking lot full of semi-trailers (certainly several dozen), and a few stubbed siding tracks to the East (hopefully this view works). So, is the siding still there and in use (meaning the siding-less Bing views are the old ones), or has the siding been removed? I'm guessing the siding views are more current, so when was the siding added as that would give an idea of how stale the dang Bing Views are (at least 3+ years it seems).

Also, do the other two industries directly to the south of Siegel Egg receive rail service (one industry offset to the East a bit and having a lone storage silo, and the other industry having an enclosed loading dock and what looks like a glass enclosed curved hallwall which runs the length of the building)

[newpylong]

Is there a way to see what year the images were taken? That is strange, that is the old Boston Globe printing plant as far as I know. It has been vacant since they closed probably 5 years ago. Waste Management is spending $5 million on the site to turn it into a regional recycling center. Unsure if they will get rail service. I also noticed the discrepancies in the rail siding there vs not there and the double stub sidings. I honestly can't say what the site looks like now. The images with the siding there sure looks newer.

The middle building with the silo is the Portland Group (they are a wholesale distributor of HVAC stuff), not a rail user. I assume they were something else previously, and did get service.

The southernmost building I am unsure of but I believe they are a rail user.

Sad I don't know more and I live in Billerica. Perhaps someone who has worked the switcher here can provide better information.

[MEC407]

From the Lowell Sun:

That useless hydrant was also owned by Pan Am, which knew the hydrant was broken months ago after flow tests, according to Town Manager John Curran and Fire Chief Tom Conway.

"Before this happened, the town had been on them about getting their hydrants fixed," Curran said. "This fire just demonstrated the validity of our concerns. They need to comply with safety regulations.

"Pan-Am has had a plan in place, but unfortunately didn't fix the hydrant in time," he added.

Read more at: http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadline ... d-must-fix" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[newpylong]

Weird. I wonder if part of the lease from the MBTA is complete maintenance of the property. They sure don't own it...

[theseaandalifesaver]

There hasn't been many old rail vehicles there in years. Last time I visited the site was in 2007 and it was mostly filled with old MBTA busses. But I believe those are now gone, too.

Must have been awesome to see with all the old vehicles though.

[bostontrainguy]

Is there a way to see what year the images were taken? That is strange, that is the old Boston Globe printing plant as far as I know. It has been vacant since they closed probably 5 years ago. Waste Management is spending $5 million on the site to turn it into a regional recycling center. Unsure if they will get rail service. I also noticed the discrepancies in the rail siding there vs not there and the double stub sidings. I honestly can't say what the site looks like now. The images with the siding there sure looks newer.

The middle building with the silo is the Portland Group (they are a wholesale distributor of HVAC stuff), not a rail user. I assume they were something else previously, and did get service.

The southernmost building I am unsure of but I believe they are a rail user.

Sad I don't know more and I live in Billerica. Perhaps someone who has worked the switcher here can provide better information.

This was an interesting subject. I used the Google Maps timeline and found that if you go back to 2003 you see the yard full of tractor-trailers with no rail spur. Then starting in 2007, the spur appears and is in the most recent pics. A nice reversal of how things usually go.

[CPF363]

Does the welded rail machine still exist in the old shop complex?