Questions about the B&M Hudson and Marlboro Br.

ThinkNarrow wrote:

papabarn wrote:An interesting "siding" outside buildings 1 and 21 of the old American Woolen Company's Assabet Mills in Maynard.

I believe that the picture shown was taken before the new building 1 and building 21 were built. Note that the buildings shown behind the train are a jumble of heights and windows, and that there is a very low building (which we knew as Building 12) on the far left. The new building 1 was/is a very long, uniform structure running along the side of the Mill Pond. While the new building 1 was under construction, the Mill Pond was drained, and water was brought to the water turbines via a penstock on wooden pilings across the now-dry pond. When the penstock was removed after construction, the pilings remained, and those are probably the pilings that you saw from your window. There are pictures of the penstock in the Images of America book, "Assabet Mills."
-John

Thanks John! On closer inspection (with cleaner glasses plus a magnifier) I can see what you are saying and (I may be wrong but) I think I might have mistaken buildings three and four for buildings twenty one and one. I can also see the spatial proximity of building twenty three to building three. The elevator/staircase enclosure on the side of building five should've been a visual clue to me of "what was where" but I didn't pick it up. I can also see now that the siding is clearly on "terra firma". When I was there, there were rails visibly poking through the pavement in spots. Ahh.. Nineteen years this month since I looked out that window. Remembering now the path that those pilings suggested, the penstock makes more sense than the line someone fed me about the storage of coal hoppers for boiler fuel (heating?).

This is great. I worked for DEC in building 5 and didn't know how they used those pilings back in the wollen mill period.