Boston and Lowell Railroad

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was preceded by the Middlesex Canal. Converting the canal to a railroad would eliminate the issue of transportation being unavailable during the winter, when the canal froze. Patrick Tracy Jackson led the task of convincing the state legislature to fund the project. This proved difficult, as the investors of the Middlesex Canal were against building a new form of transportation designed to replace their canal.[1]

Because, prior to 1872, there was no provision in Massachusetts state law for chartering railroads, all had to be chartered by special acts of legislature. This made it slow and inefficient to charter a railroad because the politicians had to agree; the issue would become partisan. This also meant that the legislature would not let the investors build the line unless they could show it was completely necessary.

The investors were successful because they convinced the legislature that the canal was inherently incapable of providing what they needed: reliable, year-round freight transport. Investors in the Boston and Lowell Railroad received a charter on June 5, 1830, with no provision for reparations to the Middlesex Canal's investors. It was a favorable charter because in addition to the right to build and operate a railroad between Lowell and Boston, it gave a thirty-year monopoly on the right to have a railroad there. The people along the road and in terminal-end cities bought large amounts of stock, financing half the company.

The Board of Directors of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, armed with a charter, now had the task of surveying and building the line. They brought in James Fowle Baldwin, son of Col. Loammi Baldwin, who had engineered the Middlesex Canal, to do the surveying, and charged him with finding a gently sloped path from Lowell to Boston, with few grade crossings and well away from town centers. This latter point ended up being quite inconvenient later on. No one had any idea of the future possibility of railroads acting as public transportation, or if they did they were not paid any attention by the builders or financiers of the road.

The right-of-way that Baldwin surveyed did well in each of these characteristics. The path sloped up at a gentle ten feet per mile at the maximum, and there were only three grade crossings over the entire 26-mile (42 km) distance. The path was close to the older Middlesex Canal path, but was straighter - as boats can turn more sharply than trains. To achieve this superior linearity, it needed small amounts of grade elevation in places. The route ignored Medford center entirely, going through West Medford instead, and totally bypassed Woburn and Billerica. This would have to be corrected later with various spurs (the one to Medford being built off the Boston and Maine Railroad), but were always sources of annoyance to both riders and operators.

The proposed route was accepted by the Board of Directors of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, and work began on the building phase. The road was begun from both ends at once, and some sources say that they both started on the right hand side of the right-of-way, missing in the middle and having to put in an embarrassing reverse curve to tide them over until they built the other side. Yankee and Irish laborers were hired to construct the railroad, which was made especially difficult and because the Directors wanted to make the road using the best techniques then known. This, for them, meant laying imported British iron rails with a 4-foot-deep (1.2 m) wall of granite under each rail. They did this because it was commonly believed that the train would sink into the ground if the rails did not have strong support.

The first track was completed in 1835, and freight service began immediately. On May 27, 1835, it made its maiden trip to Boston, with Patrick Tracy Jackson, George Washington Whistler, and James Baldwin aboard.[2] The solid granite roadbed proved to be much too rigid, jolting the engine and cars nearly to pieces. Repairs on the locomotives (there were two at the time) would sometimes take most of the night, trying to get them ready for the next day's service. The much poorer Boston and Worcester Railroad could not afford a granite bed and so was built with modern wooden ties. This turned out to be far superior, so the owners of the Boston and Lowell decided they would upgrade their entire roadbed to wood when they added a second track.

The original Boston terminal was at the north corner of Causeway Street and Andover Street (halfway between Portland and Friend streets), at the westernmost edge of the current North Station. The bridge over the Charles River to access it was the first movable railroad bridge in the United States. The original Lowell terminal was at the south corner of Merrimack Street and Dutton Street.

The quantity of freight traffic on the Boston and Lowell Railroad was large from the start (as was expected) with Lowell's textile companies bringing in raw materials and sending out finished goods. The high level of passenger traffic, however, was not anticipated.[3]^: 92 Trains traveled on unwelded rails which were laid on a granite roadbed, which made for an extremely bumpy ride. The railroad switched to wooden ties.[3]^: 84

The Boston and Lowell was faced with a new problem; it had a reputation for speed which made it very popular and highly competitive with stagecoaches. Many people wanted to go not only from Lowell to Boston but to places in between. The Boston and Lowell ordered another locomotive and cars for local passenger rail in 1842, and had them make six stops along the route. Passenger rail proved to be almost as profitable as freight.[4]

The first locomotives on the B&L were copies of the successful Planet class 2-2-0 built locally in Lowell.[5]

Map of the Southern Division as it was in 1887, just before it was leased by the Boston and Maine Railroad, including the original Boston to Lowell mainline

Another railroad was chartered in the early 1840s whose fortunes would be closely tied to those of the Boston and Lowell. This was the Boston and Maine Railroad. This railroad ran down from Portland, Maine, through a bit of southern New Hampshire, to Haverhill in northeastern Massachusetts, connected to the Boston and Lowell in Wilmington, and then used Boston and Lowell track to Boston. This route was conceptualized in 1834, but took a long time to be built, mostly because, unlike the Boston and Lowell, it did not have a secure base of funding like the Lowell textile companies. It took two years to get to Andover, another year to get to Haverhill, three more to get to Exeter, New Hampshire, and did not get to Portland until 1852.

This extra traffic on the Boston and Lowell Railroad, especially with the line still over granite, provided the extra impetus to double track and upgrade. In 1838, the B&L began two years of extensive track improvements, first laying a second track on wood, and with that one built, going back and re-laying the old track on the more forgiving wood as well. Boston and Lowell traffic continued to increase, and even with double tracks the schedule became tight enough that the Boston and Maine trains, as renters, began to be pushed around to annoying hours, often having to wait over an hour in Wilmington before being allowed to proceed on to Boston.

The B&M soon tired of what they perceived as selfishness and decided to build its own track to Boston from Haverhill so that it would not have to rely on the B&L. The B&L tried to fight the B&M in court but failed because the monopoly granted in its charter was only good for traffic between Boston and Lowell. The shortcut, part of today's Haverhill/Reading Line, was started in 1844 and was in use by 1848. While the B&M was building it, they were still running their trains to Boston on the B&L. This made for a lot of conflict, with the B&L trying to squeeze every last penny out of the B&M before it lost the opportunity. The B&M tried to deal with this in court, and got the judge to forbid the B&L from raising rates until the case was done, but by the time they were close to an agreement, the bypass was complete.

With B&M business gone, the B&L realized how much they had been relying upon their renters. Additionally, the Lowell mills began to decline somewhat and there was less freight traffic for the line to move. Over the next four decades, the B&L declined until the more successful B&M leased it on April 1, 1887.

The B&L built or leased many branches to serve areas not on its original line. Immediately before its lease by the B&M in 1887, it had five divisions—the Southern Division (including the original line), the Northern Division, the White Mountains Division, the Vermont Division, and the Passumpsic Division. Additionally, it leased the Central Massachusetts Railroad in 1886.

Over the next 70 years or so, things were reasonably stable and constant for the Lowell Line as a part of the B&M's Southern Division. Passenger train round trips per day hovered in the low 20s, and while freight from Lowell itself did not last too long, the Lowell line got some traffic from railroads that connected from the west.

Winchester Center, a Lowell Line station in Winchester, Massachusetts

In the early 20th century, the economics of railroading began to change. With the advent of the internal combustion engine, trains slowly began to lose their advantage as a transportation option. Automobiles and trucks began to increase in popularity as highways improved, siphoning ridership and freight traffic off railroads. The advent of the Interstate Highway System tipped the economic balance by increasing mobility as factories and offices were now able to be located further away from the fixed routes of the railroads. The decline in both passenger and freight traffic occurred at a point when the B&M, like most other railroads, had just switched over to diesel locomotives, meaning that they had large debts. The pressure from the debts and the large infrastructure costs associated with operating a disparate passenger and freight network amongst declining traffic forced the B&M to cut costs. The most noticeable effect to the general public was the reductions in passenger operation. In the late 1950s, the B&M began to eliminate routes and substituted Multi-Unit diesel-powered passenger cars on many of its routes. The effort did not succeed, as the B&M was bankrupt by 1976.

As its fortunes declined, the B&M shed its passenger operation in 1973 by selling the assets to the MBTA. The new state agency bought the Lowell line, along with the Haverhill and all other commuter operations in the Greater Boston area. Along with the sale, the B&M contracted to run the passenger service on the Lowell line for the MBTA. After bankruptcy, the B&M continued to run and fulfill its commuter rail contract under the protection of the Federal Bankruptcy Court, in the hopes that a reorganization could make it profitable again. It emerged from the court's protection when newly formed Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI) bought it in 1983.

When GTI bought the B&M, commuter rail service was in jeopardy. The MBTA had owned the trains and the tracks since 1973, but it had outsourced the operation to the B&M. When GTI bought the B&M in 1983, it had to honor the B&M contract, but GTI management was very much against passenger rail, and, in 1986, as soon as the contract expired, they let the job go to Amtrak.

From 1986 until 2003, Amtrak managed the entirety of Boston's commuter rail. It did decently, though at times had strained relations with the MBTA. Quibbles centered on equipment failures, numbers of conductors per train, and who took responsibility when trains are late. Because of these bad relations and Amtrak's repeated announcements that the contract was unreasonable, few people were surprised at Amtrak's decision not to bid again for the commuter rail contract when it came up for renewal in 2003.

When the MBTA asked for new bids on the commuter rail operation contract, Amtrak did not bid, but Guilford and the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company did. The MBCR ended up getting the contract and began operating the commuter rail in July 2004.

Guilford's main line between Mattawamkeag, Maine, and Mechanicville, New York, now uses the Stony Brook Branch and the old main line north of Lowell. At Lowell, it shifts to the B&M's original Lowell Branch to get to the B&M main line towards Maine.

During the years since B&M's bankruptcy, highway congestion has increased significantly, resulting in growing demand for passenger and freight options. During this time frame, the MBTA has been slowly investing in some infrastructure changes in its rail operations. In 1995, a new North Station was opened. In 2001, it opened the Anderson Regional Transportation Center on the Boston & Lowell to centralize ridership and provide a superstation with convenient access to Interstates 93 and 95 (Route 128). In southern Maine, frustration with bus service drove the state to explore restarting passenger service, resulting in contracting with Amtrak to operate the Downeaster, which runs from North Station to Haverhill and up to Portland. Due to scheduling conflicts with the MBTA, the Downeaster runs up the Lowell Line to Wilmington and then out the old B&M Wildcat Branch to the Haverhill/Reading Line. This route allows the Downeaster to pass a commuter train on the Haverhill/Reading Line without schedule conflicts. The route is also historically significant because it is the same route that the original B&M used to Portland.

• Wall & Gray. 1871 Atlas of Massachusetts. Map of Massachusetts. USA. New England. Counties - Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden, Worcester, Middlesex, Essex and Norfolk, Boston - Suffolk,Plymouth, Bristol, Barnstable and Dukes (Cape Cod). Cities - Springfield, Worcester, Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Newburyport, Salem, Lynn, Taunton, Fall River. New Bedford. These 1871 maps of the Counties and Cities are useful to see the extent and names of the rail lines.
• Beers, D.G. 1872 Atlas of Essex County Map of Massachusetts Plate 5. Click on the map for a very large image. This map and the 1871 map of Middlesex County shows the original Boston and Lowell Railroad route through Billerica, Wilmington, Woburn, Winchester, and Medford. It also show the slightly later competing track of the Boston and Maine Railroad through Andover, Reading, Wakefield, Melrose, and Malden. The Wildcat Branch connector in Wilmington is shown in the 1872 maps but not the 1871 map. Also see detailed map of 1872 Essex County Plate 7.
• Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district (PDF)
• Railroad History Database
• 1886 Boston and Lowell Railroad Map

• MBTA - The Lowell Line

• Nashua & Lowell Railroad records at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School.