High Street Bridge

The High Street bridge carries High Street over the Lowell line of the railroad in North Billerica, near the Boston and Maine repair shops of 1913 (now Iron Horse Park). The Boston and Lowell Railroad, chartered in 1830 and opened in 1835, was surveyed by James F. Baldwin so that it crossed very few roads at grade; the town roads were carried over the cut on bridges instead. In 1980 the bridge was a two-span timber trestle 48 feet long, with timber stringers and a plank deck, set on nineteenth-century cut stone abutments.

The narrow bridge was a long-standing problem. In 1937 the selectmen met with the County Commissioners and the Boston and Maine about "widening the railroad bridge on High Street," but the work was deferred. In 1939 the town voted that the selectmen act to make the Gray Street and High Street bridges "safe for a loading of not less than twelve tons," and in April 1947 the bridge was closed while the railroad repaired its stringers. It was transferred to the Commonwealth on June 8, 1976, and in 1980 it was closed to traffic. The state took land for its reconstruction in 1985-1986, and the new bridge, of prestressed concrete box beams, was finished with the Pond Street bridge in 1988. The state bridge inventory names it for Henry F. Collins.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.918
2. Annual Report 1937: conference with the County and the B&M on widening the High Street railroad bridge
3. Annual Report 1939: vote to make the Gray Street and High Street bridges safe for twelve tons
4. Annual Report 1947: High Street bridge closed for stringer repairs; Gray Street bridge hearing
5. Annual Report 1976: Special Town Meeting of June 8, 1976 transfers the six railroad bridges to the Commonwealth
6. Annual Report 1986: land taken for the reconstruction of the High Street Bridge
7. Annual Report 1988: the High Street and Pond Street bridges over the B&M Railroad reconstructed