Boston and Maine Passenger Train Time Table Effective October 25th, 1964

Sometimes I go to a model railroad convention and find things such as timetables, operating rulebooks, and other things. That's how I got the pamphlet that gives its name to the title of this thread: Boston and Maine's Passenger Train Schedules, Time Table No. 8, Effective October 25th, 1964, Eastern Standard Time. I happen to get this for the low price of $4.00. What surprises me most is there's a total of sixteen timetables for all their passenger trains. I also noticed that all the B&M's passenger trains, except trains 20, Washingtonian, 21 Montrealer, 75 and 76, are operated by Budd Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs). Here's the individual time tables:
(Time) Table 1 - New York City (via New Haven Railroad) - Boston, Massachusetts - Portland, Maine
(Time) Table 2 - Boston, Massachusetts - Wilmington, Massachusetts - Lowell, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 3 - Boston, Massachusetts - Lawrence, Massachusetts - Haverhill, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 4 - Boston, Massachusetts - Reading, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 5 - Boston, Massachusetts - Winchester, Massachusetts - Woburn, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 6 - Boston, Massachusetts - Concord, New Hampshire - White River Junction, Vermont
(Time) Table 7 - New York City (via New Haven Railroad) - Springfield, Massachusetts - White River Junction, Vermont (via Central Vermont Railroad)
(Time) Table 8 - White River Junction, Vermont - Montreal, Canada (via Central Vermont and Canadian National)
(Time) Table 9 - White River Junction, Vermont (via Boston & Maine) - (Connects at Canadian Pacific at Wells River, Vermont) - (Canadian Pacific connects to Quebec Central Transportation Co. at Newport, Vermont) -Sherbrooke, Vermont (Quebec Central Transportation Co.) - Farnham, Quebec (connects to Sherbrooke via bus)
(Time) Table 10 - Boston, Massachusetts - Concord, Massachusetts - Fitchburg, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 11 - Boston, Massachusetts - Lynn, Massachusetts - Salem, Massachusetts - Beverly, Massachusetts - Gloucester, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 12 - Boston, Massachusetts - Hudson, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 13 - Boston, Massachusetts - Newburyport, Massachusetts - Portsmouth, New Haven
(Time) Table 14 - Boston, Massachusetts - Bedford, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 15 - Boston, Massachusetts - West Medford, Massachusetts (Note: This is the station for Medford, Massachusetts) - Winchester Highlands, Massachusetts - Walnut Hill, Massachusetts
(Time) Table 16 - Boston, Massachusetts - Clematis Brook, Massachusetts - Beaver Brook, Massachusetts
I'm pretty certain that there's at least one person here on the Forums that would find this thread interesting.

That's an interesting find.

By the mid-1950s actually their trains were mostly Budd Liners as we used to call them. The Budd cars were an early purchase in the 1940s actually by the B&M initially to save money on their commuter service because they eliminated the service and turning facilities needed at the end of the many, many branch lines they operated at the time. With the success of the Budd Liners in that service, they were moved on to other trains as well.

Table 3 - Boston, Massachusetts - Lawrence, Massachusetts - Haverhill, Massachusetts is the timetable that I would have traveled by when I was three and living across the street from their Bradford, MA (Haverhill) yard. This is the same line that also goes up to Portland, and is serves the DownEaster today.

It's interesting to see all the routes that are gone now such as from Portsmouth, Bedford, Hudson, and trains to Canada via White River, Jct.

The White River Jct. line coming up from Concord, NH, was ripped up in the early 2000s after being unused for many years. Sadly it's now a snowmobile trail and will probably remain that way forever. The Concord to WRJ met its demise when the NIMBYs and New Hampshire's anti-rail and pro-highway state government refused to purchase the ROW and rebuild it as part of a proposed restoration of Boston to Montreal high speed rail line.

The tracks from Newburyport, MA to Portsmouth are abandoned and the ROW is railbanked by New Hampshire DOT. The swing bridge stuck open in the 1970s and no one fixed it. Today the MA commuter agency MBTA kicks themselves for not fixing the bridge because now it'll cost millions of dollars to restore the span. From the studies done, the bridge is in good structural shape, but the antiquated and stuck swing part needs replacing, and that's where the cost is. What is left of the line is a trail in some places, and recently Pan Am abandoned the tracks from Portsmouth south to Hampton so that portion of the Eastern Railroad is gone now for good.

Bedford line is now the Minuteman Bike trail and has a stuffed Budd Liner in front of the old Bedford station. The line was initially to become a Red line heavy rail, or possibly an LRV line up to Bedford and to Hanscom Field (also Hanscom AFB) when the then new extension to Fresh Pond was built. The residents of snooty Arlington and Lexington didn't want the "riffraff and those kinds of people" coming in on the trains so the "T" then ripped the tracks up and the bike route was built.

Hudson lost its service in the 1980s when the Central MA branch was closed. There's been talk of restoring the line, but residents of Weston don't want the trains because of the NIMBY factor. The line is ripped up and now a trail. The line once extended all the way to West Hampton, MA and trains once carried Calvin Coolidge and others.

JCitron said:

Table 3 - Boston, Massachusetts - Lawrence, Massachusetts - Haverhill, Massachusetts is the timetable that I would have traveled by when I was three and living across the street from their Bradford, MA (Haverhill) yard. This is the same line that also goes up to Portland, and is serves the DownEaster today.

Click to expand...

While I can't find it for Bradford, the cost to ride to/from Boston to/from Haverhill would have cost $16.88 for 20 rides a month, or $13.50 for 12 rides over a 1 year period. Pretty cheap compared to today. Also, I've got the timetables for the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac for thru PRR, B&O, ACL and SAL passenger trains dated June 17th, 1966, Southern Railway's Kentucky Division (which includes the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, a.k.a. The Rathole) dated January 17th, 1982, and Southern Railway's Georgia Division (which includes the mainline between Atlanta and Chattanooga) dated November 17th, 1971. I got the Southern Railway schedules because they featured the speed limits for the steam locomotives for the Southern Steam Program. Interestingly, Southern 630 was limited to a speed of 45 miles per hour, while 4501 was limited to a speed of 50 miles per hour. Since the Great Dismal Swamp derailment on May 18th, 1986, which included Norfolk and Western 611 and several steam program passenger cars, all steam locomotives on Norfolk Southern tracks are limited to 40 miles per hour. Before that 611 was limited to a speed limit of 70 miles per hour. I would like to get a hold of Southern Railway's Tennessee Division before they abandoned the branchline to Rogersville, Tennessee, where family on my Mom's side lives.

jordon412 said:

While I can't find it for Bradford, the cost to ride to/from Boston to/from Haverhill would have cost $16.88 for 20 rides a month, or $13.50 for 12 rides over a 1 year period. Pretty cheap compared to today. Also, I've got the timetables for the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac for thru PRR, B&O, ACL and SAL passenger trains dated June 17th, 1966, Southern Railway's Kentucky Division (which includes the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, a.k.a. The Rathole) dated January 17th, 1982, and Southern Railway's Georgia Division (which includes the mainline between Atlanta and Chattanooga) dated November 17th, 1971. I got the Southern Railway schedules because they featured the speed limits for the steam locomotives for the Southern Steam Program. Interestingly, Southern 630 was limited to a speed of 45 miles per hour, while 4501 was limited to a speed of 50 miles per hour. Since the Great Dismal Swamp derailment on May 18th, 1986, which included Norfolk and Western 611 and several steam program passenger cars, all steam locomotives on Norfolk Southern tracks are limited to 40 miles per hour. Before that 611 was limited to a speed limit of 70 miles per hour. I would like to get a hold of Southern Railway's Tennessee Division before they abandoned the branchline to Rogersville, Tennessee, where family on my Mom's side lives.

Click to expand...

Bradford would be the same as Haverhill. It's the same city just on the south side of the Merrimack River.

https://goo.gl/maps/uLJKcnUha5P2

In comparison the $16.88 in 1964 for the same commute today is $150 per month! In the old days it was destinations while today they do it by zones and I think Haverhill/Bradford are at Zone 7 which is the end of the commuter line.

Those other timetables are interesting and are quite useful for setting up prototypical operations if possible. Keep looking for the Rogersville line. That would be a worthwhile find.

Back to Haverhill commuting... There were two other stops up above Haverhill, Rosemont and then Plaistow, which fell into the commuter schedule at one time. Today the Downeaster whizzes by those places at 65 mph on its way to Portland. There was talk of reopening up Plaistow, NH for commuter service a couple of years ago, but the NIMBYs came out in Atkinson, the next town over no less, to complain about the noise. Quote and unquote... "The trains might make noise and they didn't want that, and they might smell". Being New Hampshire and pro highway, this simple complaint which I think was put on for a show and an excuse, killed the proposed funding and station reopening in its tracks. Today the park-and-ride lot where the trains were supposed to stop is empty and not even a bus stops there.

It's also interesting to note that in the 1960s right through until the Newburyport bridge got stuck, people could also commute to Amesbury. By then Amesbury had shrunk down from a thriving manufacturing center and no longer received huge freight shipments it once did during its heyday of making horse buggies, trolley cars, and then later automobile buggies. There was a substantial yard still in Amesbury and the station sat at the end of the spur. When I was a kid we lived in Merrimac, the town between Haverhill and Amesbury, and we used to go to Amesbury for shopping. Only once in the 10 years in that area did I ever see a freight, and a pretty paltry one at that. The whole train consisted of a single switcher, probably an SW9 or S4, a single boxcar, and a caboose. The tracks were still in good shape though because of the commuter trains, but the big yard by 1970 was pretty empty.

The yard layout was quite fascinating and worth a look at on Historic Aerials. The line was once proposed to continue on to Hampton New Hampshire, but it never happened. The reason is simple the Eastern Railroad beat them to it by heading up the coast. As I mentioned that section from the drawbridge up to Portsmouth is now gone and a trail in parts today. The Eastern became a secondary route when the B&M bought them outright in the late 1880s. This once formidable foe became a secondary line and in the mid-1950s it was hacked up starting with single-tracking, then the line was removed from Portsmouth to Portland with passenger trains now running exclusively via the Western Division - i.e. through Haverhill and up except for commuter trains. The Western Division is still the mainline today, the only mainline in fact to Portland, and the one used by the Downeaster and Pan Am Railways.

Anyway here's a link to an interesting document on the B&M's use of Budd Liners. It's an interesting read and worth the download.

http://www.bmrrhs.org/s/How-the-BM-Uses-Budd-Cars-1948.pdf

Other goodies here too:

http://www.bmrrhs.org/on-lines-archives/

As some long timers (!) will know over here in GB I have a very thick timetable for railways in the USA dated the 1950's It also includes Mexico, Canada and oh, ho, Cuba before the change there. I also once knew and met the former editor of the old Pennsylvania RR house magazine and indeed he and his wife invited me to visit them and stay overninght.. Well I am folks a friendly Glaswegian. Fascinating stuff and scores of wee and big companies. A fascinating publication that many America rail fans would be fascinated with.