Бостонская и Лоуэллская железная дорога: история и строительство первой магистрали в Массачусетсе.

Former railroad in Massachusetts, United States

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was a railroad that operated in Massachusetts in the United States. It was one of the first railroads in North America and the first major one in the state. The line later operated as part of the Boston and Maine Railroad's Southern Division.

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. 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 feet (1 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. 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. 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.

The first locomotives on the B&L were copies of the successful Planet class built locally in Lowell.

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.

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