K56?
K 56?
Well good question. This old concrete Boston & Maine milepost sits in an alley just west of Main Street at modern day MPI-1 on Pan Am's Hillsboro Branch tucked up beside the brick wall of the historic circa 1850 First Baptist Church.
For most of the branch's service life the terminus was Hillsboro, NH 40 miles away west via Milford, Wilton and Greenfield and then turning north at Elmwood Jct. thru Bennington and on to Hillsboro.
But this marker belies that at one time this route continued due west 56 miles to Keene (therefore the "K") some 25 miles past Elmwood Jct. The history of these south central Granite State branches is complicated and looking at a map of the Boston & Maine in the early 1920s it's almost unfathomable how many different thru routes there were.
Never particularly useful or profitable the line west of Elmwood was severed by a flood in 1934 and never operated again. Within 5 years it was formally abandoned. So that really makes one wonder how old this marker is, as it had no utility and meant little after that date.
But it still makes a great prop for the occasional wanderings of Pan Am local NA-1 that now only ventures 15 miles west of here about once a week to serve two remaining customers.
Here we see light GP40 #381 heading back to the yard one mile distant behind me.
Nashua, New Hampshire
Friday October 25, 2019
K56?
K 56?
Well good question. This old concrete Boston & Maine milepost sits in an alley just west of Main Street at modern day MPI-1 on Pan Am's Hillsboro Branch tucked up beside the brick wall of the historic circa 1850 First Baptist Church.
For most of the branch's service life the terminus was Hillsboro, NH 40 miles away west via Milford, Wilton and Greenfield and then turning north at Elmwood Jct. thru Bennington and on to Hillsboro.
But this marker belies that at one time this route continued due west 56 miles to Keene (therefore the "K") some 25 miles past Elmwood Jct. The history of these south central Granite State branches is complicated and looking at a map of the Boston & Maine in the early 1920s it's almost unfathomable how many different thru routes there were.
Never particularly useful or profitable the line west of Elmwood was severed by a flood in 1934 and never operated again. Within 5 years it was formally abandoned. So that really makes one wonder how old this marker is, as it had no utility and meant little after that date.
But it still makes a great prop for the occasional wanderings of Pan Am local NA-1 that now only ventures 15 miles west of here about once a week to serve two remaining customers.
Here we see light GP40 #381 heading back to the yard one mile distant behind me.
Nashua, New Hampshire
Friday October 25, 2019