Iron Horse Park
Iron Horse Park
| Location | Map |
| Established | 1961 |
| Area | About 353 acres |
| Roads |
High Street Iron Horse Park |
Iron Horse Park is the industrial park in North Billerica on the land of the former Boston and Maine Billerica Shops, southeast of High Street between the main line of the railroad and the old branch toward Pond Street and Salem Road. Its main entrance is the private road from High Street also called Iron Horse Park. The name is the old nickname for the railroad locomotive.
The Boston and Maine Railroad assembled the land in 1911 from some thirty farm, meadow and wood lots, shown on its purchase plan of April 1911 (Plan Book 28 Plan 73), and filled the low ground for its car and locomotive repair shops, which opened in 1914. As the railroad's repair work shrank, it began selling unused shop land: in 1961 it sold about 23 acres beside the yard to The Omega Trust (Plan Book 96 Plan 25), and by 1968 the area was known as Iron Horse Park, where General Latex Corp. built an addition to its pilot plant that year. In 1971 the former P. F. Avery building in the park was taken over by the Torngren Co., and in 1973 the Welco Realty Trust sold all its Iron Horse Park land to Penn Culvert Company, which built at 1100 High Street. State offices in the 1970s used the address "1A Iron Horse Park, 67 High St." A sewer contract finished in 1979 let the park discharge to the town system.
The park includes the surviving shop buildings at 600, 1000 and 1400 High Street, the Office and Systems Management Building that became the headquarters of Pan Am Railways, the plant of BNZ Materials at 400 High Street, the General Latex land behind High Street, the Cooperative Reserve Supply lot at 1100 High Street, the vehicle lots behind High Street, and the railroad's remaining open land toward Pond Street. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bought the locomotive shop land in 1976 and later parcels at 600, 800 and 1400 High Street for its commuter rail operations.
The yards and their surroundings, about 553 acres in all, were placed on the federal Superfund National Priorities List in 1984 as the Iron Horse Park site, for lagoons of waste oil and sludge and several asbestos dumps left by the railroad's work. The responsible parties finished the remedial construction, and the Environmental Protection Agency completed a preliminary close-out report in September 2022. The outline shown here follows the assessor's parcels of the former railroad shop land, about 350 acres, rather than the larger Superfund boundary.
Historic Buildings
Points of Interest
- Smallpox Cemetery (1811)
References
- Billerica Annual Report 1968, industrial development report: General Latex Corp. addition to its pilot plant in Iron Horse Park
- Billerica Annual Report 1971, industrial development report: the former P. F. Avery building in Iron Horse Park
- Billerica Annual Report 1979: sewer contract allowing the Boston and Maine Iron Horse Park to discharge to the town system
- U.S. EPA, Iron Horse Park Superfund site, North Billerica: about 553 acres, cleanup status and close-out
- Wikipedia: Iron Horse Park, the former Boston and Maine Railroad repair shops off High Street in North Billerica