Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society Meeting/Membership telephone: 978-454-3600 Copyright 2018 March—April 2018 Visit us at www.bmrrhs.orf The Gull, which ran between Boston and Halifax, at North Station on January 25, 1948. Seventy years later, another tough January strained Keolis passenger service, as we report on page 7. Official B&j\i RR photo. From the Marrec Collection. B&MRRHS CALENDAR SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 3:30 PM TO 5:30 PM Meetings are generally held on the second Saturday of the Bill Hodges presents a potpourri of Maine and New Hamp• month at Rogers Hall, Lowell, Mass. Please see page 2 for shire railroading, featuring narrow gauge in Boothbay and directions to the hall. Portland, Maine; New Hampshire's cog railway, the White Mountain Central Railroad and the Hobo Railroad. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 3:30 PM TO 5:30 PM Rich Nichols presents The B&M's Amesbury Branch. Rich SATURDAY, MAY 12, 3:30 PM TO 5:30 PM is actively involved with the society's B&M RR hardware Plymouth (NH) Community Center. Program by the collection, and will display and discuss items of interest knowledgeable and entertaining Gary Gurske. Flyer to from this collection. follow with details. 2 B&M RR HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER March—April 2018 NEWSLETTER MEMBERSHIP DUES The Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society Newsletter is pub• Dues are payable by check, money order, postal money order, or lished six times a year. cash (in person only). Sorry, but we cannot accept credit cards. The editor welcomes articles, photographs, and news items about All payments in US dollars. Please allow four to six weeks for the B&MRRHS and the Boston & Maine Railroad, the B&M's pre• processing. decessors and successors, as well as news about other New England Basic $35 Sustaining $50 railroads. It is best to query the editor before submitting material. Basic & Spouse $38 Supporting $75 We reserve the right to edit all material submitted for publication. Contributing $40 Benefactor $100 Opinions expressed in the Newsletter do not necessarily represent the views of the Society, its officers, or members. Reference in the Canada & Overseas $55 Corporate $500 Newsletter to commercial products or services is for the convenience of the membership only, and in no way constitutes an endorsement Please send membership requests and questions to Membership, by the Society. B&MRRHS, PO Box 469, Derry, NH 03038-0469. All other correspondence — including catlog orders, corre• Please send Newsletter correspondence to spondence with the Board of Directors, Archives, Historian, or Michael B. Shavelson Bulletin—goes to B&MRRHS, PO Box 9116, Lowell, MA 01853. B&MRRHS Newsletter You can also e-mail [email protected]. 301 Prospect Heights Northampton, MA 01060 CHANGE OF ADDRESS or e-mail [email protected] Please let the Society know your new address before you move. Returned and forwarded mail costs the Society money. OFFICERS President Daniel W.Hyde MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL Vice President James Nigzus • Notices are sent monthly based on members' renewal dates. Treasurer PaulT. Kosciolek Envelopes are clearly marked "RENEWAL NOTICE." Secretary PaulT. Kosciolek (pro tempore) • If a member does not pay within the renewal month, he or she Clerk Michael E. Basile, Jr. may receive two reminder letters. Not responding may result in removal from the member list. • When members renew, typically the month of renewal does BOARD OF DIRECTORS not change. (A member with a 06/16 renewal date who pays Scott Batson Carl R. Byron Stephen J. DeFrancesco in August would have a 06/17 update to renew.) Robert Farrenkopf David Hampton PaulT. Kosciolek • Please review your label for the renewal date. Refer questions Russell F. Munroe James P. Nigzus Mai Sockol to the Membership Secretary. • Payment is by check or money order only. You may pay by ALTERNATE DIRECTORS cash at a membership meeting or train show at which the Richard K. Hurst and Kathy Winiarz Society is present. STAFF DIRECTIONS TO SOCIETY MEETINGS Archives Chairman Rick Nowell Meetings are held at Rogers Hall, 196 Rogers St., Lowell, MA 01852. From Rt. 495 take exit 38, which is Rt. 38. Turn right; this is Bulletin Editor Andrew M.Wilson Rogers St. Bulletin Distribution Dan Hyde If you come from the north or south there are six and seven sets 410 Chairman Jim Nigzus of lights respectively. Approximately 1.3 miles from Rt. 495 are the Hardware Chairman Dan Hyde last set of (working) lights. Bear to the left here. Rogers Hall is 0.3 Hardware Curator Richard Nichols miles on your right. Directly across the street is Rogers Fort Hill Historian Russ Munroe Park, where parking is available. Membership Secretary Kathy Winiarz If you come from Rt. 133 (Andover St.), follow that until you Modelers Notes Editor Bob Warren intersect Rt. 38 in Lowell. Go through the intersection and take Newsletter Editor Michael B. Shavelson your tliird left, which is High St. Continue to the end, and take a Program Coordinators Mai Sockol and Jim Nigzus left. This will take you to Rogers Hall on your left and Rogers Fort Show Coordinator Jim Nigzus Hill Park on the right. If you come from Rt. 38 or Rt. 113, get off at the overhead traffic Webmaster Jimmy Nigzus circle as if going to St. Johns Hospital. Follow this to the intersection of Rts. 38 and 133 and follow the above directions to High St. March-April 2018 B&M RR HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER EDITOR'S NOTE I'm surprised that the B&MRRHS Archives does not have We were saddened to learn on January 29 that member and sec• a complete collection. The magazines are rare, but they pop retary Wayne Gagnon had suddenly died. He was 62 years old. up on eBay from time to time, just as 1924 and 1925 B&M RR Wayne was one of the first members I got to know after be• Employees Magazines do coming Newsletter editor last year. Following a few telephone I would also think that the Archives would have complete conversations, we sat down together for a long chat at a pub files by now of the B&M Messenger and the B&M Courier. The in Greenfield, Massachusetts, a few blocks from the site of B&M Courier ruled the 1890s and the B&M Messenger the first the long-gone Boston and Maine station. Wayne spoke of his decade of the 20th century. By comparison, the B&M RR Em• fondness for the railroad, of his regret over its disappearance ployees' Magazines of the 1920s left a lot to be desired. from New Hampshire, of the Flying Yankee, and especially of Alden Dreyer his father and grandfather. Both Albert A. Gagnon (1920— Alien Dreyer worked for the B&M from 1964 to 1984. He lives in 2004) and Paul A. Gagnon (1884-1977) were engineers rural Shelburne, Mass. with the B&M. Until the week before he died, Wayne regu- - larly sent me letters and newspaper clippings with stories and Reading the Editor's Note in the September—October 2017 ideas he thought would be interesting to readers. I was greatly Newsletter reminded me of one well-known person who com• helped by his expertise and generosity. muted over the Central Mass branch between Northampton Wayne is survived by his wife Ann; his children, Karleen S. and Boston. This was Calvin Coolidge during his years as Tolman and her husband, Joe, and Justin K. Gagnon and his governor of Massachusetts. On most weekends, according to wife, Whitney; and two grandchildren, Jordan and Nicholas Amity Shlaes in her 5 65-page Coolidge, he would return to his Tolman. home in Northampton via the Central Mass. How he would do this today might be among the alternatives described in You didn't blink and miss an issue of the Newsletter; March- your Editor's Note about passenger service from Boston to April is indeed the first to appear in 2018. For that, your edi• the western part of the state. tor apologizes. Loring M. Lawrence Manchester, New Hampshire LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I'd like to comment on the November—December 2017 News• In the 1940—41 Snow Train booklet reprinted by the letter, which I very much enjoyed, and on the reproduction of B&MRRHS and distributed to members, a single trip the April 1917 Our Service sent to members. Gloucester—Salem—Portsmouth—Intervale is shown for Janu• On page one of the Newsletter you refer to the Shelburne ary 26, 1941. Its schedule allows 27 minutes from leaving Falls & Colrain Street Railway as an interurban line, which Manchester to leaving Salem, and 2:40 from leaving Ports• strikes me as inappropriate. Trolleys were scheduled to run mouth to arriving North Conway. just under seven miles in 40 minutes and they would report• I am guessing that this train used three different locomo• edly stop anywhere to load or unload a paying passenger or tives : Gloucester (or possibly Rockport) to Salem facing west; freight shipment. Salem to Portsmouth, Rockingham to Intervale (eastbound); The Newsletter photo on page 3 of hooping up documents is Portsmouth to Rockingham facing west (hauling train & east- all wrong. ("B&MRRHS Helps Laconia Celebrate") Hoop• bound loco). ing is a tricky business that can result in serious injury to the It's approximately nine miles from Manchester to Salem, person on the train if not done correctly. First, you don't use which doesn't seem to leave enough time to wye the train or a short hoop to deliver orders to a locomotive. You always get the engine up to the turntable and back.