Will Reading, MA ever see freights trains again?

The last time I personally witnessed a daylight ST freight in Reading was in spring of 2001, sometime around the end of freight service to Wakefield.

The only reason you'll ever see ST in Reading in daylight again is a BO-1 detour around the N.H. Main for some reason substantial enough to warrant clogging the Oak Grove to Reading Jct. single track with a freight train. BO-1 does get out to Lawrence often enough, so anything *is* possible.

I grew up watching local switchers move cars through Reading daily. There were even industries in Reading that received cars:
- General Tire rubber factory (now K&G Men's Mart). The rubber factory closed in 1979.
- Warehouses behind RMLD on Ash Street. Probably received its last boxcar load around 1984.
- Boston Stove (new Stop&Shop is on that site now)
- Trancoa
- A natural gas compressor station behind the old TASC building used to receive tankloads. It must have a better connection to the high-pressure gas transmission grid now.

Occasionally long freights would pass through until the late 1970s, but I believe these were detours along the route including the Fitchburg Main, the cut-off and then up the Western Route.

Do you have any pictures of these sidings?

Do you have any pictures of these sidings?

If only... I had an interest in trains long before I developed an interest in photography. I have no photos of 1970s or 1980s railroading in Reading.

This 2004 photo shows some relics of freight RR activity in Reading long ago:
http://massroads.com/image.php?subject= ... s_20040429

This photo was taken looking compass southeast, RR timetable west, along the Western Route in Reading near the eastern end of the middle track in Reading. This would be right next to Cerretani's, now the site of that new Osco or whatever it is now.

The former siding in the foreground went to the General Tire plant and was probably last used in 1979. I remember watching a rusted maroon switcher (maybe an SW1) spotting cars on it once.

The large building in the background across the tracks is one of the warehouses at North Central Warehouses. This building received boxcars until about 1983 or 84. The side of the building facing the tracks has several large doors designed to be used with a string of boxcars.

Here are a couple more interesting recent Reading shots. The first shows the end of the double track and the beginning of the Reading Running Track at Ash Street:
http://shawsheen.com/2007/sept22/slides/IMG_3662.html

This shot was taken from Newcrossing Road:
http://shawsheen.com/2007/sept23/slides/IMG_3838.html

Newcrossing Road was built in 1988 on the former loading ramp to the freight siding behind Trancoa. This photo shows the middle track which is still used occasionally to store MoW equipment. There was a short fourth track that was removed, and I would have been standing on it when I took this photo looking timetable west. Trancoa was on my right, and the North Central Warehouses where the fourth track terminated are behind me. The Downeaster in this shot is unusual and is the reason I took this photo.

Here we go:

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20071 ... 916617.jpg

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20070 ... 822719.jpg

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20060 ... 919616.jpg

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20050 ... 524102.jpg

There we go, indeed! David's photographs are amazing and capture everything I remember about railroading in Reading when I was riding bikes in the woods along the RR behind the warehouses and going to Cerretani's with my mother. I'd stay in the car sometimes to watch the trains.

The second photo shows North Central Warehouse and the end of one boxcar clearly visible.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20070 ... 822719.jpg

The third was taken from the signal tower looking timetable east toward Reading. Chemical tank cars are apparently on the siding at Trancoa. On the right foreground is the switch to the natural gas substation and tank farm.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20060 ... 919616.jpg

The 1971 date of the Boston Stove spur photo puts it right at the time the Town of Reading was building its new trash incinerator next door to Boston Stove. This explains the construction debris and materials in the right background. Stop&Shop is on this site now.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20050 ... 524102.jpg

OT: The Town of Reading incinerator at this site was constructed in 1971 and used for several years until it was abandoned in 1978 because of reliability problems. It was torn down in 1983 to make way for the TASC building, however the construction loans for this failure weren't paid off until the late 1980s. The ash from the incinerator was trucked across the street to the town landfill which Reading desperately tried to sell for 20 years. This is now Jordan's Furniture.

Dave[/quote]
It has been awhile since I have seen or heard of any of the Ayer locals venturing east to West Cambridge. The only reason for them to do so now would be to go down the Watertown Branch to Newlyweds Foods, and judging from the rust on the rails, nothing has moved over the branch for some time. The last move to Newlyweds I heard about was out of Boston. But, all that could change. [/quote]

Isn't there a bulk load/unload opposite the MBTA shop in West Cambridge? Haven't looked recently, but it seems there are usually cars there. Anyhow, saw a local pass through Boxborough a few weeks ago and can't think of any other customers between there and Cambridge.

Dave

davidp wrote:Dave

It has been awhile since I have seen or heard of any of the Ayer locals venturing east to West Cambridge. The only reason for them to do so now would be to go down the Watertown Branch to Newlyweds Foods, and judging from the rust on the rails, nothing has moved over the branch for some time. The last move to Newlyweds I heard about was out of Boston. But, all that could change. [/quote]

Isn't there a bulk load/unload opposite the MBTA shop in West Cambridge? Haven't looked recently, but it seems there are usually cars there. Anyhow, saw a local pass through Boxborough a few weeks ago and can't think of any other customers between there and Cambridge.

Dave[/quote]
That was New England Co-Op you're thinking of. They moved to North Billerica quite awhile ago. As of now the only customer on the Fitchburg Route Main east of the Willows is Kraft, formerly Veryfine, at Littleton. I'm not sure of the current status of Newlyweds Foods on the Watertown Branch. I think the last move there was to rescue some empties, and that was done by BO-1. Some recent customer losses are Americold on the Bemis Branch. Spagna in Somerville moved out to the Willows years ago. I'm not real up to speed on any Fitchburg line side customers east of Swift interlocking. I've never noticed any riding the commuter rail, but that doesn't mean they aren't any. One reason you may have seen the local go through Boxborough was to run around their train at South Acton after lifting at Kraft. I spoke with the crew some time ago and they said they were no longer allowed to back to Ayer from Littleton (Kraft's siding is trailing point eastbound), so unless they had an engine at each end, they had to do the run-around on the Down Straight at South Acton.

mick wrote:

jbvb wrote:You aren't going to see much local freight on Guilford in general unless they start seriously soliciting carload traffic to customer spurs...

They don't want carload traffic unless it's profitable, no railroad does. A lumber yard that gets 1 car a week is just not worth it to them, especially if the company is at an outlying area. Maki Lumber in Gardner gets a few cars here and there, but only because the Fitchburg locals go by there anyway..

GTI probably can't make money. So if they're left to their own devices, once all the customers are gone they can sell the real-estate and move on. Rusty rails in Salem, Malden and WIlmington Jct. presage this. But nationwide, there are a lot of examples where improved management and service arrive and make it possible and even profitable to look for new customers. There are even several in New England. And if MA ever makes it a priority, we might see some change.

I saw what was technically a freight car on the Reading "middle" as recently as 2004...but not a Guilford car. I was crossing the tracks by the Reading train station and I looked south and there was a faint lump in the distance and I said "That looks like a gondola down under 128." I drove down to the office park by the Wakefield line and sure enough it was an orange AMTK gondola, just north of the 128 underpass, full of ties for the trackwork in that area.

i think within the last few years, i remember seeing box cars parked next west foster st. (melrose)

maybe it was on the deering spur, i'm not sure.

AWESOME photos you guys, original and found!

Alexander, I love those Downeaster pictures. Despite living and Reading I was not able to get any shots of the Downeaster there...I must have been up here at school. Why was the train routed through Reading this time? Also, where did you take these two pictures:

http://shawsheen.com/2007/sept22/slides/IMG_3725.html
http://shawsheen.com/2007/sept22/slides/IMG_3746.html


I am loving this thread! I have always been a train person but I am relatively young and I haven't been "hardcore" into the hobby for all that long. As a result, my knowledge of local railroad history is spotty at best. I feel like I am reconnecting with my home town and my younger self.

Those two pictures are mislabeled by me and are actually in Wakefield near North and Albion Streets.

The Downeaster used the Western Route detour on 22-23 September because of track work in Woburn.

Reading has a rich history of railroading and I find it disappointing that all that is left is a commuter rail stop while the adjacent and historic B&M depot stands as a real estate office after enduring a series of endless restaurant failures since 1983.

The railroad brought Reading into the industrial age in the mid-1800s and soon made it an early commuter bedroom community of Boston. Factories made shoes, neckties, hats, pipe organs, stoves, rubber, and chemicals. Haven Street was built by the town sometime after 1850 as the direct path from the Square to the B&M depot. By 1900, tract developments and grids of residential streets sprouted within walking distance of the Reading Depot and Reading Highlands.

The Boston and Maine had a roundhouse and a yard at Reading Highlands. The area that is Frank Tanner Drive and the Reading Housing Authority project was built by the Town in the 1960s on the former B&M yards and roundhouse site.

The manufacturing and rail freight disappeared as the regional economy changed. Not the B&M, not even Guilford drove all of the rail traffic away, but rather it was the decreased regional manufacturing sector that dried up the rail traffic. How can there be freight trains when there aren't any factories making bulk commodities and products? How can there be carloads of lumber delivered when there isn't a building boom, and the region is completely built out with no population growth?

The truth is that there isn't much to bring in or out by train anymore, especially in the suburban bedroom communities like Reading. Boston is no longer a city that makes anything in bulk other than garbage, probably the only thing that will keep trains rolling in. We don't "make" anything and have offshored manufacturing to China. Warehousing has diminished with "just in time" distribution, requiring a fast supply chain solution that rail freight often can't meet.

You could come to Andover and watch trainloads move between Atlantic Canada, Maine, and the mainland US, bypassing Boston completely.

jbvb wrote:

mick wrote:

jbvb wrote:You aren't going to see much local freight on Guilford in general unless they start seriously soliciting carload traffic to customer spurs...

They don't want carload traffic unless it's profitable, no railroad does. A lumber yard that gets 1 car a week is just not worth it to them, especially if the company is at an outlying area. Maki Lumber in Gardner gets a few cars here and there, but only because the Fitchburg locals go by there anyway..

GTI probably can't make money. So if they're left to their own devices, once all the customers are gone they can sell the real-estate and move on. Rusty rails in Salem, Malden and WIlmington Jct. presage this. But nationwide, there are a lot of examples where improved management and service arrive and make it possible and even profitable to look for new customers. There are even several in New England. And if MA ever makes it a priority, we might see some change.

There hasn't been a "GTI" in years. That company is now Pan Am Systems. Nobody knows whether they make money or not; they're privately held. And the don't own any real estate in localities mentioned, the previous B&M management, prior to the Guilford purchase, sold those routes to the MBTA. The only parcel they held onto was in E. Cambridge, which they are now selling.

I just caught a Guilford unit pulling two cement cars by my house on the Reading/Haverhill line for the 2nd time this week. Is there a new customer on the line? I know for a fact they aren't re-routing from the wildcat line, because the Downeaster would be making trips by my house and they're not.

Can someone enlighten us on this one?

Thanks,
Dave

That was SALA-27 with 2 cars (l load, 1 empty).

LOSA-27 started out of Somerville this morning,
going to Salem with 6 cars.

They asked to go out the Reading mainline instead
of the Lowell Line/Wildcat back to Lawrence.

D