page_title: New England Southern Railroad
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: New England Southern Railroad / History
caption_attribution_description: English: New England Southern Railroad #503 heads north through Weirs Beach in 1987 with freight bound for Rochester Shoe Tree in Ashland. Alan Thomas photo, Rick Kfoury collection.
context_page_description: The New England Southern Railroad is a Class III shortline railroad that operates out of Canterbury, New Hampshire, and serves industries in central New Hampshire, in the United States.
context_section_description: In 1975, the Boston & Maine Railroad Corporation filed to abandon its 73-mile (117 km) "White Mountain Branch" stretching between Concord and Lincoln. Recognizing the need of the on-line customers and the potential of the line for a sewer right-of-way, the State of New Hampshire purchased the branch and sought a shortline railroad to carry out operations. The first to assume this responsibility was the Wolfeboro Railroad, which operated the line as their "Central Division" in 1976, but soon thereafter ended operations. The Goodwin Railroad, an extension of Weaver Bros. Construction, was created in 1977 to operate the trackage, and did so until it too ended operations in 1980. Following the demise of the Goodwin, the North Stratford Railroad stepped in as an interim operator until the state could find a dependable and permanent operator.
  Peter Dearness, a railroader and businessman who had a hand in founding the Mass Central Railroad, approached the State of New Hampshire with a bid to operate the trackage with his newly formed New England Southern Railroad. The railroad was incorporated first in Nevada on December 22, 1981 (Dearness had been out of state) and then in Massachusetts by Ch. 32, Acts of 1981 on April 12, 1982. Dearness had originally imagined this new railroad as a shortline system with operations only in Massachusetts before learning of the White Mountain Branch situation, for which he bid.
  Dearness' railroad won the bid, and in 1982 the operating contract was awarded to the New England Southern, which began freight operations on September 3, 1982, using State of New Hampshire-owned ALCO S1 1008. The railroad also leased a GE 44-ton switcher, #2, also state-owned. The first freight run consisted of a tanker for Home Gas in Northfield, a boxcar for Blue Seal Feeds (H.K. Webster) in Lakeport, and another boxcar of casting sand for Arwood Manufacturing in Tilton. The railroad made regular trips to Rochester Shoe Tree in Ashland, Blue Seal Feeds in Plymouth, Gerrity Lumber in Meredith, and a number of other freight customers centered around Lake Winnipesaukee.
  The "Nessie System" (as it became known; a tongue-in-cheek combination of the railroad's early reporting marks, NES, and the nickname of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the "Chessie System") provided freight service solely on the White Mountain Branch until 1984, when it entered talks with B&M President Alan Dustin to assume switching rights in Concord. An agreement was worked out not only for switching rights in the capital but freight rights on the B&M's Northern Mainline between Manchester and Penacook (an exception being the Merrimack Station Coal Plant, which would continue to be served by B&M and later Guilford coal trains). The New England Southern made its inaugural freight run to Manchester on July 14, 1985, using leased Maine Central EMD GP7 581, on loan from Guilford (which had purchased the Maine Central in 1981 and the B&M in 1983).
  In 1985 the railroad purchased its first two non-leased locomotives, an EMD GP18, #503, and an EMD GP7, #302, from the bankrupt Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The locomotives were painted in an attractive green and yellow scheme and went to work immediately. 302 was originally slated to work on the B&M line between Worcester and Gardner, but that deal fell through when the Providence & Worcester Railroad objected. The acquisition of the trackage between Manchester and Concord had bolstered the railroad's yearly carloads from 200 to nearly 2,500, much of which was due to Blue Seal Feeds at Bow Junction and International Salt in Bow. In the late 1980s the railroad was also operating a former B&M branch in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, switching the SD Warren Paper Mill in Skowhegan, Maine, and performing various maintenance-of-way contracts around New England. Less fortunate was a planned gravel operation on the former Maine Central's Calais Branch which fell through and a 1988 bid on the ex-Grand Trunk line in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont which went instead to the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad.
  
caption: New England Southern Railroad #503 heads north through Weirs Beach in 1987 with freight bound for Rochester Shoe Tree in Ashland. Alan Thomas photo, Rick Kfoury collection.
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