A great deal of newsprint was shipped into the Northeastern U. S. from Canada via the Central Vermont and then to the New Haven.
Several times per week a "Paper Train" ran down from Lowell, MA on the old Framingham and Lowell line -- the consist containing many Canadian Road boxcars stenciled for handling newsprint. Those cars would go over to the South Boston freight yards and thence to the Boston Globe and Boston Herald - Traveler printing plants on Harrison Avenue.
That all terminated on 4/1/1976 when Conrail and the "Final System Plan no longer provided for any interchange at Lowell via the former NYNH&H Framingham line. Accordingly, a single rail was lifted south of Route 126 in Chelmsford and the life of this line as a through route was finished. A portion of the line has only this last summer been opened as a bike - hiking trail.......
It was on this line that I last was able to see multiple unit lash ups of ALCo FA - FB units on the paper trains as they went through West Concord about 4:00 p.m.........
