Wayside Inn station
Wayside Inn | |||||||||||
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The former station site in October 2025, with historical granite marker installed by DCR as part of the Mass Central Rail Trail—Wayside project. | |||||||||||
| General information | |||||||||||
| Location | Sudbury, Massachusetts | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 42°22′28″N 71°27′24″W / 42.374467°N 71.456761°W | ||||||||||
| Owned by | Boston and Maine Railroad when closed Site now owned by MBTA | ||||||||||
| Line | Central Massachusetts Railroad mainline | ||||||||||
| Platforms | 1 (former) | ||||||||||
| Tracks | 1 (former) | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Opened | 1 October 1881 | ||||||||||
| Closed | Before 1944 | ||||||||||
| Rebuilt | 1897 | ||||||||||
| Former services | |||||||||||
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Wayside Inn station was a flag stop station in Sudbury, Massachusetts.
History
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 installed a granite marker to commemorate the archaeological site.[6]: 6
References
- ^ a b c Plumb, Brian E. (2011). A History of Longfellow's Wayside Inn. Charleston, SC: History Press. ISBN 978-1609493967.
- ^ a b "33 Wayside Inn Railroad Waiting Room". Sudbury Historical Society. October 7, 2024. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Sudbury-Hudson—Eversource". E.T. & L. Corp. Retrieved September 20, 2023.
- ^ Autler, Gerald. "Mass Central Rail Trail—Wayside". Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Retrieved September 9, 2024.
- ^ "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. October 19, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2024.