Sugar Maple Trailside Inn www.sugar-maple-inn.com

     Until the 1930s there were two parallel railroads that ran through Northampton to the north. The Boston & Maine's (B&M) Connecticut River Division, which runs to this day on the east side of Route 5, and the New Haven which ran basically on the west side of Route 5--north of today's Stop & Shop.

    The New Haven Railroad's Canal Branch came up out of Connecticut, entering Massachusetts at Southwick. As it came into Northampton, it joined with the B&M at the beautiful Richardson-designed station, which today is the Depot Restaurant. Both roads then headed north for a short distance and then the NH branched away where the Northampton Honda dealer is currently located.

   Remains of the footings for the overpass over Route 5 are still visible where the line once headed toward what is now Super Stop & Shop. This commercial development and the others just north of here sit on top of what once was the New Haven's classification yard and engine service facilities, complete with turntable and coaling tower. A branch from this yard led to Williamsburg.

In 1962--during the last bankruptcy of the New Haven Railroad, a 5 mile segment of the branch was abandoned from the terminus at Williamsburg into Florence. Florence still had viable customers. One of which was a coal fired power plant at the Veterans Hospital which still received inbound shipments of coal.

In 1969, with the conversion of the plant to oil--and the conversion of the Smith College and the State Hospital power plants to oil as well, caused the successor railroad--the infamous Penn-Central--to abandon service all the way back to downtown Easthampton.  In 1971, the entire branch was sold to Massachusetts Electric Company.

In the mid 1970s, the City of Northampton decided to run a sewer line down the right of way and at the same time--create a bikeway on the bed of the old railroad.  After many meetings and dealing with  comments of concern from the neighbors, the bikeway opened in 1984, making this rail-trail the oldest municipally operated rail-trail in the region. Today it is known as the City of Northampton Bikeway or in some cases it is known as the Ryan Bikeway.

Florence Station circa 1965

   The lower photos show the railroad corridor in Florence in both the 1930s (left) and the 1950s (right).  Norwood can be seen in both photos as well as the old coal tipple and Florence Casket Company. Florence Casket by the way is still in business and one of only a handful of family-owned independent casket manufacturers still in operation in the region.

If you are interested in more on this subject, I have in the house MANY archival photos of this railroad corridor and the related industries along the way.  Let me know if you are interested when you come.

YESTERDAY’S MAPS ARE USEFUL FOR TODAY

  During World War I, the U.S. railroads became grid-locked with war related traffic to such a degree that they literally ground to a halt.  The federal government then stepped in and ‘nationalized’ or took-over the entire system—for the duration of the war.

   Among the things they did was inventory everything that the railroads owned.  This included inventorying every rail car, every wrench, every nut, every bolt and an inventory of all the land—and how it was obtained.  This land inventory became known as the valuation maps—or ‘val maps’ for short.  Not only did the val maps lay out the route of the railroad through a community, the maps gave locations of every structure near the railroad tracks, number of tracks, location and length of sidings, bridges, culverts, etc.

 Copies of val maps are kept at a number locations:

1. The current owning railroad’s real estate department has complete sets.
2. County Hall of Records usually have those in their district.
3. Railroad historical societies usually have most if not all of them.
4. Dealers in ‘railroadania’ or railroad paper documents.

 They are still useful today for a number of reasons:

1. How the railroad was built in terms of deeds.
2. Location of possible areas of contamination or ‘brownfields’. 

   The Florence Val Map shows the location of  3 coal sheds,  2 railroad sidings or spur tracks going into the property of Norwood Engineering Company (Norwood is now the location of Ross Bros. Antiques and other small locally owned businesses).  It also shows a scale for weighing horse drawn wagons, a yard complex that was 4 tracks wide and both a freight house and a passenger station.

   This is a copy of one of the Valuation Maps (and other railroadania) that are on display in the Inn along with a large selection of text books about the general history of the neigbhorhood.