Data:
GPS Coordinates: as needed
Phone A/C: 603
ZIP: 03820
Population: 32,741 in the 2020 census
Access by train/transit:
Amtrak
The Scoop:
Not much going on in town railroad wise except for Amtrak coming thru, and a
Pan Am train a few times a day.
I don't have any info on the Pan Am trains :-(
There are five Downeaster trains a day in
each direction, see schedule below.
From the Dover.nh.gov website:
The first chartered railroad in New Hampshire ran from Boston to Lowell in 1830. By late
in 1837, the railroad had been extended to the New Hampshire state line.
In 1838, Dover voters gave permission for the B&M tracks to pass through
Dover. The Dover Gazette lobbied against it, saying the railroad would put
men out of work who rode the stages and coasting vessels. Dover would “be
turned into a town of idlers, under a tyrant’s power.”
The track was completed to Coffin’s Cut in Dover (at the intersection of
Washington and Arch Streets) in August, 1841. On the east side of the track
were the passenger and freight stations. From there, passengers and cargo
were transported to town by horse-pulled omnibus or wagon.
The first train arrived on September 1, 1841, carrying a number of
stockholders of the railroad. Although it was a stormy day, a large crowd of
spectators turned out, both at the station and along the route from
Newmarket. Most had never seen a train before and, according to a newspaper
account of the day, one man was heard to remark, “You can’t fool me. I know
there’s a horse in there somewhere!”
Since the station was unfinished, and further grading operations were
necessary on the tracks, the trains did not run regularly at first.
Over the course of the next year, work continued to get through Coffins Cut,
which meant burrowing through a hill. Finally, the track was extended into
town, so a new railroad station was built on land once used by the Cochecho
Manufacturing Company as a wood yard, extending from Third to Fourth Street
and surrounded by a wood fence. The new station (now the site of the
Municipal Parking Lot) was built of wood, with pillars in front, and was
painted dark gray, then sanded. It stood over the track, and the train cars
went through it via large doors at either end. In the winter, the doors were
open only to let trains pass through; however, this practice was soon
stopped because the smoke from the wood smoke of the engines was stifling.
This station was replaced in 1873 by a brick station constructed on the same
site. It was a two-story building that did not cross the track.
When passenger service was discontinued on June 30, 1967, the downtown station was demolished
and a new smaller station was built in the old Second Street railyards west of Chestnut Street.
That station was demolished when the existing station was built for the renewal of passenger
service in 2001. end Dover.nh.gov
Additional snipets of information from Google.....
Take exit 4 off of NB I-95 (or exit 5 from SB I-95), and go north on
US-4/NH-16 (The Spaulding Turnpike) about 10 miles. Get off at Central
Ave, make a left turn at the end of the off ramp, and then an immediate
right onto Locust St. In about 4/5 of a mile, the street will curve to
your left and turn into Chestnut St, this will take you to the train
station.... GREEN ARROWS
If you're going SB on US-4, take the Knox Marsh Rd exit, and take a left at
the end of the ramp. Take a right onto Silver Spring Rd when you come
up on it, and take that till it connects with Locust St, and take a left.
YELLOW ARROWS
Courtesy of the USGS, click here for their index page.
Disclaimers:
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly inaccurate, wrong, or not true.