trainsinmaine wrote:That Steamtown coach would not have crossed the bridge. Steamtown was in existence at the time the trestle was standing, but the track west of Berlin was removed in 1959, not long after abandonment.
MBTA ownership of the Central Mass ROW ends roughly
here per the state railroad ownership map. Somewhere right about where that small stream crosses the ROW. Switch that Google Map to satellite view and you'll see a building whose yard ends right at the ROW. I bet the ROW is private property right there, even though it isn't built over at all. This is exactly 1 mile shy of the would-be junction with the still-active Agricultural Branch, and virtually all of that lost ownership is in the middle of forest. Street View on Route 62 about 3 clicks in front of the active crossing shows the old piers where the Central Mass traveled over the road.
This stretch would've been abandoned long enough ago that B&M's land ownership was dead and gone long before the assets sale to the T. That would suggest that at some point between the 1958 passenger truncation to Hudson and the 1964 truncation to South Sudbury that there remained freight customers across the Berlin line in the 495 vicinity...but NOT serviced by trains originating from the Agricultural Branch or convenient enough to route out there (because why sever the connection otherwise?). That track connection would've then been outright abandoned and with land ownership lost to the ether on that last mile between '58 and '76, but most likely with the Hudson-Berlin stretch that pokes past 495 retaining land-owned (OOS? Abandoned-operating/retained-ownership?) by B&M through the transfer. Hudson freight was active all the way until the true end of the line with the 1980 embargo, so there's not a whole lot of track past Hudson station to the end of the T property line in Berlin that has indeterminate date of abandonment.
