 Here we are at the October 9th history bites zoom lecture Welcoming Mr. Philip Johnson by remote zoom Mr. Johnson grew up in Springfield But he has roots in the Amherst area his mother's family comes from Leverett and they went to high school in Amherst And my immediate question is which high school did they go to was it the one on Lessie Street? Or was it the one even before that? But anyhow, Mr. Johnson has been a lifelong railfan and has researched many rail lines in Western Massachusetts He's a railroad photographer a model railroader and is the author of the Hamden Railroad the greatest railroad that never ran Unsurprisingly he is a member of several railroad groups and is a 47 47 year member of the Amherst Railway Society He's now retired But he spent much of his work career with several western massachusetts companies working mostly in quality engineering Or computer management roles So let's all welcome Mr. Philip Johnson. Hello everyone We'll get started in just a moment uh to answer george's question a moment ago or a query uh my mother graduated from Amherst high school In 1940 so you guys would know which school that was it was uh not the current one obviously Yeah, okay Um, let's see if I can figure out how to get my screen up there You'll let me know if you can see this power point now Do I have to do anything extra or can you see my uh? My blue screen. I do not see your blue screen. Okay Don't remember how to oh share screen there it is There it is and let's go here and here Come on There we go. Got it. I see that now most of you probably have a series of uh live pictures of all of us on the right hand side and there's a step of little Um icons if you hide all the thumbnails, which I believe is the left-hand little thing You can have most of the screen be my presentation makes it much easier to see So I'll give you a moment to play with that otherwise i'm just going to get started okay, um george had asked me back in uh late january at the Amherst railway show at eastern states to uh Possibly speak to you folks about the railroads of amherst massachusetts. I expanded that a little bit. I'm going in and around Amherst And I've prepared it for the Amherst historical society october 20th 2020 Okay, what I want to talk about is the Amherst railways and trolleys Uh, if in case you're not aware, there were two separate railroad lines The boston and main their central mass division ran east and west went all the way from boston to north hampton 104 miles The central vermont railway north south is still in place It ran from new london connecticut to white river junction vermont and probably beyond The immediate trolley Was the amherst and sundaline trolley although uh later on you'll see that there was another trolley Hopefully you can see my my colorized map a little bit here The blue lines of the railroad lines obviously amherst is that target on the right hand side of the image And the red lines were the trolleys You could get almost anywhere by trolley and certainly to major cities by by railroads We'll start with the boston and main railroad that east west line I mentioned the central mass branch was completed in 1887 all the way from boston to north hampton portions of this line operated anywhere from 1864 and There's actually one still operating in the east but out our way it kind of stopped in 1983 The amherst station is still in place of course. It's now the farmer's supply That line was converted from Was converted to a bike trail from north hampton to belcher town and uh I've spoken to one of the bike trail Enthusiasts and promoters in the eric reg dilapena from north hampton and he he tells me that They're they've purchased land. They've got trusts and all sorts of things. They're going to extend that bike trail, but we'll see more later There's that boston and main depot that you may not even be able to recognize that because it's got feed and seed and all sorts of Other things all stacked around it additions made to it, but that's what it looks like once upon a time The boston and main today um Basically the 1930s were not kind to the boston and main central mass line Traffic fell off during the depression Hurricanes in the 30s caused all kinds of track damage In 1931 there was a section from amherst to belcher town was abandoned Then the b&m ran on the adjacent central vermont trackage This was from norwood talk to canal junction in south belcher town The 1938 hurricane cut the railroad in two sections never to be joined again north hampton and to hardwick was that west end that we know so well and uh damaged to many smaller bridges caused more shared track just like i mentioned a moment ago Anytime there was an adjacent track. They uh, they took that over They completely abandoned the line in 1979 the tracks were finally removed in 1983 The current rail trail was started approximately 1992. I don't have any exact date, but that certainly feels right The rail trail as I said is going to be extended through belcher town too Soon with the gull being the entire 105 miles. That's what kregby the pen is telling me. I'd love to see it Uh, I mentioned the shared trackage in north belcher town This the same station the same area had two different names depending on which railroad you were riding on It was called dwights on the center vermont and pansy park on the boston domain And there's a picture of the pansy park station I might think it's about to topple over because of those big beams holding the roof still up looks comical to me Um, here's that uh that rail trail map. I'm sure you're you're all aware of that But I wanted you to just put it in the presentation. This is the pioneer valley planning commissions 2003 map That's Probably the most recent one I can find. I know there's an extension over on the northampton side Up towards leads a little bit But that that light blue line is certainly the line and I bike that that's a nice ride It's it's rather long for me. I've got to get back in shape, but it's a nice line And we all need to get in shape Okay, the center vermont is now called the new england central those of those pumpkin colored Locomotives you might see running through town. That's the north south line It was started as the north amherst and belcher town Then became the new london northern as it continued to millers falls and then connected to the vermont portion of that line 1847 to the to uh 1867 it was that time frame there The central vermont as it was re renamed then arrived in about 1853 to amherst to connect to palmer and new london to the brotha burl white river junction branch It remained as the central vermont from 1871 to 1995 like I said, it's the NECR new england central railroad now The 1853 passenger station is still in place. That's that brick one that was The amtrak stop until just recently passenger service continued under the cv until 1947 A few years of service were offered by amtrak with it But as I said that ended at the end of 2014 I wrote one of the last trains just to say I wrote it from amherst to springfield and No from brotha burl to springfield on return just to uh, just to see the mileage before it went away There was a depot and kushman, but that was gone by 1921. That's right Where that parking lot is now in that little triangle space opposite that little store Those tracks of course are still in use Freight only now as I said formerly used by amtrak. I think there's one train each direction each day through amherst Later afternoon northbound as I remember Because I see it up here at millers falls sometime It was reorganized as a new england central in 1995 Which is now owned by the genesee and wyoming since 2012 We and as I said, they're now running those orange locomotives. I like the green and yellow myself, but that's they didn't ask me There's that station that I mentioned that we don't know so well You can see there's a little platform and two people are sitting on the end of the platform posing for the photographer, I suppose And that the amherst sign is still there. There's a number of tracks in place. I believe they're all removed now Uh No, it wasn't just all the Um passenger stuff as you can see on this map Which I borrowed from the library of congress. It's a sandborn business map Passenger station is in a lower right corner of that pink station That was a freight house a little further south of that or left in the picture But this has all those hat plants and the hill's brothers manufacturers of straw hats was The big manufacturer down there An elder lumber was down there and another manufacturer up on the upper left You know, so it wasn't all just passengers coming and going to mass agi then There was actually manufacturing in amherst And as a matter of fact, my great grandfather George Moore He received a shipment by rail on 3rd of october in 1855 and he paid 50 cents for this box of box box Bundle of boxes 100 boxes he purchased for his store and levered center All right, this is one of those family heirlooms that just filtered down to me But it's it's it's the railroad. We're talking about Okay, um trolleys The amherst and sundaline street railway that ran from about 1891 to 1936 as the amherst and sundaline In 1907 it became the Division of the whole yoke street railway system as they started gobbling up all smaller lines There those tracks are long since gone. They were pulled up probably shortly after The the line stopped running The last trolly stop most of you are probably aware. It was that pleasant street station Which was You know in the middle of the umass property. I believe that was north pleasant street It was torn down in 2012 Some power line reconstruction project they were doing that's that's a sad loss for the town It was the only piece the only stop station left Another last remnant of the system was The wooden trolley barn by Cole's lumber and that's now gone. That was that was about to fall over last time I went past it The last remaining piece of the system is the old trolley building now used by the amherst public works in south pleasant street There's a picture of an 1897 trolley two-man operation one man Drove it and one man collected the tickets And this is one of those open cars you you climbed up those steps on the side where the man is stand the conductor is standing You paid your nickel and you climbed aboard and you you ran as far as you could Okay, this is that wooden car barn. I mentioned There's actually part of the powerhouse up there. They called it county road. I believe that's that's right next to Cole's lumber just north of Cole's lumber now But that was uh prominently shown in the 1910 view of another sandborn map I borrowed from library congress They ran up south pleasant street beautiful picture, you know, most of these are postcards that are common But you know, there we are. There's there's amherst I don't know how many of you knew but it ran up over the notch right next to uh 119 Before they realigned 119 when it hugged that left that west side of the mountain You could just barely see this on the right hand side when you got up to the top by the stone crusher You could easily see This track off on the on the eastern side You can still see it today, but it's it's a little harder to see as trees grow up Must have been quite a ride to go up or down that hill Now every trolley system had their own tokens. I happen to have these from the spring spring field street railway I don't have any from amherst, but I don't necessarily collect them But they're they're small about the size of a dime made out of a base metal nothing Nothing significant no cost there, but they all had their own Tickets good for one ride or one zone depending on how the payment was figured out Now as we as we go off to the west As all trolleys do and that map earlier showed You you want to get over to north hampton, you know the the Bus line runs there now. These are the three bridges that existed at one time The railroad bridge is still there. That's the bike trail one now the um The one of the first highway bridges and then the trolley bridge way over on the left hand side Now we're looking across from Hadley towards north hampton So i'm i'm guessing those trolley bridges about where the current highway bridge is right now But it's much higher off the river also And since we've crossed the river there were three more railroads and another trolley system over there The connecticut river railroad followed the river as its namesake river and arrived in north hampton about 1845 That became part of the boston and main their con river line ran from springfield through north hampton to brattle borough Those tracks are still in place used for freight And the the amtrak and the the new valley flyer runs on that now station in north hampton The original station is now open as a restaurant was designed by hh richeson who designed Several area railroad stations always built of stone to last forever Built about 1896 or seven using that blonde brick and long metal limestone good stuff This station replaced two separate smaller depots that were wooden depots that the railroads had to Get rid of when the railroads were elevated to eliminate grade crossings very dangerous grade crossings of railroads and roads The bnm central mass line came over from amerson hadley met just east of the current station in about 1887 Here's a view of that current station that you can see now the tracks in front of us are now gone That's part of another bike trail The live tracks are on the opposite side of the station extreme right side And you can see some carriages are pulled up there probably waiting people about to disembark from the train This is a map. I know it doesn't show it real well, but that station is that odd shaped blob pink blob in the lower center of that picture The tracks we were just standing on in the previous slide or that lower left corner They came up in parallel the longs passenger Boarding area to the north of the station strong avenues still there of course of the library congress map Now the new haven line is the one we were just standing on take in that postcard picture That ran from north hampton the new haven to north hampton and followed an old canal built in the 1840s and 50s There's very little left on any of that line to show was ever a canal It followed then it followed the conetic at river railroad to the industrial area in turners falls And added two branch lines to smaller communities Just uh where stop and shop is now they branched off and went over to williamsburg And in uh south deer field area. There was another branch off went over to Shelburne falls area And they they ended up in what is now east deer field yard sharing yard space with the boston and main All those branch line tracks are gone. There's a bike trail like as I said earlier going out towards williamsburg So some of it is still in use you can still see some of it as I recall There's still a little piece right by look park that you can see over there There's a little arch bridge you can drive through or used to be able to Now here's a map of that area is talking about If you follow those those hash marks on the bottom right side those are the railroad tracks That line that makes a sharp right turn and goes off to the right off the right side of the map Is that central mass line runs over to amherst Belcher town and eventually 105 miles later to boston The boston main the current line is that right hand one that goes north south The new haven line I said is gone is that one slightly west of that That angle running up off the left upper left corner. That's the branch to williamsburg went past the vets hospital Serve them coal for years went up to williamsburg to that lovely brick station that still exists up there Now there was A number of buildings associated with that line. This is their freight station in north hampton quite a large facility The staff is all lined up to get their picture taken Now there was all as I said, there's another trolley over there. It's called the north hampton and amherst Service in north hampton area was connected to amherst approximately 1900 It ran along the current route nine as we saw on that three bridge map earlier All the way over to amherst center where you could exchange to the other trolley line That's that trolley bridge it ran across into connect get river Pretty much the trolley business came in to replace all those stages stage coaches So the electric trolleys replaced them about 1893 ish 1880s to 1900 that whole time double decade there They else That was also taken over by the whole yoke street railway. As I said, they gobbled up all the small lines in 1907 Most of that service was gone in october 1922 replaced by rubber tire buses sad loss Now here's another view of that con river valley The bnm lines are all shown in red This one unfortunately doesn't show that central Vermont line. It's it's just a pencil line because it's a bnm map I wanted to show you the a larger picture of the the whole area At one time they there was a bypass built in 1913 the little yellow arrows pointing at that To connect the central mass line directly into springfield and not have to change trains at northampton and get you To travel south to new york. This was that hampton railroad the one that i wrote the book about Basically, it wanted to get people from the rich areas of new york and southwestern kinetic up to the the vacation lands in New hampshire and main so we'll make this connection and get them get them headed more north But as I said the hampton railroad the greatest railroad that never ran My book tells the entire story about that line You can get it from me or federal street brooks and greenfield has a couple amazon other online sellers And This does some really good reference books If you don't have it the railroads and trolleys of amherst mass by james avry smith You can buy that right from the amherst railway website One town and seven railroads written by the palm republic library railroad advisory board in 2008 I consulted on that a little bit. I think you have to see the palm republic library I'm not sure if that's available outside the library system Also, the central mass railroad is written by the Boston main railroad historical society printed by marker press. Those are available around also Good reference books if if you want to read further on your area All right. Well, thank you for your attention. This didn't go as long as I expected this It's going well All images used in this presentation are out of copyright and or in my personal collection Sandborn maps are found at the library of congress and I noted that those were sandborn maps Uh, I think we can open to questions anytime You can email me later if you think of questions later on down the road at hamden fill at gmail.com So i'll leave it back to you george and we'll uh entertain questions I'm gonna Stop my share now There we go Yes, um Thank you for that presentation and one question that I had was about trolleys were the original trolleys horse drawn Before they became electric That's not not likely they were horse drawn up here because putting in the rails themselves was a big cost Not, you know, obviously you've got to build the power plant and electric string wires But that that was more in the larger cities, you know, boston and new york I believe they were just the traditional stagecoaches that we all think of Before they the Electric trolleys came in. I don't think we had to The horse drawn ones here My grandfather who graduated from hammers in 1916 used to talk about um Taking the stagecoach back from north ampton late at night So they were probably still running as as late as um What you know the into the teens sure teens Well, it's Well, if they were competing companies there would be no reason to Stop running until you had a loss of ridership You know, and it could be that the trolleys shut off at nine o'clock at night. I don't know what you know There's there's not a lot of records survive of trolley services Not like railroad timetables that are around forever trolleys ran until the the riders stopped You know and they'd have to run the power plant or buy municipal power to keep them running so they would Certainly did not run all night So we would have had a power plant in town too to uh keep the electric trolleys running Well, one of those pictures showed what was supposedly a power plant up by coal's lumber So you would probably burn coal to make steam to run a generator Also the amherst dpw down there on route nine that was also a power plant So I don't know why they would have to it wasn't a large system But they were both noted as being power plants at some point in their life cycle So yeah, you'd either buy municipal power or you'd have your own power plant many of the smaller small town trolleys like up here conway and uh Um Shelburne falls they had a water power power plant So they had a generator at the bottom of the water fall and they would make their own power Which then, you know, they would just I suppose just shut it off You know when when the trolley stopped running for the day Does someone else have questions? Eliza Elisa actually but yes, Lisa Two two comments one I came in 1970 and I have a dim recollection of b&m tracks next to the farmer supply I mean, they weren't being used but they were still visible at that point Yes Yeah, I I I've seen a picture of one of the last freight trains that ran across the Con River bridge In my mind, I have it stuck that that was like 1973 Really, you know, and they ran over to there was a customer in Hadley near with that little bike shop an ice cream shop You know, and they probably ran a boxcar every now and then down the farmer supply with grain and such things Sure very seldom though, right? Okay, the other thing I used to take the Vermonter Montreal or whatever it was called from embers to washington with some frequency back when it was still Yeah emerson It was delightful to get on the train and you just you've got your seat and you're all set from Next eight hours or whatever, but you didn't have to you didn't have to change cars or anything. Which is very nice. I loved it Yeah, personally, I prefer rail traffic to airplanes I oh, yeah planes It's the only way to get there in a timely manner when I go out west for anything But the railroads are relaxing you can sit you can read a book you can sit and have a coffee stare out the window Get up and walk around. You can't do much of that Much more relaxing I envy people who got to take that chance Of course now you'd have to get a Get a car over to north hampton and get on the soundtrack I believe they're running because of the covid but you know once it wants the world opens up back again You know the trains will start running again if they get a budget from congress to keep them going but Well, there's always that battle My wife is from nebraska and for a while she was taking the train from springfield Out to lincoln nebraska and you'd get a sleeping birth and everything and she thought it was a very civilized way to travel She met some wonderful people out. She was doing that Are there other questions? I don't see any hands hands up. So oh, wait carol Turn your mic on carol Did that do it there? Well, I used to cross country ski along the trolley line Well, the eftens owns that property seymour and alice Uh to the east of route 116 going up over the notch And it was just it was very it wasn't that steep really I mean the fact that I could Ski it And I went up. It was very it was still open then. This would have been the 80s in the 90s And um And it was very very visible on the other side of the notch actually the on the north side On the south side south side. Yeah The north side it was kind of in the woods Yeah, I think so. Yeah, as I said, it was skiable and it was privately owned. I uh, I don't know if that's I'm I suppose it would be privately owned, right But it it's hard to know exactly what happens to the rail to the Property the land itself when When it's abandoned depends on the legality of the abandonment if they just Put it dormant and walk away And then the corporation falls The ownership of the land is in question, but I'm not a lawyer. So I don't know for sure But um, it's my understanding a lot of that land can revert back to the previous owners after x number of years You know that that's just how I understand it Because there's certainly no nobody they would need to buy it back from because the corporation's gone Pretty sure in the holy oak range. It's part of the holy oak range state park I'm sure elisa now that that's probably true now. That's probably part of holy oak range the state property there possibly some of the The trap rock people I believe that's lane or somebody they probably They probably own that that little piece east of 116 right at the at the mill there Yeah Yeah, and I too remember the train going to emmer's farm supply Sure in the 70s and then uh going back and when it stopped that was always It was very very surprised but for uh To get anywhere on train at that point had to go over to north hampton Right and get a train then in the 70s and 80s, right? and then then that that con river line i mentioned got so deteriorated because the The operating company deferred maintenance for so many years that it would amtrak wouldn't trust that at 10 miles an hour So that's what they moved over and started coming Coming down through millers falls and amherst to palmer and then reverse direction and go back to springfield They did that many years You do you think the railroads were I mean emmerst had three railroads coming through at one point or two two anyway Was that mostly because of the factories? Um well north south they had to come through there somewhere So why not? Yeah, well you kind of picked the larger towns because it's more likely business freight and passenger business in the larger towns When they all started out the there were many Inducements sometimes the town would have to pay the railroad company to go to their town rather than the town next door You know, but they also have to consider the terrain you want to follow Where you don't have a lot of cost to put the railroad in Um the north south route was was fairly obvious They wanted to stay away from the con river line They wanted to get the head more easterly rather than through springfield So they headed more east to get to london the east west line that was just to get to From north hampton to boston that was laid out in 18 Whatever 60s, you know, they just wanted to run that whole line So it was a matter of where do you go, you know In in my own mind they got a they got a heads up years In years before quabban came because they made a dip and went south around quabban Because otherwise they would have had to pull their tracks up and relay it all when quabban Stole us four towns from us Amherst has a station road in south amherst That is crossed by crossed by their active railroad and the rail trail where they were both very close together Was there ever a station there? I think that may be that that a rickety little station I I should have this pansy park or dwights That there was a station on that road Oh, okay, so that that was in amherst not belcher town actually Maybe yeah, yeah in amherst. There was Today we might call it south amherst station But back then they always named it for somebody prominent with the railroad or some industrial ester Some funny name A lot of the native american names were used narwha talk Junction things like that Yeah, the dicken the dickinson family was Yeah quite Involved in getting the railroad to come through amherst North the one that went by the dickinson homestead very near the south line Central bond, yeah So I imagine a little money There was money Help bring that line in certainly Wonderly's ipad I see a hand up Hello In the 90s Willam and willamantic there were some people trying to make a Railroad museum and they had made the Turnaround thing and everything and they they got a they They got a car And sent it and we we paid tickets and got on and we rode up up the uh up What's called 32 and Yeah, in Connecticut up 32 Up to amherst and you could get off in amherst if you wanted to but then we went up to braddle borough and had lunch And turned around and came back down again And we stopped at an amherst station there Because people got on off I think maybe some people got on I don't remember exactly But that was a lot of fun and we wanted them to do it again and they said they never had that much money again But sometimes there are a charter trains There's a there's a group out of the boston area mass Bay railroad enthusiasts and they will charter a train for a day and run such a thing I've ridden out of Worcester, you know several times on the the province and Worcester line They've they've got quite a passenger train or they used to And uh, but that that museum you mentioned down there that that's an active museum They they did build the turntable was the word you're thinking They built they rebuilt the round they rebuilt the roundhouse using the original plan So they have a sixth stall roundhouse to store equipment in Yes, they did Beautiful museum I got down there Well, not not this year, but every other year for the past 15 years I've gone down there for a a photo shoot where they stage things for us and it's it's a wonderful time It's a beautiful museum. Yeah, that I'm glad I'm glad they got it together. It was just starting out We used to go out and buy a t-shirt and spend a day walking around Yeah Anyone else? Well, thank you. Mr. Johnson This video a slightly edited version leaving out all of the golly. How does this work comment? Will be posted up on on Amherst media's website and also linked by Amherst history's website And I'll probably feature it in an upcoming Amherst history news grant So, um, anyone who's not here now who didn't get to see it will get to see it in the future Thank you again for your time