The Original Train, Boston & Lowell R. R. 1835 from “The Boston and Lowell Railroad, The Nashua and Lowell Railroad, and the Salem and Lowell Railroad,” Francis B. C. Bradlee, Salem, Mass., The Essex Institute, 1918. Courtesy Center for Lowell History, UMass Lowell.

This romantic image of a locomotive, tender and passenger cars might not be totally accurate, but reflects the importance of the railroad in developing industrial cities. The robust transportation between Lowell and Boston, at first with the Middlesex Canal completed in 1803 followed by the Boston and Lowell Railroad which saw its first train in 1835, allowed manufacturers to ship raw materials from Boston and finished products back to the port. The throughways were designed and funded by the wealthy and built by the backs of poor laborers, many Irish. Digging canals and laying “roads” was hard work. The first rail line of the L&B was laid on blocks of granite. The engineers did not realize the unforgiving surface would shake the locomotives to pieces. They switched to less expensive wooden ties.