When I was a young child growing up in Concord, we still had lots of train activity — enough to intrigue a young boy and beg for his attention. On a quiet summer evening, I still recall the distant and forlorn sound of the train whistle as it entered Concord, summoning all that loved trains. Perhaps it was just a train whistle to some but to many it was a sound most appreciated and sadly silenced in the years that followed when the passenger train service was discontinued and the legacy of the train empire slowly disappeared one building at a time.
Known as one of the largest employers in Concord, the railroad was a multigenerational career, spanning from grandfathers to grandsons and inviting new people to town in search of employment. The railroad yard in the south end of Concord was a city within itself. Basic resources similar to a small town could be found weaving amongst the many buildings where locomotives and railroad cars were manufactured by local railroad men. From the ground up, the mighty locomotives were built and finished right down to the painting and lettering on the cars.
Further north up the railroad tracks in the center of Concord you would find a place called railroad square. Railroad square was located on the present-day Storrs Street and Capital Shopping Center. Where we see clothing stores, a grocery store and restaurants we would once see nothing but a grand railroad terminal welcoming arriving passengers as other trains left for destinations unknown.
This little piece of land that our ancestors called Railroad Square is now a mecca for business, transformed over the past decades until it no longer provides a taste of the past life it did support.
If you travel back even further before the railroad arrived, the area was largely uninhabited and wooded along the western shore of the Merrimack River. I can only imagine the peace and tranquility it provided our ancestors then, before the railroad and before the commercialization of Storrs Street.
On Sept. 6, 1842, our ancestors witnessed the arrival of the very first passenger train. This first passenger train was proudly drawn by a locomotive called the Amoskeag. The old passenger cars in 1842 were somewhat light with their weight unlike the modern railroad passenger cars that followed sitting upon springs with drawbars managed by hand. The trains featured “bumpers” back then to ensure the introduction to another car was less impactful, these bumpers being made of sewn leather to absorb the shock. The early cars were provided with lanterns, whale oil being utilized for lighting fuel and to lubricate the many workings of the first passenger railroad into town. With cars being primitive, the winter travel was quite challenging and the people traveling within a passenger car were in need of heat as they rode along the old tracks. The heat was provided by a woodstove in each car to keep the winter travelers warm.
This beautiful locomotive proudly pulled the first passenger cars into Concord. Amoskeag featured ornate brass fittings and fixtures glistening in the sun as the brakes were gently managed manually by railroad men. The driving wheels featured on the locomotive Amoskeag were quite massive, wheels being five feet in diameter as they gripped and turned upon the railroad track. The hand forged spikes held the tracks in place but the ride was simply not as smooth as one might anticipate with the thumps being felt at each intersection of rail.
My vey own grandfather worked for the railroad in Concord for a period of 40 years, fulfilling his career and ending his four decades working as a member of the Boston and Maine Railroad Bridge Crew. I have heard the railroad men were as close as any brotherhood could be. They helped one another both at work and at home supporting those in need in sickness and health. If a fellow railroad man was not able to work the railroad, spouses would always pitch in with dinners and collections to get the railroad family safely past their hardships.
There are times I can only imagine the forlorn sound of the distant train as it approached its destination in Concord. Some memories are just too fortunate to forget and remain buried deeply with a touch of nostalgia.