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  • The Stony Brook Branch

  • 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

 #1456136  by Trinnau
 
johnpbarlow wrote:Rigby to Mechanicville in 12 hours with a single crew is even more impressive.
It is in the perspective of today's trains on Pan Am, but with the train ready to go, all the crew had to do was get on and leave. It's about 268 miles - an average speed of just over 22 mph in 12 hours. So an average speed of 30mph gives you a 9 hour trip. Several crew districts in the western part of the country extend well over 300 miles (in areas of 60mph freight track).
 #1456951  by neman2
 
I found something interesting on the Town of Westford online property lookup tool. The old right of way of the Nashua,Acton and Boston Railroad from the Stony Brook Main Line to North Main Street by St. Catherine Church is owned by Pan Am. The assessor's records show " owner- Boston and Maine Corporation, 100 feet X 550 feet, 1.147 acres, Grantor-Nashua and Acton railroad, sale date- April 22, 1931. Value-$220,000.00"

The parcel includes the abutments that span the old trolley line on the north side of the Stony Brook. The old right of way to the south of the Stony is owned by the town and is a recreational trail.

I would guess they bought it back in 1931 to prevent a competing railroad from buying the NA&B row?
Here's a link to the Westford assessor's web site,it's lot 25-75 if you can figure out how to use it.

https://www.mapsonline.net/westfordma/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1457793  by neman2
 
I am amazed ( as are others) that a duplex home that has been recently built at 49 North Main St. in Westford. The home has a deck in the rear where one could almost serve food to locomotive crews as they sit at CPF 309 as they often do. I can't imagine having to listen to locomotives idling for hours on end as they often do at this location. The way the home sits the second floor is almost at street level in the front. The land at one time was the location of a rail loading area for granite extracted from a nearby quarry. ( Now Graniteville Materials) .

Maybe Pan Am could rent a room for crews that often tie down their trains here.

I will try to attach a picture.
 #1480557  by Dick H
 
PAR moved the NH National Guard military equipment train of 67 cars between
Concord NH and Worcester MA. Video by Royal Hudson Rail Videos shows the
train on the Stoney Brook line at N, Chelmsford, Westford and Ayer. 16 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgL_tV1sjuA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1487224  by neman2
 
neman2 wrote:Because I frequent this area of Pan Am I'm starting this thread about this section of the railroad from Ayer to Chelmsford .

I am posting a picture of the recent rail replacement project that took place in the fall of 2017. The picture shows what happens when you don't replace bad ties before installing new rail. The ties disintegrate. There are more areas like this.

[img]
IMG_0333a(800x600).jpg
[/img]

I figured I would make an update to my original post so I checked the areas where I took these pictures last year. I guess most will not be surprised when I found nothing further has been done in these areas, it looks the same, broken ties and all. When they started installing this rail I thought that they would complete the job with new stone, surfacing and crossing replacement but nothing seems to be happening.
 #1487256  by CPF363
 
It is somewhat surprising that the Stony Brook rebuilding project did not include new ties, tamping and surfacing after all of the effort last year to install all of the new rail. Based on the photos in the original thread, the line would need another 1000 ties per mile to get the real bad ones out. The roughly one or so mile at the very eastern end of the line still has jointed rail on it also, so that would also have to be replaced bring the entire line to completion. One would have thought another train of rail would have come up to complete that section in addition to replacing much of worn out curve rail on the Lowell Branch with a follow-on tie and surfacing job so that freight moves can run over the 20 miles between LJ and WL in a reasonable amount of time.
 #1487273  by johnpbarlow
 
I've no idea what PAR mgmt's view is of the priority for improving condition of the roughly 14 miles of the Pan Am owned track between CPF-WL and CPF-LO to permit higher speeds than 10mph but in my observations, the Stony Brook is often treated as a place to tie down trains between crews. Even if the entire branch was in pristine condition, throughput speed of the 4 daily trains might not be improved substantially. Of course, the likelihood of derailments would be reduced - a key concern given the amount of LPG that ships over the line.
 #1487284  by newpylong
 
Remember WL to WL east is PAS and as such 1 track is 25 MPH. So you have roughly 22 miles from WL East to LJ at 10 MPH that's a whopping 2 hrs 12 minutes just to get across the Stony and Lowell branches. Down to 52 minutes if they get it up to 25 MPH and the ability to enter and leave passenger territory at both ends with more fluidity. Having trains canned at Graniteville or Westford, or Lowell become less intrusive if you can move past them with any speed too.

It again comes down to what the hell are they thinking? Especially laying new rail and nothing else to go with it.
 #1488405  by BostonUrbEx
 
The No.2 track from CPF 307 to CPF 309 is only timetabled for 10mph, and has at times been temporarily restricted to just 5mph. I don't think they'd waste the time in upgrading that when they can't even keep the Single and No.1 tracks up to their 25mph timetable speed most of the time.
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