B&MRRHS Receives Landmark Donation From CSX Transportation
Archives Committee Chairman Earl Tuson with a full size (27"x37") work on stiff card showing the finalized version of the “box herald” logo. If you look closely, a line drawing of the early style with rather round O's and an S is "peeping" from behind the filled in black letters. With no formal drawing number, this looks like a draftsman was working out just what and how the lettering was going to change. This artifact is just part of a massive donation from CSX.
June 10, 2025
Over the last two months, and in addition to the Archives Committee’s ongoing work at Lowell and North Chelmsford, the “big news” is an offer of donation from CSX of an enormous quantity of B&M and corporate predecessor records and documents located at Iron Horse Park, North Billerica. The documents include vast quantities of engineering, mechanical, property, and signal records, maps, drawings, files, and indices. The old B&M vault includes early handwritten volumes from the B&M and predecessor companies dating to as early as 1804 (Wells River Bridge Co.)
The sum of the collection being offered has broad historical significance to the Society, our members, and the wider community. The Board of Directors voted to accept the full amount of donation at their recent Board meeting. The Archives Committee has begun to inventory and pack the material and is also working with the MEC Historical Society to support their parallel efforts to preserve and conserve materials covering that associated line. CSX intends on renovating the office building that they are currently stored in, potentially beginning later this year, so the Society will need to proceed at pace, packing and removing the materials, in order to stay ahead of demolition and construction. This will require a substantial effort on the part of our volunteers.
Our existing storage spaces cannot currently handle the full volume of documents. We are carefully re-evaluating our use of space at the Center for Lowell History and at our annex in N. Chelmsford to determine how we can best utilize those areas, but additional storage will be required in order to conserve these historic records. The oldest materials will be housed in our climate controlled space in Lowell. CSX has also offered the donation of a retired box car and placement of such a car “anywhere on our system,” if it helps us to accept the donation in the short term, and store it in the mid term. However, such an enclosure does not meet mid-long term archival storage needs and would require insulation and ventilation, or the loss of contents would be assured.
Members of the Archives Committee have initiated investigations into possible track space locations, but no location has yet been identified that the Committee feels would be ideal. Volunteers Rick Conard, Eric DiVirgilio, Rick Hurst, Larry Kemp, George Kocur, Dick Miller, Bill Morris, Rick Nowell, Bill Poor, Gareth Thomas, and MECRRHS member Peter Violette and others have been busy in Lowell and North Chelmsford and/or have participated in the initial efforts in North Billerica. My sincere apologies to any volunteers I have failed to include in this list; the last couple of months have been a swarm of activity.
Earl Tuson
B&MRRHS Archives Committee, Chair