MBTA in Hopedale?!
Yes, it is true. Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. This is indeed an MBTA train on Grafton and Upton rails passing the remains of Hopedale Yard and the massive buildings of the single industry that sustained the road for its first century.
The G&U story began in 1873 when the Grafton Center Railroad was chartered to build a 3 ft narrow gauge line between Grafton and North Grafton, which officially opened for business on August 30, 1874. At North Grafton the railroad established a connection with the Boston & Albany Railroad, a later subsidiary of the New York Central. The company remained a three-mile narrow-gauge for the next 13 years until July, 1887 when it was renamed as the Grafton and Upton Railroad, converted to standard gauge, and set its sights to the southeast at Milford. Two years later in 1889 the line had reached Upton and on May 17, 1890 the entire route was open to Milford, a distance of 16.5 miles, where it connected with the Milford & Woonsocket Railroad (a later subsidiary of the New Haven).
Between 1894 and 1979 the railroad was owned by its largest customer, the massive Draper Corporation of Hopedale that one time employed some 3000 people as the largest maker of power looms in the country for the textile industry. But in 1978 Draper successor Rockwell Corporation closed the mill and sold the railroad which seemingly had little reason to exist any longer and little future. The track beyond Hopedale to Milford had not been used since 1973 when Penn Central terminated the interchange there since after acquiring the New Haven a few years earlier there was no need to connect with the G&U at both ends. By 1988 the G&U was no longer running to Hopedale at all and the tracks were out of service. In the mid 1990s the G&U did revive the line to haul highway salt down to their tiny yard in Upton for transloading, but I never made it to see that happen before it too was gone.
When I was growing up the G&U had one working locomotive, an Alco S4 resplendent in St. Louis Manufacturer's Railroad paint. I never saw it run, however, as it was always sitting with the stack capped at the railroad's sole customer, Washington Mills just about a mile south of the then Conrail interchange in North Grafton. By the time I had learned of the railroad's existence back then their other two "orignal" units in G&U black and yellow were long out of service. I do have one significant souvenir off original G&U GE 44-tonner #99 bought new in 1946 and scrapped in 2009. Around that same period the two Alcos also sadly met their demise.
But all was not lost...as sad as seeing those locomotives go along the demolition of the last original G&U buildings in Hopedale those losses signaled a rebirth. In an entirely improbable turn of events the road was purchased in 2008 and the new owner began rehabbing the entire railroad. Over⁷ the past decade the line has grown busier than it's ever been with a large new yard and transload facility in West Upton, two busy customers in Hopedale and a new propane distribution facility in North Grafton. And the future looks even brighter as the connection to Milford was just reestablished after nearly 50 years out of service.
And that connection is how this train ended up here. Due to unexpected problems with the cab signal cutover on the Worcester Line the railroad is out of service for 10 miles east of Framingham. Consequently their were four train sets trapped in Worcester. Given that Worcester has no inspection pit and each bi-level coach requires and FRA mandated disc brake inspection over a pit every five days it became imperative to find a way to get the trains back to Southampton Street yard and send others out to replace them. Normally a detour would take the MassDOT Framingham Secondary down to Walpole to access the Franklin line using a Keolis crew and a Mass Coastal pilot.
That was what was originally planned but then the MBTA didn't want to let the trains go through CP21 in Framingham. So that's when the idea was hatched to use the newly rebuilt and just opened (only two weeks ago) connection to the G&U in Milford. This resulted in a total of eight train sets running as two double drafts each direction traversing the Milford industrial track beyond Franklin to the new connection then taking the G&U to North Grafton and back to the Worcester Line (ex B&A). Here is the second run of these unprecedented moves seen rolling past the Draper Mill with F40PH-3C 1054 bringing up the rear.
Hopedale, Massachusetts
Wednesday June 25, 2020
MBTA in Hopedale?!
Yes, it is true. Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. This is indeed an MBTA train on Grafton and Upton rails passing the remains of Hopedale Yard and the massive buildings of the single industry that sustained the road for its first century.
The G&U story began in 1873 when the Grafton Center Railroad was chartered to build a 3 ft narrow gauge line between Grafton and North Grafton, which officially opened for business on August 30, 1874. At North Grafton the railroad established a connection with the Boston & Albany Railroad, a later subsidiary of the New York Central. The company remained a three-mile narrow-gauge for the next 13 years until July, 1887 when it was renamed as the Grafton and Upton Railroad, converted to standard gauge, and set its sights to the southeast at Milford. Two years later in 1889 the line had reached Upton and on May 17, 1890 the entire route was open to Milford, a distance of 16.5 miles, where it connected with the Milford & Woonsocket Railroad (a later subsidiary of the New Haven).
Between 1894 and 1979 the railroad was owned by its largest customer, the massive Draper Corporation of Hopedale that one time employed some 3000 people as the largest maker of power looms in the country for the textile industry. But in 1978 Draper successor Rockwell Corporation closed the mill and sold the railroad which seemingly had little reason to exist any longer and little future. The track beyond Hopedale to Milford had not been used since 1973 when Penn Central terminated the interchange there since after acquiring the New Haven a few years earlier there was no need to connect with the G&U at both ends. By 1988 the G&U was no longer running to Hopedale at all and the tracks were out of service. In the mid 1990s the G&U did revive the line to haul highway salt down to their tiny yard in Upton for transloading, but I never made it to see that happen before it too was gone.
When I was growing up the G&U had one working locomotive, an Alco S4 resplendent in St. Louis Manufacturer's Railroad paint. I never saw it run, however, as it was always sitting with the stack capped at the railroad's sole customer, Washington Mills just about a mile south of the then Conrail interchange in North Grafton. By the time I had learned of the railroad's existence back then their other two "orignal" units in G&U black and yellow were long out of service. I do have one significant souvenir off original G&U GE 44-tonner #99 bought new in 1946 and scrapped in 2009. Around that same period the two Alcos also sadly met their demise.
But all was not lost...as sad as seeing those locomotives go along the demolition of the last original G&U buildings in Hopedale those losses signaled a rebirth. In an entirely improbable turn of events the road was purchased in 2008 and the new owner began rehabbing the entire railroad. Over⁷ the past decade the line has grown busier than it's ever been with a large new yard and transload facility in West Upton, two busy customers in Hopedale and a new propane distribution facility in North Grafton. And the future looks even brighter as the connection to Milford was just reestablished after nearly 50 years out of service.
And that connection is how this train ended up here. Due to unexpected problems with the cab signal cutover on the Worcester Line the railroad is out of service for 10 miles east of Framingham. Consequently their were four train sets trapped in Worcester. Given that Worcester has no inspection pit and each bi-level coach requires and FRA mandated disc brake inspection over a pit every five days it became imperative to find a way to get the trains back to Southampton Street yard and send others out to replace them. Normally a detour would take the MassDOT Framingham Secondary down to Walpole to access the Franklin line using a Keolis crew and a Mass Coastal pilot.
That was what was originally planned but then the MBTA didn't want to let the trains go through CP21 in Framingham. So that's when the idea was hatched to use the newly rebuilt and just opened (only two weeks ago) connection to the G&U in Milford. This resulted in a total of eight train sets running as two double drafts each direction traversing the Milford industrial track beyond Franklin to the new connection then taking the G&U to North Grafton and back to the Worcester Line (ex B&A). Here is the second run of these unprecedented moves seen rolling past the Draper Mill with F40PH-3C 1054 bringing up the rear.
Hopedale, Massachusetts
Wednesday June 25, 2020