The Haverhill, Plaistow and Newton Street Railway ran between it's namesake
towns and then on to Amesbury MA. Full details of the line can be found
in O.R.
Cummings book called Trolley's to the Casino. This book is online and
can be read at this
address.
According to Mr. Cummings, this line was approximately 8.155 miles long with an approximate 3.82 miles of private right of way. This means that about 40 percent of the line was on private right of way. Seems above average to me.
I have found several sections of the private right of way and will cover them here starting in Haverhill and working towards the Amesbury Line.
The first section which I have been giong by for years and a couple of years ago I finally got out and photographed it runs between what is now route 125 in Haverhill and North Ave also in Haverhill.
The right of way shows up quite nicely from North Ave, across from the gas company, a short distance beyond route 495 on your left hand side if you are heading towards Plaistow.
This topo shows the HP&N as it went onto private right of way from route 125 in Haverhill and continued on to North Ave. I am trying to locate the pictures I took a few years ago of this stretch of right of way and will put them online as soon as I can find them. This stretch of right of way is about 1/2 mile long.
One thing that I find particularly striking about this stretch of right
of way is how nicely it curves coming out of the woods to line up with
North Ave. That curve is hard to photograph and unfortunately it doesn't
show up in any of the pictures but when you drive by it's apparent. I will
try to get some pictures of it soon.
As far as I can tell, the HP&N continued on adjacent to North Ave, into Plaistow and then ran adjacent to route 121a up to the center of Plaistow. At the center of Plaistow it turned right onto Elm St and went by the town hall and not too far from the Plaistow train station. Once on Elm St it headed toward Smith Corner Road. It is possible there was some private right of way in this area but if so, I'd been obliterated. The line ran out Smith Corner Road towards Newton NH. Near what is now Priscilla Ln, the HP&N went onto an approximately 1 mile stretch of private right of way that took the line from Smith Corner Road, across Peasley Crossing Road and out to route 108 in Newton NH.
Delorme mistakenly identified the HP&N as a road. Here you can see the HP&N leave Smith corner Road, cross over Peasly Crossing Rd and then meet up with route 108.
Here we see the right of way coming out of the woods from the west at the Peasley Rd crossing.
This is the right of way heading east towards route 108. It's been obliterated here but a little ways beyond it is intact. See the next picture.
Here at the end of this new development, we see the right of way heading
into the woods and towards route 108
From where the private right of way meets route 108 across from Fernwood Rd the line appears to have run adjacent to route 108. I have walked the Merrimac Branch of the Boston and Maine and did not see any signs of the HP&N crossing anywhere and there was no sign of any right of ways either north or south of the crossing so I have to assume that the HP&N crossed the Merrimac branch at grade.
Our next sign of the HP&N is just before Rowes Corner in Newton.
The street railway right of way deviates from route 108 and curves towards
Amesbury just as you are coming around the hill and are just about at Rowes
Corner.
There was a tough right of way to photograph. The embankment in the
foreground is the old trolly line. The one in the background is a road.
I am taking this picture from route 108 just west of Rowes corner.
From there I headed down Bear Hill towards Merrimac and then took my first left. About 1 tenth of a mile down on my left I could plainly see a right of way coming out of the woods and crossing the road at an angle.
Trolley line right of way coming from the west and crossing Amesbury
Road.
This map shows the location of the above photograph.
It was hard to tell if the right of way crossed here but apparently it did because I continued down the road, beared to my right onto Amesbury Rd and near number 46 Amesbury Rd the right of way came out of the woods and intersected with Amesbury road. There are houses on the other side so it is not possible to tell if the right of way crossed over or not.
This map shows the location of the picture above.
Here we have the right of way coming from the west and joining or possible
crossing over Amesbury road down a ways and around the corner from the
last picture.