NA-1 Crossing the Souhegan

Here is the story of my first time shooting the Hillsboro Branch last year. This was originally posted on my Facebook photography page.

 

Anyway, one of New England's smaller and more obscure operations is the Milford and Bennington Railroad. It is a one locomotive and one customer operation. So that was my goal but I also had hopes of catching one of the equally obscure branchline locals in New England. In fact, the two actually overlap for a few miles so it is possible to see them both in the same day, if a bit improbable.

 

Pan Am's Hillsboro Branch is one of the last old Boston & Maine branchlines of any consequence still in service in New England. B&M once had a spiders web of branches blanketing the north shore of the Boston metro area, southern Maine, and nearly all of the Granite State. Abandonments began in the 1930s and accelerated in the 1970s and then virtually all were pruned in the early Guilford era. A few stubs lasted into the 21st century but two decades in really the only ones I can think of are:

 

1) The Heywood Branch out of Gardner, that once went to Winchendon but is now just a short stub - I have yet to shoot this

 

2) The Greenville Branch out of Ayer, that once reached to its namesake in southern NH but now only is in service a mile or so within Ayer and exists OOS for 10 miles to Townsend - I have yet to shoot this

 

3) The short Lowell Hill Branch in Lawrence that I've featured here before

 

4) The branch to Rouselet in Peabody served by BO-1 that I've featured here that comprises bits of the old Danvers Branch and South Reading branches

 

All of the above are designated Industrial Tracks in the modern Pan Am timetable making the Hillsboro Branch the last true branch line.

 

It reaches 16.38 miles from its connection with the Northern Mainline in downtown Nashua just north of the yard and right where Nashua Union Station once stood. Made up of a series of predecessors by the late 1930s it was no longer a thru route and basically was a 40 mile branchline. B&M cropped the 8 miles from Bennington to Hillsboro in 1979 but continud to serve the small paper mill in the former town into the early Guilford era. When Guilford petitioned to abandon the line beyond Wilton the state bought the remaining 16 miles and to this day it is intact to Bennington. However, regular operations extend only three miles beyond Wilton to the quarry in South Lyndeborough and the M&B runs very rare special excursions (usually once a year) another six miles to Greenfield. That's a bit of a primer on the route and a lot more can be found in Robert M. Lindsell's "The Rail Lines of Northern New England."

 

The modern day Hillsboro branch is a tediously slow piece of railroad with a MAXIMUM speed of 5 MPH and derailments are quite common. It is not unsual for a 32 mile round trip to serve the two remaining customers to consume two full 12 hr work days for the Nashua based local crews NA-1 and NA-2. It is that fact that made these shots possible and allowed me to check off another rare and long sought after piece of New England railroading. NA-2 had reportedly made the trip west but tied up for the night in Milford at their main customer's siding (Hendrix Wire). I was fortunate to have a friend from Nova Scotia who has family in the area staying there who could provide intel. So I invited another friend to make the long drive from the south shore area and we decided to give it a shot.

 

I left work around 0630 and drove straight to Nashua. After a good breakfast in a local diner beside the tracks we consolidated vehicles and drove west following the line. When we got to Milford we found the M&B tied down at Granite State Concrete with no sign of life but then were pleased to find a Guilford gray GP40 parked at Hendrix just like we'd been told. But it was shut down and and cold so we were a bit nervous when we arrived around 0830. A friend told us that NA-1's crew was on duty in Nashua at 0900 and we should see them by 0945 or so. 10 AM came and went and we started to worry that Pan AM may have diverted them to other duties, but finally about 1015 a van showed up. When the engine turned over then died twice we really were thinking we were in for a disappointment, but finally it stayed running. The crew had no switching to do so their only chore was to tote their one car west to Wilton, run around, and start the slow journey back east (timetable south). The outer four miles of this branch are by far the most scenic and feature a nice bridge over the Souhegan River a couple old B&M depots for props, and some bucolic southern New Hampshire scenery. THIS is where you want to catch the train, since the eastern 11 miles are arrow straight and rather boring passing strip malls and small industrial parks.

 

We chased him west from Hendrix, watched him run around then started east. After getting a nice shot crossing the deck bridge in Wilton I looked down and noticed I'd lost my wide angle lense somewhere along the way....that quickly put a damper on things. My friends were gracious enough to help me look and even drive back to Wilton retracing our steps. Having no luck there we came back to the bridge and trudged down the bank again, where one of them found it in the leaves an brush. Thanks Vincent! After a big sigh of relief we headed east and in more good fortune the PAR crew had stopped for a snack behind the Cumberland Farms at the Wilton-Milford line affording us plenty of time to get down to the Granite State plant and set up for views of them passing the M&B. There we were pleasantly surprised to find the M&B's little SW-9 fired up and running as they slowly unloaded the prior day's stone train. We got our shots of NA-1 then followed east to Milford to capture the images of him passing the old B&M boxcar and the depots.

 

After the shots in Milford we headed back to Granite State and were a bit disappointed to find the M&B still there with the loco shut down. It wasn't to be a two railroad chase this day. But I had nothing to complain about. So we turned around and went east for one more shot of NA-1 at the busy Route 101 crossing before calling it quits. I was quite happy to have gotten the arguably rarer and harder to catch of the two options.

 

After that it was time for a celebratory lunch at the Red Arrow Diner, then drop off Caleb who was one for the day before Vincent and I started back to Nashua. Despite a leisurely lunch and driving back and forth to drop off cars. Amazingly after doing all that we still showed up in Nashua before NA-1 did and we set up for some last shots of him exiting the branch on to the mainline to go tie up Nashua yard.

 

While slow can be tedious and annoying, it sure does work in your favor sometimes. Anyway, now you know the rest of the story (not like you cared!) behind these earlier posts.

 

Here they are crossing the Souhegan River near MP I15.5 after running around in Wilton, and this is where I lost my lense.

 

Milford, New Hampshire

Friday September 6, 2019

Done