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Short history of the line, by David Blazejewski, author/photog. Taken from his Flickr posting here >
Fore River 102 Starting Their Day
This is one of Southern New England's smallest and most obscure railroads. Fore River Transportation based in Quincy operates a scant 2.7 mile mainline down to a connection with the MBTA Greenbush Line at Shipyard interlocking and another mile or so of trackage around Quincy. There they run less than a mile to Adams Junction to take the south leg of the wye on to the MBTA Middleboro mainline at GREEN for a short run of less than a half mile down to Braintree yard where they interchange with CSXT that comes up from Middleboro five nights a week with local B729 to handle their own customers and the interchange.
One of the most appealing things about the Fore River is that they still roster a pair of GE B23-7s. These are the class 1 local units of my youth, and they were ubiquitous on Conrail and the P&W all over southern New England throughout the 1990s. But upon the split in 1999 they were quickly banished elsewhere by CSXT and then retired and P&Ws fell by the wayside in favor of newer GEs. But here on this little road two of the classic little 12 cylinder FDL GEs still burble along in rvenene service, and both once proudly wore Conrail blue. #101 was blt. in Jul. 1979 as CR 1992 and #102 was blt. in Jul 1978 as CR 1980.
As for the railroad itself here is a a bit of history. The Fore River railroad was developed by Thomas A. Watson, assistant to telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Watson used his telephone profits to start an engine and boat factory in East Braintree, “The Fore River Shipyard Engine Company.” In 1898, Watson’s company was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to build 2 destroyers and a cruiser.
In 1900 the company moved to a new facility at Quincy Point where the 3 vessels were completed. At first, transporting heavy materials to Watson’s new shipyard was a slow and expensive process; the nearest railroad ended over 2 miles away, in East Braintree. Rail shipments had to be unloaded in Braintree, hauled to the Fore River, and finally, floated to Quincy. In 1902, Watson had a private rail line built along the river to bring supplies directly from Braintree to the shipyard. Operations began on June 1, 1903.
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the Fore River Shipyard and Railroad just before World War I. During the war, shipyard workers built 36 destroyers and several "zero" class and "R" class submarines.
In 1919, the Fore River Railroad was formally incorporated as separate holding from the Bethlehem Steel shipyard. During World War II, the Fore River Railroad Corporation's steam locomotives carried over 750,000 tons of construction materials for U.S. Navy cruisers, battleships, destroyers and aircraft carriers, including the Lexington. General Dynamics Corp. purchased the shipyard and railroad in 1963.
After the yard closed in 1986, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority acquired the shipyard and railroad. From 1987-1992, MWRA used Fore River facilities as a staging area and transportation system for the Boston Harbor Project. MWRA sold most of its shipyard property upon completion of the project but retained the railroad to transport its Bay State Fertilizer.
Fore River Railroad is the underlying owner of the property and holds the common carrier obligations for the line, but operation of it is contracted out. In the late 80s and through the 90s the line was operated by the Quincy Bay Terminal, an affiliate of New Hampshire's New England Southern, but in 2000 FRVT took over. FRVT is a Class III railroad owned by its largest customer, Twin Rivers Technology LLC, a manufacturer of industrial inorganic chemicals (rendering of glycerin, fatty acids). Twin Rivers purchased the former Proctor & Gamble soap plant in 1994 and in 2007 the company was purchased by FGV a Malaysian Global Agribusiness company that was originally and arm of the Malaysian government agency FELDA but was taken public in 2012.
There is your dose of totally non train related information to accompany this photo!
Here is B23-7 102 after having backed out of the shop area and crossing over so they can head to Braintree. This day they just ran down light engine and picked up a cut of cars to bring back. An old shipyard building is at right and in the background are the Bay State Fertilizer silos.
Quincy, Massachusetts
Thursday March 8, 2018