Lowell, Massachusetts Part One

Lowell, Massachusetts

I am still having problems with my camera and I still haven't saved enough pennies and dimes for a new one. So, I figured I would try my hand at an extended rail fanning guide to one of my favorite places -- Lowell, Massachusetts. I have a lot to say about Lowell, so I might have to break this into two halves.

I lived in Lowell for a time right after college and almost died there after I got poisoned. You would think that this would diminish my feelings for the place, but it hasn't. Lowell is an interesting place for anyone who likes railroads, so I end up going there a couple of times a month -- usually on a Sunday -- to check out what's new.

A DINOSAUR -- An SD-26 leads an eastbound freight across the Concord River in Lowell, Massachusetts on Sunday November 29, 2009.

In the present, the mainline of the Pan-Am Railroad runs through the city and a commuter line of the MBTA ends there. When I first moved to Lowell, the Pan-Am was known by its former name -- Guilford -- and it was just then swallowing up Boston & Maine blue into that gray scheme with the orange stripe. I had mixed feeling about the whole event at the time. This, combined with the fact that I was not  confident in getting around the city and I just never seemed to have enough time, ended up with my not taking as many photos as I could have. I also had the problem of paying for film and developing. (I wasn't a millionaire yet and come to think of it I am still not.)

But I did manage to take some interesting shots and it has become one of my favorite places to go in Massachusetts. So, let's take a little tour.

The first stop is the parking area of Billerica Street next to the Concord River. If you are lucky enough, you may have an eastbound heading across the river and that means you are probably going to get a nice shot. In recent years, the city has built a pedestrian walkway along the river and the parking area make a good and safe spot to park the car and get a view of the aforementioned bridge over the Concord River. If you are really lucky, you will catch a westbound waiting on the parking area side of the bridge for an eastbound to come on over. I have only had this happen twice. Most of the time I find the cars from the tail end of an eastbound parked up on the tracks.

THE OLD LINE -- The old trestle that used to take the line to downtown Lowell.

The other thing about this location that is interesting is that this is where a line used to cut off the main for downtown Lowell. There is a trestle that runs along the edge of the Concord that no longer has tracks, or it seems, the means to support a locomotive anymore. The Boston & Maine used to have a passenger station in downtown Lowell. Unfortunately the trains don't go there anymore and the tracks are ripped out, but if I had a railroad-based time machine it would certainly be one of the places I would visit just because it looked so interesting.

BLUE DIP -- Blue returns to the old B&M, albeit Pan Am blue now. A former Kansas City Southern SD-40-2 in a brand new Pan Am paint job waits for a new crew beside Bolt Street in Lowell on Sunday May 8, 2011.

The next stop is Medowcroft Street, well Bolt Street actually, which is on the west side of the river from the parking area. It is at the eastern tip of the Lowell yard. It is also one of the two branches that split just after the Lowell yard. The other line is used by MBTA commuter trains but was still carrying freight when I was living there in the 1980s. There is a smaller yard just beyond Bolt Street but I haven't seen anything up there since 1984. If you managed to push your way through some bushes, you could get a shot off the Lundberg Street bridge over that yard. I did manage that a couple of times.

ANCIENT HISTORY -- An inbound freight sometime in the summer of 1984 from the Lundberg Street bridge. I haven't seen a freight train on these tracks in a long time.

I like stopping at Bolt Street because in the afternoon you can get a nice frontal shot of any parked west bounds that happened to be there framed by the signal tower. An old fellow used to sit out on the porch of the house on Bolt Street -- it is an industrial area, so you'll know the house when you see it -- and I used to chat with him about trains. He liked to watch the trains and while he couldn't tell you much about the railroads that ran through there he would tell you the color of the locomotives and from that you could pretty much figure out what was going on.

GUILFORD GRAY -- An eastbound freight coming out of the yard at Lowell about to cross Meadowcroft Street.

I found that on many Sunday mornings Pan-Am/Guilford would have a west bound parked at Bolt Street waiting for a crew. In fact, I used to refer to Lowell on Sunday mornings as the locomotive museum because there were trains of various heritage parked all over the city. 

WAITING FOR A CREW -- The kind of thing you may find waiting at the corner of Bolt and Meadowcroft streets.

After Meadowcroft, the next stop on our trip is the Gallagher Transit Terminal off Thorndike Street. In the 1980s the transportation center consisted of a MBTA station and a bus stop.

MBTA AD-HOC -- A former BN unit is pressed into service pulling MBTA RDC cars in 1984 at Lowell. The train is getting ready to leave on an in-bound trip to Boston.

Sometime after I moved away, but I am not sure when, the city built a garage next to the transportation center and every railfan should thank them -- or the MBTA if that is who built it. The garage puts you up over the tracks giving you a nice view of any trains coming and going along the mainline. This includes MBTA commuter trains and whatever Pan-Am happens to have out on the mainline. You can also get some nice photos from the parking lot of a nearby bank, which gives you a pretty good panorama shot of the tracks in the station area.

FROM THE ROOF -- Guilford freights as seen from the roof of the parking garage at the Gallagher Transportation Center in about 2004.

After stopping here, I usually continue on west , but we will get to that in our next segment. Finally, for this segment, a quick word about Lowell itself. I like Lowell a lot and I have never had a problem in all the times I have traveled around there. But there are parts of the city that are a little rough, particularly some of those near the railroad tracks, so use your head.