Railroad Forums 

  • Where are Guilford's main yards in Mass.?

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #181439  by Rockingham Racer
 
"Other rail yards" means you mention at least one, so others can be mentioned. Let's say E. Deefield, Ayer, Lowell and Lawrence, although Lawrence isn't very "major" any more.

 #182559  by Porter Sq
 
Lowell isn't that major eaither three tracks two for storage and one for the Main Line Guilfords storage tracks are well over a mile though. It is still nothing like it was. don't forget North Billerica also

 #183698  by NHN1757
 
Lawrence in some ways seems bigger than Lowell, more parallel tracks at least but not as many long storage tracks.

If you look on the old topos you will see that there were two yards in S. Lawrence, a turntable and enjine house as well as a good sized yard across the river in N. Lawrence.

Other places that G uses for car storage are Rockingham Jct where cars going to and from Portsmouth and Hampton are set, Dover where the interchange with the NHN is, and of course Rigby Yard in S. Portland / Scarborough.

Places no longer used include the Hale Street yard in Haverhill, where there used to be an enjine house and turntable, Bradford yard is now an MBTA layover facility. The Georgetown branch used to branch off at the curve in Bradford and there was a paper customer a couple miles down the branch.

Newton Jct had a couple of long passing tracks and was where the Merrimac MA branch was.

 #184263  by Xplorer2000
 
Salem Ma. has two or three track remnant on Bridge St., that were occasionaly used to stage / store the trains that serve the Eastman Gelatin plant and the few remaining industries over there in Peabody., or they did until that tank car sprung a leak some time back. Then everybody got their panties in a twist, and I haven't seen cars there very much at all.

The upper Salem yard is still partially in place, but almost nothing remains in use.
Its too bad....I can remember riding my bike from Salem to Swampscott in the late '70s/ early '80s to watch the freights head back towards Boston and points west. Usually three assorted B&M Geeps and on occasion, fifty or more cars.
Lynn also once had yards, adjacent to the G.E River Works, but all that's left now is a short, stub-ended on the inbound side of the Commuter Rail tracks, that the "T" uses for MOW purposes. The other side was piled full of construction debris ages ago.

 #184321  by New Haven 1
 
Guilford also has a modest size yard in Springfield. While it isn't nearly used as much as it once was, still there are some sets of cars spotted in it. I haven't been there in quite a long time,but, when I was in the area last they did have a crew assigned to work it primarily for the interchange with what is now CSX. I don't know if this is still true today though. You can still catch a glimpse of the yard while travelling Rte. 91 South looking to the right in the area of Exit 11 and slightly past that.

 #185188  by Engineer Spike
 
Fitchburg is bigger than some you mentioned. Gardner is active, and is an interchange with P&W. I don't know how much still goes on in Holyoke.