Fitchburg Route

I started a Central Mass topic, and it got me to thinking of a couple of other things. For one, Was there a depot at the Beaver Brook Station, and, is the freight house that is located there a former B&M freight house or a customer owned building (I'm talkin' back in the day)?

The Waltham Lime & Cement building at Beaver Brook looks a lot like a former railroad structure, but it isn't -- it was built for transloading bags of cement and the like from boxcars to trucks. The B&M freight house in Waltham was downtown, at the Elm Street crossing across from the tower, and it not only still exists but is splendidly painted in traditional B&M yellow and maroon.

As for whether Beaver Brook had a station building in ancient times, I don't know. If it did, it was gone by the 1960s.

You can always email the B&M historical society and ask them if there was ever a Beaver Brook station in that area.

At least as far back as 1948, I can not remember their being a building at the Beaver Brook Station. When their were two tracks running through Beaver and Waltham, all passengers boarded and de trained on the eastbound side. Incidentally! the clearance was so close going under the bridges through the area that the train crews would remove the marker lights from the rear of the trains, as they could get knocked off by other passing trains. For those few rail fans that may not be aware; trains also stopped at Riverview above Waltham (east end of the cemetary) their was no station building and passengers boarded here also on the easbound side.
In case of any continuing interest in Stony Brook, it seems to me their was a shack there before #128 was constructed. But I defere to most rail fans as often being more historically correct than my memory.
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Herbie was a wonderful engineer. What a "touch" he had on the throttle and brakes,......a real smoothie!

I had the good fortune of riding in the cab of an FP-10 on the Cape Cod RR with Herb. He could spot a coach on the handicapped platform perfectly. (I bet he could do it even with his eyes closed!)

Paul

One of Robert W. Jones' books has some detail of that depot, as told by a (then) kid that had a part time job keeping the stoves burning...I think there is also picture.

Interesting!
No doubt the possibility of a shack being there even when I was working is very likely. but I wa only 20 in 1948 and at my age lots of things disappear from the brain cells.

I am trying to find out more about B and M traffic/power over the fitchburg route iin the late 40's - can anyone point me to a comprehensive source?

I will post a few preliminary questions here:

When did steam disappear from the fitchburg line? If it had diesilized by the late 40s what sort of road power was in use?
Where commuter services provided by lightweight passenger equipt. or had RDC's arrived by that point?
Did the fitchburg line host any other long distance / regional passenger services (ie not commuter trains) at this time?

Fitchburg line history has become something of a new found obbsession of late. I used to ride it as a student in Boston out to Waltham and still do out to North Leominster to meet friends for Friday night poker games about every 4 months! Sorry to be so verbose!

Locals were still running on the Fitchburg when I was a little kid in the '50s. The first train ride that I can remember was when my parents put me aboard an eastbound local at the South Ashburnham depot and then raced down to Fitchburg to pick me up at the depot there. I had already developed a love for trains. I was either four or five --- that would have been 1955 or '56. I don't remember whether the train was hauled by a steam locomotive.

Long-distance passenger service on the line is something I remember well. My mother and I took the train from Gardner to Troy several times to visit relatives in Schenectady. (I have a very clear memory of pulling into the Johnsonville depot in a snowstorm one evening.) That service was discontinued in 1958, as was passenger service on the Cheshire. I think the South Ash. depot was razed shortly after that; I know it was gone by the time I was in junior high.