Questions about the B&M Hudson and Marlboro Br.

I was wondering when the B&M terminated services to this area. I was looking at Live maps to trace the route from South Acton to Maynard. I know that the lines have been abandoned at least from the early 1980s. I recall seeing the crossings still in place in Hudson, but paved over, and the Marboro line still in place and in also the same shape. In Maynard, the line was still intact, but the same condition existed with the crossings paved over.

The view today using Live is interesting. Where the ROW has not been disturbed, there are still tracks in place including junctions and sidings. The overgrowth is pretty thick and there are lots of grass, but the trackage is still there. Where it is disturbed, however, it is truely gone - wiped out by shopping malls, new streets, etc. In the eastern side of Hudson, there's a junction with the CM and the Marboro/Acton branch. The trackage is still intact, but covered in deep weeds. What's interesting is now close these lines were to the road. Route 62 runs pretty close to the ROW heading into Hudson on the Marlboro branch. The CM was a little bit more northerly, but was also parallel.

So when did these lines give up their ghost? Around the same time as the Central MA?

Has the T or anyone else ever thought of reviving services to this area?

Hudson has quite a large population, and I feel that there could be a revived commuter service from the downtown using the CM branch. I know this is a pipe dream and has been discussed before, but this is a real waste of ROW to be allowed to rot away unused.

John

John,

This line is part of the Assabet River Rail Trail. See this link:

http://www.arrtinc.org/

It is now a rail trail all the way to Marlborough.

I walked the line from Marlborough to the Fort Meadow reservoir in the spring of 1977. It was abandoned at that time, though the ROW was in good condition. I was told that a bridge condition near Hudson was the reason that the B&M had ceased service to Marlborough. Not sure when that happened, but it would have been about 1975 or 1976.

EH

The B&M's South Acton-Maynard branch was abandoned in 1979, and what was left of the Marlboro branch was abandoned in 1980 along with the Central Mass in that area.

JCitron wrote:Hudson has quite a large population, and I feel that there could be a revived commuter service from the downtown using the CM branch. I know this is a pipe dream and has been discussed before, but this is a real waste of ROW to be allowed to rot away unused.

I live about 200 feet from the dormant Central Mass right-of-way and I'd love to see it revived, but it's not going to happen. Aside from the fact that the MBTA and the state in general are broke at the moment, the last time it was suggested a decade or so ago, the rich NIMBYs in Weston and Sudbury howled so loud about the terrible dangerous trains that I'm surprised you didn't hear them in Haverhill. They'd kill it with endless lawsuits claiming it would endanger the local turtles or something.

Commuter rail on the Central Mass., when last proposed, was vigorously opposed by the then State Senator representing Wayland and Weston, and it quickly went off the table onto the back burner.

Thank you all for the information. I'm glad to see the rail-corridor preserved with the rail-trail, but I would rather see tracks instead of bikes.

I'll keep dreaming and maybe revive the Central MA and the Marlboro branch in Trainz.

John

I read online a few years ago a feasability study done by the MBTA regarding refurbishing the Central Mass. line and it was determined that it would be a very expensive endeavor. Unlike the Fitchburg line and and old B&A line this railroad stays at grade for most of it, which means a lot of crossings that would have to be redone. Just through Hudson there must be 12 crossings and another 4, 5, or more in Sudbury. I know nothing about the cost to replace a crossing but I believe I've heard around a million per crossing, could be wrong but it still must be costly. I've wondered for a while how they ever ran this railroad in its' heyday with it being a single track everywhere I know of, they'd have to really do a lot of work to get this line going again. I'd love to see it happen in my lifetime as I do remember as a kid seeing a few trains running on it as I'd walk home from school in the late 70's. God I hate NIMBY's, it always seems that if it hurts them, that the rest of us have to pay for it! Having a commuter line through Central Mass out to even just Clinton would certainly help some with the traffic around here.

DCR has also signed a lease of the Central Mass from T in the past year I want to say the lease was for 99 years. But it would be really cool to pop out of a tunnel 70+ feet over the Nashua River looking at the Wachusett Dam.

The rail is still in places in a large portion of the line hi Hudson and Berlin. Of course things are extremely overgrown!

Here are some pictures that I took today at the (paved-over) grade crossing on White Pond Road in Hudson:

Here are a few more pictures that I took today at the (paved-over) grade crossing on White Pond Road in Hudson:

It is amazing how much of the track is still in place.

Imagin the NIMBYs fighting any plans to reactivate this line for commuter or light rail use!

The 'Rail to Trail' people mentioned making parts of the line in Berlin a rail trail, but the NIMBY factions in Berlin came out in numbers. Comments like "bike riders will pee in our back yards, they will peek into our homes, crime will escalate" and other responses...

In 1964, when I moved to Hudson, B&M was running one RT commuter Budd car M-F between Hudson and (I suppose) Back Bay station. I'd see the car parked overnight just west of the Rt 62 bridge over the Assabet river, less than one mile from downtown Hudson. It was a ratty-looking thing with lots of cracked glass and many dents. I don't recall seeing many autos parked there and it was a good bit from most prospective foot traffic. The location is on the Marlboro spur, a half-mile west of the split between Rt 62 and Hudson's Cox Street. Today, in about the same spot, there is a lonesome caboose parked next to the old ROW which has been paved as a walking trail. The wooden trestle over the Assabet was torn down and removed last year. I'm guessing the commuter service was dropped in 1965. I never got a chance to ride it - one trip a day made no sense for anything except going to work. If there was any freight service on this spur in the mid-60's it was infrequent at best.

Peter Brewster

Thank you for the pictures and the information on this line. Peter, the B&M ran a lot of service this way in the 1970s in order to discourage passanger service. The old Haverhill line only had 1 train a day each way as well, as did the Newburyport branch, and most likely others. It's too bad they took the bridge out. That's one less link in the line. Those NIMBYs have quite a bit of power, why is everyone so afraid of them?
Sometimes the good of everyone prevails over a selfish group of little brats.

John

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

Click the image for an enlarged image. Once the enlarged image displays, you can enlarge it further by clicking on it. Image from (linked to) “American Woolen Company - Assabet Mills - early 1900s,” Maynard Historical Society Archives.

For a while during my employment with , my desk was on the first floor of building one, right about the location of the door on the second to the right-most boxcar. I could look out my window and see the tops of the pilings that once supported the "siding".

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