The Marblehead Branch of the Boston and Maine

[JCitron]

My mom used to take the train on this branch to visit her grandparents. She remembered there being a pot belly stove in the station and the old wooden coaches having velvet seats. She rode the trains until the end of service in 1956.

I looked into building this branch once in Trainz but I never got around to it. It's not very long and had a unique set up around the station with a wye to turn the trains around along with some freight in Marblehead.

Ah, someday maybe.

 

[TSwenson]

Ah, someday maybe.

That is Schrödinger's statement for Trainz routes...

If you look at the statistics, 7 baseboards gets you just over 3 miles, figuring on 3 baseboards surrounding the line gets you 91 baseboards, while a 2 board buffer get 55. Certainly a doable project, just needing some... motivation.

My mother would take the train to Keene, NH (and Troy as well) to visit relatives in '40's-'50's, and when she worked in Boston in the '90's she was taking the train in... not a railfan, but someone who enjoyed train travel.

 

[JCitron]

That is Schrödinger's statement for Trainz routes...

If you look at the statistics, 7 baseboards gets you just over 3 miles, figuring on 3 baseboards surrounding the line gets you 91 baseboards, while a 2 board buffer get 55. Certainly a doable project, just needing some... motivation.

My mother would take the train to Keene, NH (and Troy as well) to visit relatives in '40's-'50's, and when she worked in Boston in the '90's she was taking the train in... not a railfan, but someone who enjoyed train travel.

Well, it hasn't happened yet. I looked at the project not long ago and put it away again. The DEM is really filled in making the terrain difficult to work with. This is a big issue with Eastern Mass. routes for some reason. The other problem is the land around where the station and the route has changed thanks to redevelopment filling in the cut in some places.

The old Cheshire line was a foolish rip up that New Hampshire could have preserved if they let the new Green Mountain Railway run the trains on it, but nope they let it go. Before that, Blount was all set to set up Steam Town in Keene and run passenger trains along the line, but nope they fought that too.

My mum was the same; not a railfan but like riding.

 

[UP5521]

Bad and not to mention a stupid choice to tear up that section of track, steam engines ran on that for years before diesels took over, that goes back to what you said awhile back, John, the Boston and Maine railroad was ruined, and part of it probably was bad management and financial ruin as a result.

 

[rwk]

I read abut how Steamtown started, initially in North Walpole, NH then it moved over to Riverside, VT past Bellows Falls, VT in the early 1960's. It moved to Scranton, PA in 1984. National Park Service took over the site in 1986 but the foundation ran excursion trains on the former DL&W as Steamtown, USA through 1987. NPS took over the excursions in 1989 after a year hiatus in 1988 and ran north to Kingsley and back over the Nicholson Viaduct due to bridgework on the Moscow line, then the Moscow line reopened in 1993 and excursions were extended beyond Pocono Summit for some runs. When Steamtown started running excursions, they initially couldn't run on the B&M out of North Walpole so they ran on the Claremont & Concord for several miles, much of that was torn up, too with only a stub remaining. Then they were able to run rides from North Walpole on the Cheshire branch and they even ran some longer excursions to Keene and back. Then they moved across the river to Vermont to a new site at Riverside and ran excursions on the ex-Rutland Green Mountain Railroad to Chester, 13 miles with some longer excursions to Rutland.

 

[JCitron]

I read abut how Steamtown started, initially in North Walpole, NH then it moved over to Riverside, VT past Bellows Falls, VT in the early 1960's. It moved to Scranton, PA in 1984. National Park Service took over the site in 1986 but the foundation ran excursion trains on the former DL&W as Steamtown, USA through 1987. NPS took over the excursions in 1989 after a year hiatus in 1988 and ran north to Kingsley and back over the Nicholson Viaduct due to bridgework on the Moscow line, then the Moscow line reopened in 1993 and excursions were extended beyond Pocono Summit for some runs. When Steamtown started running excursions, they initially couldn't run on the B&M out of North Walpole so they ran on the Claremont & Concord for several miles, much of that was torn up, too with only a stub remaining. Then they were able to run rides from North Walpole on the Cheshire branch and they even ran some longer excursions to Keene and back. Then they moved across the river to Vermont to a new site at Riverside and ran excursions on the ex-Rutland Green Mountain Railroad to Chester, 13 miles with some longer excursions to Rutland.

In 1967 my dad brought me up to Steamtown in Bellows Falls, VT. The B&M was still running freight on the Cheshire and I remember seeing a freight running on the opposite side of the river. I remember climbing on the different steam locomotives and seeing the circus train coaches. We didn't ride the excursion for some reason, besides getting up to Bellows Falls from Merrimac, MA was a 3-1/2 hour trip.