A mystery B&M photo, c.1918

My Grandfather was Raymond Clapp 1898-1970 who grew up in Northfield, MA. I have among a group of 1"x2" brownie snapshots of his, this photo of a train in a station.

From context only, I surmise the location is Northfield, MA, though it could really be anywhere, and the year - it was posted in his 1918 college scrap book - Mass. Agricultural College, the present day UMass Amherst.
The engine appears to be a Pacific type, number 85 mounted on the headlight. the cab side and tender side reveal nothing.

Please share your thoughts about the picture.

Nice photo ! I see that number as "25"...but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may not be the engine's full number because of the positioning of the numerals. A two digit number was rare for B&M's steamers if it's B&M. It's a large locomotive with a full passenger consist, including a baggage car and probably a R.P.O. Looks like a double-tracked station platform area with a back track into an engine house. Would Northfield have had that kind of a complex ? There's a large mountain in the background. If you haven't already done so, you might try scanning the photo and then playing around with a photo corrector to see what kind of detail you can bring out.

There was a stretch when the B&M, like bunches of other lines before headlights got really bright, hung train numbers across the headlight lens, presumably so trains on sidings could see what train just went past, instead of relying just on the ETT and a watch. "85" might be a possibility, but so is "25," as 3rdrail mentioned, which might make it part of Conn. River through service. Maybe someone with access to either a public or employee timetable of the era can expand on this.
Central Mass. passenger service ran through Amherst and terminated at Northampton, an elevated station, for connections to the rest of the system and world, so maybe the down train from East Northfield had just let your grandfather off before he transferred to Amherst on a Boston-bound train. "25," itself, seems to be a northbound train.
I haven't been on the Northampton platform, so I have no idea if those mill/factory buildings still exist for confirmation.

I guess it doesn't look like Northampton to me because although the curve is in the right direction for a northbound train, I don't think the embankment there is wide enough to have accomodated the third track to the far left in the photo. There's nothing like the big brick building in the background still standing today, although of course things change in a hundred years.

The double track does suggest the Connecticut River Line or possibly the Fitchburg Division, since all other lines in the general area were single track.

Since we're in that neighborhood, could it possibly be Greenfield?

A couple of things would seem to disqualify Greenfield. The ROW is elevated and curved in the photo, while the Conn. River line at Greenfield is level or below the land immediately to the west, as well as relatively straight. As far as it being perhaps on the Fitchburg at Greenfield, station buildings would have been visible, as well as an awning to the far side of the locomotive.
As far as Tom Nelligan's observation on embankment width, track alignment might have changed. The UNH topos do show four tracks, including NH, crossing the bridge just south of the station, but inaccuracies can creep into and get perpetuated, even in USGS work.

The loco is a P-2 Pacific. The 25 on the headlight is the train number, as mentioned earlier. This was B&M practice up until the 1920s. Also, note the location of the marker lamps - 9 and 3 o'clock. This was likewise changed in the 1920s to 11 and 1 o'clock, so, if nothing else, it confirms the date of the photograph.

According to a 1916 Official Guide, Train 25 was a Fitchburg Division train, leaving Boston 3:40 am and arriving Troy, NY 11:05 am and, OG-wise, Albany Union Station at 11:55 am. Sorry I don't have a clue about the location, except that it obviously would be on the Fitchburg Division, and not the Conn River line.

PBM

Ozogs photo collection of B&M P-Class Pacifics is showing all engines numbered in the 3600 and 3700 number series, so you are probably correct that that is a train number, put up temporarily I would assume. None of his photos are adorned as such, but I guess that may be due to the fact that many of the shots are yard shots.

http://sites.google.com/site/bostonandm ... -m-class-p

http://sites.google.com/site/bostonandmainerailroad/

Thanks guys , very interesting discussion. Established that it's a B&M Fitchburg div train, I already know more than I did.

Clearly not Greenfield, I know that town well. not Fitchburg either.
Other possibilities could be Millers Falls, Athol, North Adams..?

North Adams station was on straight track, and my recollection is that the still-standing Athol station is too. The curve is in ther wrong direction for the B&M side of Miller's Falls, and the topography isn't right either. I'm trying to think of a western Mass Fitchburg Division station that's on a curve like that.

Ive put a slightly larger copy here: http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac14 ... 1980cr.jpg
Also, there is a little bit more of the village visible on the left.

It may be Northampton after all. On p. 44 of the B&MRRHS's The Central Mass.(yes, fellow MLA adherents,it should be italicized, but that function is currently not functioning for me), there is a photo of a pre-1911-renumbering 4-4-0 with a combine and coach captioned as being just north of the Northampton platform. In this photo is a double for the multi-story brick structure with skylights and spires. Also showing are matchers for the mansard-roofed smaller brick structures. One major difference is that the older square brick smokestack shown in the B&MRRHS book has been replaced by a more current and higher capacity round stack seen in the photo presented in the first post of this thread, which is a likely update. The B&MRRHS photo is credited to the Northhampton Historical Society.

I can almost make Northampton work. The station (now "Spaghetti Freddy's") is behind us, we are looking due east, over Hawley st, toward the river, the hills do look like the Holyoke range, Mt. Skinner perhaps. There is nothing on Hawley St. today like that brick mill and chimney, and nothing else looks familiar. This however means we are looking at a northbound train at the southern end of the platform.

Northampton? Could be. The building in the photo in the Central Mass book is certainly a nice match except for the smokestack. I note that the book caption says that photo is north of the station, while the building in our mystery photo has to be south of the south end of the station, but maybe the book caption is wrong. That would also explain the third track in the mystery photo; it's the one the 4-4-0 is standing on as it branches off.

But train 25 wouldn't have gone through Northampton, so that raises another question!

I believe that that is an engine number that has lost two numerals, probably "36" or "37", making the engine the 3625 or 3725. I've never seen a train number displayed like that but I know that B&M displayed engine numbers similiarly for a while. The period that I have seen the engine numbers displayed on the headlight lens seem to pre-date this photograph, so my guess is that over the years, one too many washes took off the "36".