Grafton & Upton Railroad (G&U) Discussion

By Rick Holmes/Local columnist
The MetroWest Daily News
When I first moved to Upton back in the mid-1980s, the train still rattled through town once a week. I remember walking my kids, just toddlers then, through the woods at the end of our street and down to the tracks to watch the little engine chug by.

Here's a well written article on the G&U's revival and how its situated in modern society.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opini ... U-Railroad

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frrc wrote:The article was not w/out the NIMBY comments also....

At least this writer knows that there's nothing he can do to stop the RR, and simply accepts that its another fact of life he'll have to get used to. These are the nice NIMBYs I spoke to some residents who came out to watch the first run thru Upton last week about their concerns. After explaining the situation, they were much happier. Its just a matter of informing people of the truth and quelling rumors.

They're going to offload intermodal containers in Upton?

Looks like the G&U is getting another unit in the form of ASDX GP9R 4634. Now in Montreal/CN and
routed CN/NECR-CSX to N. Grafton. This is ex-GTW GP9R 4634, nee GTW GP9 4932.

D

^Oh, no. I hope they keep the Alco or give it a good home.

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slashmaster wrote:

NNR wrote:How many miles is it from North Grafton to West Upton? Also how is work going from west upton to hopedale?

I think it's like 7, or 7 1/2, something like that. So far, from West Upton to Hopedale they have cut down all the trees and brush that was in the way, filled in the washouts, and did just a little work with the ballast regulator. The ties are much worse so I'm sure it's going to take longer to fix that part on a per mile basis, but it's 6 miles so at least it's shorter. I personally think they can get to Hopedale much sooner fixing the 2 miles from Milford.

Hi all. An old Distance table for the G&U shows North Grafton at 0.00 , Grafton at 3.00, West Upton at 7.58, Upton at 8.64, Hopedale at 13.45 and Milford at 15.37.
Hope this puts the size of the line in perspective!

First off, here is the most recent picture I can find of the new GP9 mentioned above. It was last pictured running in Jan 09 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1888508

g-u-rr wrote:Hi all. An old Distance table for the G&U shows North Grafton at 0.00 , Grafton at 3.00, West Upton at 7.58, Upton at 8.64, Hopedale at 13.45 and Milford at 15.37.

Secondly, I've always wondered, but have never been able to find out why Upton always had a stop listed there. There's an old siding there right next to the bridge over the stream where Station St. is closest to the ROW. Since this road is called Station St, was this the location of the connection with the old Upton Street Railway? Does anyone have any info on this old station, if there was indeed one here at some point in time? Thanks
http://people.rit.edu/njprcc/gu/track/g ... 824%29.jpg

frrc wrote:Running trains less than 10mph doesn't sound all that efficient, and stopping and starting at every grade crossing, from reading the article.

What makes you say trains running less than 10 mph isn't efficient? Almost no air drag at that speed.

I think that Jon Delli Prescoli should be heartily praised for operating a locomotive from North Grafton down to W. Upton, even if it took 2 hours to do it. Six months ago you would not have been able to get 1/2 mile south of Grafton without going on the ground. This is a major acomplishment. With some crossing improvements and and more track work in the Spring, this will be down to 1 hour quickly. Your criticism that this is not very efficient is unfair. You have to walk before you can run. At least he saved the first 7.5 miles from oblivion. More than most of us could do.

Congratulations Jon.

Engineer999

West Upton had the fuel dealer and the hat factory and probably other team track type industry as well as a passenger/freight station. Upton center is a mile +/- east of West Upton and was probably more of a passenger stop for folks going "downtown". I assume the siding there was an express track or maybe for milk or who knows what in the old days. Alot of towns around this area were like that. Douglas and East Douglas stops on the NY&NE (NH) were only a mile or two apart. Whitinsville and Rochdale on the P&W (NH) same thing, to name a few. The town of Millville on the P&W had a huge brick station at one time and the town is only 3 miles across from Uxbridge to Blackstone!

SkiScorcher88 wrote:Secondly, I've always wondered, but have never been able to find out why Upton always had a stop listed there. There's an old siding there right next to the bridge over the stream where Station St. is closest to the ROW. Since this road is called Station St, was this the location of the connection with the old Upton Street Railway? Does anyone have any info on this old station, if there was indeed one here at some point in time? Thanks
http://people.rit.edu/njprcc/gu/track/g ... 824%29.jpg

Does any one have pics of the track work from upton to milford?

I looked at West Upton yesterday. They got the barriers off the tracks and looks like they finished rebuilding those short pieces of track just before them.

NNR wrote:Does any one have pics of the track work from upton to milford?

There are pics on here. I think they mainly did brush work. They cut down a bunch of trees.

The thread is now 75 pages long so they might be hard to find.