Well, it's Saturday. I didn't have access to a computer yesterday so yesterday's post is coming today. Today's photo comes from last summer. When I was leaving work one day, I heard a train whistle. Having a camera with me, I drove down to the Broad Street crossing in Nashua, not far from where I work, and got this photo. It was NA1, the Nashua local on the Hillsboro Branch, coming back to Nashua Yard as just a light engine, MEC 345, a GP40 in Pan Am paint. I chased the train the last few miles back to the yard, taking photos along the way. The locomotive is running long hood first, towards the back of the photo.
What is now the Hillsboro Branch is not used often, only a few times a week. Pan Am serves most of the customers on this line from Nashua Yard. Milford-Bennington Railroad (MBRX), a local shortline, serves Granite State Concrete out in Milford and Wilton. The single train that the railroad owns operates back and forth between a quarry in Wilton and a concrete plant in Milford. The plant distributes the concrete locally by truck. MBRX does not interchange with Pan Am at all, and only operates during the summer when the open pit quarry is active.
The Hillsboro Branch once went all the way to Keene, where it met other railroad lines. A flood in 1934 closed the western end of the line, and passengers on the line boarded a bus in Peterborough. Lack of traffic caused other portions of the line to be abandoned throughout the years, and what is left is now known as the Hillsboro Branch. Many of the mileposts along the branch still tell you how many miles there are to Keene.
In 2003, two Budd RDCs found their way onto the Hillsboro Branch and the Wilton Scenic Railroad was born, operating from Wilton depot west towards Lyndeborough and Greenfield State Park. However, after three years, the owner of the railroad died and the operation was shut down. The ex-BCRail RDCs now operate in Rhode Island.
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