The New Hampshire Northcoast Corporation is a

Class III railroad Railroad classes are the system by which freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With a ...

owned by Boston Sand & Gravel and offering freight service in parts of

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

and

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

in the United States. The company owns of the former

Boston and Maine Corporation The Boston and Maine Railroad was a United States, U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. It was chartered in 1835, and became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the e ...

's Conway Branch between Rollinsford and Ossipee, New Hampshire. The railroad's primary traffic is quarried sand. It interchanges cars with

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

Dover, New Hampshire Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most populous city in the New Hampshire Seacoast Region (New Hampshire), Seacoast region and ...

; the cars are then taken to the Boston Sand & Gravel plant in

Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Also called Mishawum by the Massachusett, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Bost ...

. Other than the Boston gravel train, NHN also serves its own satellite gravel facility in

Rochester, New Hampshire Rochester is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,492 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Hampshire, 6th most populous city in New Hampshire. In ad ...

, as well as Eastern Propane at the same location and a few other freight customers. The company was founded in 1986 when the abandoned tracks were purchased. It has been proposed that the tracks be upgraded for passenger service between Boston and North Conway, New Hampshire. NHN runs an average of two trains approximately five days a week: one southbound, and one northbound. The trains generally arrive at the pit in Ossipee around 11:00 AM and depart for the CSX interchange around 2:00 PM. "Shuttle" trains are run as needed to bring sand and gravel to the facility in Rochester. Once the train arrives in Dover, it assumes the CSX symbol DOBO (Dover to Boston) for the run to Boston. It returns as BODO (Boston to Dover) in the early morning. Until recently when they were replaced with a pair of

EMD GP38-2 The EMD GP38-2 is an American four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors, Electro-Motive Division. Part of the EMD Dash 2 line, the GP38-2 was an upgraded version of the earlier EMD GP38, GP38. Power is provided by an EMD 645E 1 ...

s, the trains ran with several

EMD GP9 The EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel, General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1954 and 1963. The GP9 succeeded the EMD GP7, GP7 as the second model of EMD's General Purpose (GP) line, inco ...

Roster

The railroad also has an FURX GP38-2(5509) on lease and is not owned by the NHN.

References

Sources

*New Hampshire Railroad Revitalization Association
"Preserving the Railroad System - An overview of New Hampshire's Activity: 1975 - 2000"

External links

NH Northcoast homepage
New Hampshire railroads Maine railroads Spin-offs of Pan Am Railways {{US-rail-company-stub