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  • Waltham freight station endangered?

  • Discussion relating to the pre-1983 B&M and MEC railroads. For current operations, please see the Pan Am Railways Forum.
Discussion relating to the pre-1983 B&M and MEC railroads. For current operations, please see the Pan Am Railways Forum.

Moderator: MEC407

 #785842  by TomNelligan
 
After driving by it today I'm wondering if the wonderfully preserved (and still in maroon and cream paint) former B&M freight station in Waltham, Mass., may be endangered. The building, which currently houses a moving company, is posted as for sale, and a sign in the parking lot formerly occupied by the team tracks advertises a new condo development on the site. Anyone know details of what's proposed there?
 #921072  by mdamico23
 
The four B&M 40' boxcars that have long since occupied the Waltham freight house siding along with the former B&M milk car that occupied the east leg of the wye to the Bemis Branch were cut up for scrap on Friday night/Saturday morning April 8th/9th. Also, the rails and ties to both the freight house siding and the what was left of the connection to Bemis Branch were removed on Sunday April 10th. Someone on another board said that the freight house is going to be demoilshed very shortly as well. As an aside, does anyone know how long the 4 boxcars and milk car were in Waltham? They were there in 1995 when I moved to Massachusetts and already their B&M paint had long rusted away (at least on the side facing the Fitchburg main). The milk car was probably the last movement on the eastbound Bemis wye before it connection to the Fitchburg line was severed. Anyone know what was stored in these cars?

-Mike
 #921151  by TomNelligan
 
Yep, I drove by as usual on my way to work this morning and noticed that the cars had vanished. I would guess that construction is about to start on the condo development that has been advertised for the site for the past year.

The cars were there in the mid 1970s; I don't know how long before that they first showed up. The freight house building was used for many years by a food distributor, so I assume the boxcars housed assorted nonperishable bulk food products. It would have been nice to see the milk car go to a museum but I suppose it was just a rusted shell at this point.