A Pretty Green Carpet
Just another shot here because I love the weedy carpeted look that gives off an aura of the Milwaukee Road in the Dakotas circa the 70s.
For the third time in 6 weeks or so I was back out for a morning following CSXT's ex Pan Am local BO-1 making their biweekly trek north of Boston on the old Eastern Route. With this day featuring something other than stalwart 507 in the form of Pan Am blue sister GP40-2W MEC 516 (GMDD blt. Apr. 1976 as CN 9657) it seemed worth the trip because the countdown is on to the last run thanks to the disappointing news that Rousselot will be closing their Peabody plant by the end of this year.
Having made the 17 mile run up from BET in Somerville via the Eastern Route mainline they then gingerly picked their way west (timetable east) at 5 MPH out the nearly 2.5 mile long branch to the plant. This view looks compass west from the Allens Lane crossing with the plant behind me. This wobbly iron amidst a green carpet leads no further and only serves as a place to shove out empties when switching the facility. However a couple decades prior trains still traveled just under an additional two miles out to First Avenue to access several once busy but now long closed customers. Going back further, a century ago this was a thru route to Boston via Wakefield Junction originally built as the South Reading Branch Railroad in 1850. Largely superfluous three decades after it opened it hung on until 1925 when it was abandoned between Peabody and Wakefield. Remarkably a couple miles of the line gained for greater importance for transportation than it ever had as a railroad when Interstate 95 was built on the abandoned right of way in the 1950s.
If you've not seen it, here is one of several news articles on the closing of the plant which has been in operation in some form for over 200 years! www.salemnews.com/news/peabody-rousselot-plant-to-close-a... It sure will be sad when the last train runs through here drawing the curtain closed on all freight operations on the former Boston and Maine lines on the north shore. Sic Transit Gloria...
Peabody, Massachusetts
Tuesday April 25, 2023
A Pretty Green Carpet
Just another shot here because I love the weedy carpeted look that gives off an aura of the Milwaukee Road in the Dakotas circa the 70s.
For the third time in 6 weeks or so I was back out for a morning following CSXT's ex Pan Am local BO-1 making their biweekly trek north of Boston on the old Eastern Route. With this day featuring something other than stalwart 507 in the form of Pan Am blue sister GP40-2W MEC 516 (GMDD blt. Apr. 1976 as CN 9657) it seemed worth the trip because the countdown is on to the last run thanks to the disappointing news that Rousselot will be closing their Peabody plant by the end of this year.
Having made the 17 mile run up from BET in Somerville via the Eastern Route mainline they then gingerly picked their way west (timetable east) at 5 MPH out the nearly 2.5 mile long branch to the plant. This view looks compass west from the Allens Lane crossing with the plant behind me. This wobbly iron amidst a green carpet leads no further and only serves as a place to shove out empties when switching the facility. However a couple decades prior trains still traveled just under an additional two miles out to First Avenue to access several once busy but now long closed customers. Going back further, a century ago this was a thru route to Boston via Wakefield Junction originally built as the South Reading Branch Railroad in 1850. Largely superfluous three decades after it opened it hung on until 1925 when it was abandoned between Peabody and Wakefield. Remarkably a couple miles of the line gained for greater importance for transportation than it ever had as a railroad when Interstate 95 was built on the abandoned right of way in the 1950s.
If you've not seen it, here is one of several news articles on the closing of the plant which has been in operation in some form for over 200 years! www.salemnews.com/news/peabody-rousselot-plant-to-close-a... It sure will be sad when the last train runs through here drawing the curtain closed on all freight operations on the former Boston and Maine lines on the north shore. Sic Transit Gloria...
Peabody, Massachusetts
Tuesday April 25, 2023