Small railyard in Hudson, MA

I lived in Hudson in the 70's and early 80's and happened to catch a few small trains that would come into town from time to time and had heard that there used to be a small yard off of Main St. by Grove St. This is near where a diner once was and the location of where the trains that did come into town would stop as I suspect the crews would stop into the diner for something to eat. In all the time that I lived in Hudson there was only a single track that crossed Grove St. but the area seemed big enough to perhaps have two or three additional tracks for storage of passenger or freight cars. Maybe it was all made up, but it did seem conceivible at the time. I have checked the historical maps with different time periods and have not seen any trace of it, but wanted to ask anyways.

The roadway alignment has changed a bit with the repurposing of the old ROW into the walking/biking path adjacent to Rte. 62, but the track-chart CD available through Scott Whitney shows a small yard and freight house between Cottage and Central Streets, a bit to the west of the N76/B28 MP.

Hudson had two railroad facilities. The one MR.B is asking about is the original entry into Hudson (Feltonville at the time). It was built by the Fitchburg RR and came in from South Acton, through Maynard, by Lake Boone, crossed Route 62 at grade in the area known as Gleasondale, paralled and then crossed 62 again and ran alongside it into the center of town. There were both passenger and freight station facilities, probably right at Washington and Main. Then the line headed upgrade and off to Marlboro. Built about 1850. Most of Hudson's mills were located along this line. The yard MR.B mentions was alongside Main St. (Route 62) from Assabet River crossing to Washington Street. In the early 1870s the Massachusetts Central came into town but crossed over the Fitchburg RR's branch on a bridge and ran on the opposite side of Main Street to its station near Lincoln and Pleasant Streets. Hudson functioned with both passenger and freight service on two Boston & Maine divisions until the late 1930s. Passenger service to Marlboro was discontinued and the line to South Acton was put out of service from Maynard south and later removed. From the late 1930s until 1958 Hudson's passenger service was on the old Massachusetts Central route to Clinton. When the passenger service to Clinton ended May 17, 1958, the remaining passenger trains were routed back onto the original route back to the freight station at Washington and Main Streets (passenger station had been removed). The B & M had connected its two routes into Hudson at a place called Gleason Junction near where the two lines had crossed over and under each other. (Gleason Junction has been at two different locations.) I had poor relatives who lived in a block on Loring Street that faced the yard MR. B mentioned. I always sat by the space heater hoping to see a train, but we almost always visited on Sundays or Holidays so i never saw one there. My relatives enjoyed improving economic conditions and bought a nice house on Mason Street in the shadow of the spindly Assabet River trestle with the high railroad embankment for a back yard. Again, no trains. MR. B's yard is no more. After the MBTA acquired most of the Boston & Maine properties in Eastern Massachusetts, the Town of Hudson worked out a deal to make a new access road through the railroad yard along Main Street. Just about every trace on a railroad has been obliterated there. Growing up in a large family, mostly boys, shoes at a regular store were expensive. So, we used to go right to the shoe factory on Houghton Street in Hudson and buy shoes in their retail outlet. Factory was right by the line to Marlboro, but I never saw a train there either.

Up into the 1930s, that small Hudson yard was protected by manually operated (probably from the station) yard protection semaphores. Between passenger trains to Marlboro (4 each way weekdays) and local freights, there was enough activity in that area that the signals were used as a safety measure to keep a crew doing switching from being run down by a train.

Slight mistake on my posts above. The B & M's Hudson station facilities on the line from South Acton to Marlboro were at Broad and Main Streets. Every place I mentioned Washington, it should be Broad.

Sorry -- shoulda paid closer attention to the Grove Street mention. The track chart CD shows the Marlboro Branch with its station between Grove and Broad Streets. The passing siding started just on the easterly side of Grove and ended before Broad. In the immediate area there were three stubs shown on the southerly side of the main, one east of Grove, one between the siding turnouts, and one west of Broad. There was a stub shown off the main west of the first southerly stub and east of the easterly siding turnout. Just west of the westerly siding turnout, there was a more complex series of tracks shown to the north, including tracks that crossed Broad, with one of the rejoining the main. On GEarth, there appears to be an aluminum-painted series of horizontal tanks in the area that would have had the northerly stubs. Just to the west of Broad and also west of of the previously mentioned track that rejoined the main, there was a single southerly stub shown. It was busy in a small area. How many of stubs that show in the charts would still have been either active or extant in the '70s and 80s is another matter.

Thanks edbear and jaymac for all of the info, I always had a suspicion that there may have been some type of yard or something and this helps. I believe I have also seen a photo of the station that you talked about, I saw a photo of a station listed as Hudson on NERail I believe and did not recognize it as the Felton St.? station so perhaps it was the station mentioned. Helps to put that photo in perspective as well. Thanks again for all the info, loved the history lesson!