Old CENTRAL MASS ROW

I plan on going back home this summer for a week or so and I want to follow the old Central MAss line as much as possible.
I am not fining much information online about the Old abandon Central Mass rail line ROW. There is a lack of information on any web sites (old maps, photos, stations etc). If anyone has any information.Please let me know.
Thanks
Robert

Two of the books by Ronald Dale Karr, Lost Railroads of New England and his The Rail Lines of Southern New England have entries about the Central Mass. This might be of some help. As a possible tip, US 20 paralleles the row through Sudbury ( where there is an old section house near a grade crossing) ,Wayland and Weston. In the Hudson-Berlin-Clinton area Rt 62 is a good bet. The trail gets confusing in West Berlin because of a line relocation . In Clinton you can see the tunnel and bridge footings east of the reservoir that caused the relocation ( beware of post 911 security). A good topo map may be needed west of Clinton.

There is a depot at Waltham Highlands, Weston, and Wayland. There is also a freight house in Wayland. That section house is nicely restored. There is also the replacement depot in Sudbury not too far away. There are some Bridge abuttments in the Berlin area not far from that tunnel. I would like to find the location of the former engine house in Clinton, also. I would also like to find out where the passenger depot was in Hudson. Speaking of Hudson, there is some clearing of the row that is along/near rte 62. Anybody know whats up?

It's traceable almost all the way from Waltham to Clinton on Topozone. West of there, you may need to refer to the older topos at the UNH topo collection.

The clearing of the ROW in Hudson is actually not on the Central Mass line. Central Mass is to the right of that work on a higher grade. The clearing is part of a Rails to Trails project for the old B & M line from South Acton to Marlboro. That line crossed under the Central Mass line near where Rte 62 passed under, and then ran though Hudson behind the mill buildings. It was converted to a street a number of years ago and parallels Rte. 62 through Hudson before it bears of to the left and up a steep grade to Marlboro. There is still a very nice open deck trestle in the middle of Hudson that this trail will cross. This Rails to Trails project is a major budjet item since they are not only clear ROW in Hudson, but also building and underpass to the trail under the 290 extension into Hudson. Big project..........

I think there was a separate bridge for the Acton/Marlboro line besides the 62 underpass since there was also a trolley line that passed through this location. The trolley line ran from West Acton to Hudson. Some of the private ROW is still visible in the area. There was also a steep link between the Central Mass line and the Acton/Marlboro branch.

There was also a book published buy someone on the CM line. I don't have the author or publisher info at hand right now.

The Central Mass book was put out by the B & M Historical Society in 1975. No author.

The trestle in Hudson runs parrallel to Houghton St. It is easily viewable. There is a run down mill with parking if you want to stop and inspect it. I think it is about 25 to 30 feet high over the river.

A B&M station on the Mass Central exists just to the east of where the right of way crosses Route 85 in Hudson: is a small modern station. Plus, don't overlook the Mass Central railtrail in West Boylston. In fact, most of the row can be hiked from Northampton to Watertown.

The western 10 miles or so of the CM is the Norwottuck Rail Trail through Amherst and Hadley to Northampton.

The passenger station in Hudson is located just to the east of Route 85 and probably was used as the only Hudson station until 1958 when the line westward from Berlin to Clinton was pulled up and passenger service ended to Clinton. Passenger service then ran from Hudson to North Station (although freight service to Berlin lasted until about 1978-I remember seeing 2 boxcars in Berlin bringing lumber about 1978.)Anyway, after passenger service was cut back from Hudson to North Station the B&M discontinued using the Hudson passenger station and switched their RDC's to the Marlboro Branch and parked the trains in downtown Hudson on the Marlboro Branch parallel to Route 62. There was no station here and passengers just climbed aboard. I remember seeing a couple of RDC's parked overnight in Hudson around 1965 and this seems to be the practice until service to Hudson ended not long after. The area has been developed and the small yard on the Marlboro branch where this took place is difficult to locate.

If you want to follow the ROW, check out the maps on http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/.

Here's another Central Mass question for everyone. In my Delorme MA Topographic Atlas, if you look at the Central Mass line near Sudbury State Forest, you can see a branch off the line to the north, that is a loop and inside the loop, their appear to be many different spurs. Can anyone give me any informantion on this? Was this a logging operation, a quarry, a military facility, or some kind of storage yard? I tried to locate it a few summers ago, but no roads go near it and i couldn't even find any evidence of where the spur crossed the road. Thanks for any info.

According to http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.as ... 4&z=19&w=2 there was a military reservation.

I've wondered about that myself. The DeLorme atlas is sometimes a little overenthusiastic about what it shows as railroad track. The full-size topo doesn't show those routes as such, and the area looks too hilly for it. From looking at the aerials on the MassGIS site, it doesn't look like there are any tracks there, but they could have been taken up.

Oh, there were definitely tracks. Have a look at http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.as ... 5&z=19&w=2.

There was an ammo dump located there during World War II. The area was sparsely populated, but there were some family farms, etc. Abruptly everyone was moved out and compensated for fair value according to the Feds. If you can find the Central Mass. book, there's a piece on the ammo dump and how it was stocked and then the materials distributed.
Boston was a big embarkation point and ammo was kept at that site until a convoy was being made up. A lot of the troops were at Camp Standish in Taunton and as they were being moved primarily to Boston, their munitions were being packed aboard trains for a return trip to meet up with the various battalions, etc.
The munitions were manufactured all over the country, got into Boston on the B & M, were sent out the CM in trains that sometimes required pushers, were stockpiled in the ammo dump and then distributed when a convoy was in the making.
The tracks looked active through the Hudson Road Xing until the 1970s or so. The dump was posted, fenced, guarded and landscaped so I could never get an idea of what the complex looked like on the inside. Word is that there was a yard near Ordway station on the CM and a military diesel picked up and delivered the ammo. Part of the grounds were turned over to the Commonwealth and are the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy.