Stony Brook Railroad

Stony Brook Railroad
	standard gauge
Length	10.8 miles (17.4 km); 13.19 miles (21.23 km) (Originally)

The Stony Brook Railroad (formally the Stony Brook Railroad Corporation),

Guilford Rail System, which renamed itself Pan Am Railways (PAR) in 2006. Passenger service last ran on the line in 1961, but it saw significant freight service under Pan Am Railways. While it never owned rolling stock or ran trains, the Stony Brook Railroad Corporation existed until 2022 as a nearly wholly owned subsidiary of the Boston and Maine, itself a PAR subsidiary. That year, it was merged into CSX Transportation

as part of CSX's purchase of Pan Am Railways.

The Stony Brook Railroad was named after Stony Brook, a tributary of the Merrimack River, which the line follows for several miles.

History

Formation, construction, and Nashua and Lowell operations

The Stony Brook Railroad was chartered in 1845 by citizens of Lowell, Massachusetts, to connect the city with points south and west.^[1] Construction of the line, which connected North Chelmsford and Ayer, was begun in 1847 and completed the following year. As the line approached completion, the Stony Brook decided to contract out train operations to the Nashua and Lowell Railroad (N&L), which connected to the line at its eastern terminus in North Chelmsford, rather than purchasing and operating their own trains. While the Stony Brook Railroad Corporation maintained its existence as the owner of the tracks, the N&L operated the Stony Brook line as a part of its own system, and this continued when the N&L formed a railroad pool with the Boston and Lowell Railroad in 1857.^[1]

The Nashua and Lowell only made a modest profit from operating the Stony Brook Railroad, but this was considered preferable to allowing the competing Fitchburg Railroad to gain control of the line. In 1877, the B&L and N&L decided to terminate their joint operating agreement, and the line reverted to sole control and operation by the Nashua and Lowell Railroad.^[1]

One unusual source of traffic on the Stony Brook Railroad was ice, which was cut from several ponds adjacent to the right of way and shipped to customers via the railroad.^[2]

Boston and Lowell and Boston and Maine operations

Following the breakup of the joint Nashua and Lowell and Boston and Lowell operating agreement, the Boston and Lowell leased its former partner in 1880, becoming the operator of the Stony Brook Railroad as well.^[1]

The

Maine and the rest of the United States which bypassed the busy city of Boston.^[1]

Infrastructure improvements

The B&M installed

block signals on the Stony Brook around 1914, as a means of improving the line's capacity. This proved insufficient on its own, so in 1917 the B&M followed up by installing double track on the first few miles of each end of the line, both between West Chelmsford and North Chelmsford, and between Willows and Ayer Junction.^[3] A decade later, continued heavy traffic led to the installation of both double track and centralized traffic control (CTC), the latter believed to be the first such installation in New England. These improvements began in 1927 and were completed the following year. A wye was constructed in 1930 at North Chelmsford, which allowed trains traveling to or from Nashua, New Hampshire, to use the line without having to make a reverse movement.^[3]

As built, the Stony Brook Railroad's tracks paralleled those of the Fitchburg Railroad between Ayer Junction and Willows. In April 1946, the B&M built a connection between the two lines at Willows, allowing for the duplicate trackage to Ayer Junction to be abandoned. This reduced the Stony Brook Railroad to 10.86 miles (17.48 km) in length.[3] In 1957, the second track was taken up from Willows to Graniteville and from Westford to North Chelmsford, a change made possible by CTC.^[3]

Buffalo Bill derailment

On May 24, 1911, a

burros were fatally crushed by an elephant. Members of the show, with the assistance of a Boston and Maine Railroad wrecking crew, gradually freed the trapped men and animals from the derailed cars, and the Wild West show proceeded to Lowell by road instead.^[4]

Pan Am Railways operations

The Boston and Maine Railroad became a part of Guilford Transportation Industries in 1983.[1] Until May 2022, the Stony Brook line was operated by Pan Am Railways as part of its main line through Massachusetts. It served as a connection between Northern New England and points west.^[1] The Stony Brook Railroad Corporation nominally still existed as a paper railroad until 2022, under 99.27 percent ownership by the Boston and Maine, which was in turn owned by Pan Am Railways.^[5] As part of CSX Transportation's purchase of Pan Am Railways, the Stony Brook Railroad Corporation was merged into CSX with the rest of PAR on June 1, 2022, ending its existence as a company.

Stations

Town	Distance from North Chelmsford	Station	Notes
Chelmsford	0.00 miles (0 km)	North Chelmsford	Connection to Nashua and Lowell Railroad
Chelmsford	2.06 miles (3.32 km)	West Chelmsford
Westford	2.76 miles (4.44 km)	Brookside
	4.28 miles (6.89 km)	Westford
	6.11 miles (9.83 km)	Graniteville
	7.38 miles (11.88 km)	Forge Village
Littleton	8.96 miles (14.42 km)	North Littleton
Ayer	10.66 miles (17.16 km)	Willows	Formerly named Sandy Pond^[3]
Ayer	13.19 miles (21.23 km)	Ayer Junction	Connection to Fitchburg Railroad
Source^[6]

References

^
OCLC 1038017689
.

^ "Ice From The North". Boston Evening Transcript. 1876-03-24. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Wilder, H. Arnold (1979). The Stony Brook Railroad (PDF).
^ ^a ^b "Buffalo Bill's Train Wreck". The Boston Globe. 1911-05-24. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
^ "CSX Corporation and CSX Transportation, Inc., et al.-Control and Merger-Pan Am Systems, Inc., Pan Am Railways, Inc., Boston and Maine Corporation, Maine Central Railroad Company, Northern Railroad, Pan Am Southern LLC, Portland Terminal Company, Springfield Terminal Railway Company, Stony Brook Railroad Company, and Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad Company". Federal Register. July 30, 2021. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
^ "Stony Brook Branch Stations". www.nashuacitystation.org. Retrieved 2020-07-14.