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[quote user="Guilford Guy"][quote user="Railfan Alex"]Good idea Ty! There are some pretty good videos of the Mass Central Trash Service on Youtube if anyone was interested.  [/quote] MASS COASTAL!!! COASTAL!!!*EPIC RAGE* [/quote] An understandable error, but Alex is right... Mass Central is a shortline operating between Palmer, MA, and Barre, MA. Not to be confused with the Central Massachusetts, of course. A little history lesson on the Central Mass now...The Central Massachusetts was a railroad chartered in 1869 as a parallel competitor to the Boston & Albany (later NYC, Conrail, and now CSX) running from Boston, MA, to Northampton, MA. It later became part of the Boston & Maine.When the Wachusett Reservoir was built by flooding the Nashua River in 1897, the Central Mass (B&M by that time, but it was the Central Mass Division) was operating in Sawyer's Mill and South Clinton (both part of Boylston, MA) so a new alignment was built on the roadbed of the Worcester, Nashua, and Rochester Railroad. This included a short tunnel and a 1000+ foot bridge. The alignment rejoined the original track in West Boylston. Eventually, the line was completely abandoned. As an interesting note, the MBTA currently owns the track from the Boston area to Berlin, MA (south of Clinton and east of Boylston). But with the Framingham/Worcester line so close to the south, and part of a rail trail already using the roadbed in Cambridge, (a Boston suburb) there's no hope for restored commuter rail service.Here's the best (and saddest, to me) part: all of this is within biking distance! Darn those Boston people who flooded half my town 'cause they wanted to drink clean water![swg]) Here are a couple photos and aerial photos of the tunnel and dam area.Tunnel:[IMG]http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee261/TrainManTy/Prototype/image5.jpg[/IMG]You can see the bridge pilings in the water at the base of the dam here. If you look to the right of them you'll see the tunnel entrance.[url]http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.404763,-71.685287&spn=0.003383,0.006303&t=h&z=18[/url]  Hope you enjoyed this little tour! If you've got any questions, just ask. Now I need to research the Worcester - Clinton trolley line that ran through the center of town...[8D]
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