Wayside Inn station

Wayside Inn
The former station site in November 2024
General information
LocationSudbury, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°22′28″N 71°27′24″W / 42.374467°N 71.456761°W / 42.374467; -71.456761
Owned byBoston and Maine Railroad when closed
Site now owned by MBTA
Line(s)Central Massachusetts Railroad mainline
Platforms1 (former)
Tracks1 (former)
History
Opened1 October 1881 (1881-10-01)
ClosedBefore 1944
Rebuilt1897
Former services
Preceding station Boston and Maine Railroad Following station
Ordway
toward Northampton
 Central Mass Branch South Sudbury
toward Boston
Location
Map

Wayside Inn station was a flag stop station in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

History

The former station site in 2017

Created by the Massachusetts Central Railroad in 1881 as a simple platform, it was named for the Wayside Inn approximately a mile south, to which it provided service.[1]: 192  By 1885 the successor Central Massachusetts Railroad provided service, and by 1887 the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) leased the ROW and named it the Central Massachusetts Branch. By 1897 a shelter building was built by B&M.[1]: 192  The building was burned down by vandals sometime in the 1940s and no remains of it are visible today.[1]: 192 

The small wooden shelter was built in a Japanese style, as nearly all consecutive stations on the line were built in a unique style to create the illusion of variety.[2][3]: 87–90  The name of the architect responsible for their design has been lost to time.[3]: 87  The station was located on Dutton Road in what is now the Wayside Inn Historic District. Passengers included innkeeper Edward Lemon, Babe Ruth and Henry Ford.[2]

In 2022, a buried transmission line project between Sudbury and Hudson began construction under the former Massachusetts Central Railroad ROW for which it provided service.[4] This project subsidized the cost of building a section of the Mass Central Rail Trail—Wayside, which was named for this station and the Inn, and which is expected to complete construction in 2025.[5] As part of this project, DCR will install granite markers to commemorate the archaeological site.[6]: 6 

References

  1. ^ a b c Plumb, Brian E. (2011). A History of Longfellow's Wayside Inn. Charleston, SC: History Press. ISBN 978-1609493967.
  2. ^ a b "33 Wayside Inn Railroad Waiting Room". Sudbury Historical Society. 2024-10-07. Retrieved 2024-10-08.
  3. ^ a b The Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society, Inc. (2008). The Central Mass (Second ed.). Brimfield, MA: Marker Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-9662736-3-2.
  4. ^ "Sudbury-Hudson—Eversource". E.T. & L. Corp. Retrieved 2023-09-20.
  5. ^ Autler, Gerald. "Mass Central Rail Trail—Wayside". Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
  6. ^ "Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Massachusetts Historical Commission, NSTAR d/b/a Eversource Energy and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Regarding the Sudbury-Hudson Transmission Reliability and Mass Central Rail Trail Project, Hudson, Stow, Marlborough, and Sudbury, Massachusetts" (PDF). Town of Sudbury, Massachusetts. 2022-10-19. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
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