Mass Central Railroad

For how long did the modern day Mass Central RR have their office at Amherst MA train station? I remember in somewhat recent time there was still a Mass Central sign on the station.

As i recall, they acquired the station from the cv in the mid 70s. They got a grant to restore it to what it might have looked like in the 1890s. Their use of it as an office was very short lived because the Amherst Hadley section of the wheelwright was long on lousy track and short on customers. The main office for the railroad in the late 70s and early 80s was primarily at an apartment in belchertown and a caboose located at amherst feed supply.

after the schism, an office situation gradually evolved in Palmer where it remained through the 1990s. it's been located in Barre ever since the reload folks there bought the line .

Thanks for the info. I know at one time they were looking at restoring the Bondville - Northampton section of the Wheelwright branch so they could connect with the B&M. The poor track conditions ultimately thwarted the idea, and I'm not sure how crossing the CT River would have worked since by the late 70's the B&M implemented a major weight restriction on the old iron bridge into Northampton. State money was put into the rail trail instead. I did hear the Mass Central operated an "inspection" run to Northampton circa 1980 with the old 44 ton Whitcomb. Track speed was limited to about 5 mph.

They earnestly looked at a variety of things that just couldn't work without a lot of opm. One not too completely crazy idea that was discussed, looked at a day trolley service between northampton and amherst. Very poor track, an old, very long, barely maintained bridge, and virtually no traffic would have been a daunting task to tackle for anybody with or without money. Ultimately the start up of the state ware river sec. contract in 1979 along with the threatened shut down of the Diamond egg carton factory in bondsville squashed any further talk of wanting to go west anymore.