What is this? Federal owned ROW in metrowest Mass

[BostonUrbEx]

So I found some federal ROW's in Hudson/Stow/Maynard/Sudbury on this map: http://www.massfreightandrailplan.com/m ... tewide.jpg

So I searched Google Maps, expecting to find some Air Force base. All I found is some woods, with what appears to be traces of abandoned twisting ROWs. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=csor+loco ... 7&t=h&z=15

Was there some sort of military base here at some time? There's no sign that it is, and when switching from satellite view to map view, it's not shaded grey, as most government owned land is on Google.

[Cosmo]

Sounds like you found the former Ft. Devins complex.

[obienick]

Sounds like you found the former Ft. Devins complex.

No. Ft. Devens was located in Ayer/Shirley.

From Wikipedia: "Sudbury was considered to become the part of the site for the headquarters of the United Nations, along with parts of Lincoln, Concord and Marlborough. Protests by townspeople and the Knights of Columbus caused the United Nations to choose a different location."

Who knows how true this is, or if there is any connection.

[BostonUrbEx]

Ft Devens is more than 10 miles to the northwest, though. It's definitely unrelated.


Anyways, more information via Wikimapia:

The area is labeled as the Assabet National Wildlife Refuge. http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=42.413571 ... ife-Refuge

On the western edge is supposedly a fortified FEMA bunker and satellite communications center. http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=42.413571 ... ion-Center

On the eastern edge is supposedly another FEMA bunker, labeled "Doomsday Shed" on WikiMapia. http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=42.411037 ... msday-Shed


I don't see the need for a huge swath of trackage for any of these. If they needed rail to the FEMA buildings then they could have yards at the buildings themselves, but instead they cross the refuge sporadically in the middle of nothing. And this is assuming these really even are FEMA complexes....

[jaymac]

The abandoned Federal ROW on the map is a spur off the equally-abandoned B&M Central Mass. Branch with a yard complex for storing and staging ammunition. The B&MRRHS publications The Central Mass., both original and reprint, cover it, as do a number of postings for the Central Mass. on RAILROAD.NET. When Devens was still a fort and not just a location name, the former ammunition site was renamed a Devens annex, not to mention an EPA Superfund site, as was -- maybe even still is -- Devens itself.

[caduceus]

Right, this was an ammo dump and annex to Fort Devens. In the 80s it was used as a dump, partly by the Army labs in Natick, but under the EPA superfund it was cleaned up in the 90s and made a wildlife refuge.

[Cosmo]

The abandoned Federal ROW on the map is a spur off the equally-abandoned B&M Central Mass. Branch with a yard complex for storing and staging ammunition. The B&MRRHS publications The Central Mass., both original and reprint, cover it, as do a number of postings for the Central Mass. on RAILROAD.NET. When Devens was still a fort and not just a location name, the former ammunition site was renamed a Devens annex, not to mention an EPA Superfund site, as was -- maybe even still is -- Devens itself.

AHA! Seeee,... TOLD ya'!

(Sorry, I guess I been reading that 'other site' too much and it's rubbing off.)

[BostonUrbEx]

I am sorry I ever doubted you Mr Cosmo.


Interesting site here.... I will assume the area used to be cleared out and the trees have since grown in. Or did the trees come in as a part of the EPA superfunding? Are there any tracks still there and is it safe to go for some exploring?

I have to wonder why the Devens Annex wasn't abutting the actual Ft Devens? Judging by Google Maps there's alot of staging grounds at Ft Devens and room for much more.

[Cosmo]

I have to wonder why the Devens Annex wasn't abutting the actual Ft Devens? Judging by Google Maps there's alot of staging grounds at Ft Devens and room for much more.

In case it blew up.

[RussNelson]

In case it blew up.

Yep. This rail line, north of Syracuse, NY, served a high explosives manufacturing plant duing WWII. It was about 1.7 miles away from Baldwinsville. They put it on the north side of a drumlin so that if the plant exploded, it wouldn't take out Baldwinsville. Find the north/eastern most stub track. It ends at the south side of the drumlin, which still has the concrete structures designed to contain the blast. If you scroll north from there, you can see the storage igloos on East Igloo Road and West Igloo Road. Their spacing is set so that if one explodes, it won't start a chain reaction.
http://rutlandtrail.org/gmap.cgi?pabst-siding.ny.track

They did something similar in the Finger Lakes, at Seneca Army Depot, only they were storing tactical nukes. All rail served, of course.
http://rutlandtrail.org/gmap.cgi?seneca ... t.ny.track

[jaymac]

BostonUrbEx » Sat Sep 04, 2010 8:53 pm
I have to wonder why the Devens Annex wasn't abutting the actual Ft Devens?

When it comes to the Feds, especially DoD, and even more especially DA, remembering the old sneaker "Why Ask Why?" slogan is usually helpful.
For a period in the 1970s and 1980s, Devens was in an expansionist mode. The Army Code (Morse) School, which had been sited in one or more of the WW II wooden-wonder barracks was replaced by a state-of-the-art-looks-like it-belongs-at-Dartmouth-College-multi-story-red-brick-high-tech-high-security-colonial-style structure. As best as I recall, the Code School got moved to Arizona's Ft. Huachuca before the official opening of the new facility and also before the defortifying of Devens, due to a round of BRAC decisions that closed numbers of bases in the North East. The Code School got moved, but the new and unused building is still there.
As part of the previously mentioned expansionist period and also as part of the alleged attempt to save taxpayer dollars by exempting the Federal government from the requirements of its own creation, the EPA, bases and others were allowed to not clean up their waste dumps. The Sudbury ammo dump was rebranded as the Ft. Devens Annex at Sudbury and was intended to be a sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind location for transferred hazmat. The bunkers were, after all, secure and a good place to shift and store all sorts of nasty things like solvents and other toxics from the main Devens facility. Never, however, underestimate the ability of young males to go where they're not supposed to. Suburban legend had it that bunker break-ins occured, and more than a little embarassment happened when one part of the government was found by another part of the government to have created and fostered a Superfund site. Things have reportedly been remediated.

[TomNelligan]

One thing to add to all the above... the heyday of the ammo dump and rail service into it was during World War II. It was no longer a rail customer by the time Central Mass freight service was winding down in the 1970s, although the trackage remained.

[CGRLCDR]

You can see this site pretty clearly as it was back in 1969 and 1971 on historicaerials.com. The 1969 image is partially blacked out, which might indicate something they were trying to hide back then. Anyhow, just search on Sudbury and scroll west on the Central Mass and you will see the magazine area.

To be more specific; scroll west on the Central Mass until you reach a wye, go north and you'll came to the Sudbury Annex.

[bigbronco85]

I walked this area in the past, while the trackage is gone, you can still see the places where it traveled. Each bunker has a platform out front that appears to be a small loading dock from a railcar. The bunkers are pretty cool to see by themselves. The place is largely overgrown with pine forests. Some parts are "off limits" but no one was really around telling people where they should and shouldn't go when I was there a couple of years ago.

[CAMB.MASON]

So I found some federal ROW's in Hudson/Stow/Maynard/Sudbury on this map: http://www.massfreightandrailplan.com/m ... tewide.jpg

So I searched Google Maps, expecting to find some Air Force base. All I found is some woods, with what appears to be traces of abandoned twisting ROWs. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=csor+loco ... 7&t=h&z=15

Was there some sort of military base here at some time? There's no sign that it is, and when switching from satellite view to map view, it's not shaded grey, as most government owned land is on Google.

I had a summer cottage since 61 on Lake boone, and remember as a kid that sign out in front, Fort Devens, Sudbury Annex/Division. I still remember seeing the army jeeps parked at the old guard house at the entrance. They also had where the housing is, barracks years ago just down the street. I believe in the OLD Central Mass. book by the B&MRRHS, there is a B&W photo of one of those ammo trains coming in from Boston, heading to Sudbury. There at that spot was a wye that went to a small yard and into the Army Annex, also just along there was Mirror pond which is now Maynard water supply, trains use carry ice from this pond back to Boston.