Rails to Trails

WAYLAND DEPOT AND FREIGHT HOUSE
Freight House
Besides people, trains carried freight, mail and newspapers. The baggage car was coupled on just behind the coal tender and also carried gray sacks of mail which were trundled to and from the Post Office. Newspapers from Boston and Waltham were picked up for sale at Benson’s store — now Pepper and Spice.

The stairs shown here are of recent date. Originally there was a long, wide loading platform at door height, located between the freight house and the boxcars on the adjacent siding. It was big enough to hold a lot of freight shipments – which included large parcels, hardware, perishables, milk, newspapers and all manner of household items purchased from mail order catalogs. Freight-handling equipment included iron and wood skids, wood barrels and pails, a two-wheel freight truck, a snow scoop and ladders – enabling freight to be moved horizontally from the freight or baggage car to the interior of the freight house without lifting. A Fairbanks scale with a 6 ‘x 6’ platform for calculating the weight and charge for outgoing freight was originally located along the north interior wall.   Much earlier, leather hides for Cochituate shoe factories came into this station. Coal still covers the ground where the coal-company building owned by Arthur Atwood once stood east of the freight house. Coal cars were shunted onto a siding east of the freight shed where the bottoms of the cars were opened to allow the coal to flow by chute to storage areas below track level. “Hard” coal for stoves and furnaces was in the greatest demand.

By  9:30 am the Milk train from Northampton arrived to pick up the cans of milk  delivered by farm wagons placed in  big wood box atop a four-wheeled platform truck…after the train left for Boston, locals picked up leftover ice chunks for use in their own iceboxes. The local westbound freight would unload a car of grain for the grain store.  Hundreds of heads of cattle and other livestock in Wayland needed this imported grain.

In addition to the freight house, track, ties, a square wood lamp post, remains of switch and derail mechanisms, and a vertical red/white STOP sign remain outside.

Station
The building today looks very much the same as it did when first built. The protruding center bay on the track-side provided additional space for the agent’s office and offered a view of trains in both directions. There was a railroad clock on the east wall and hard wooden benches all around the waiting room. A large pot-bellied stove was almost in the center of the station. There were two toilets, one on the outside for men, one inside for women, elaborate porcelain with a washbasin with running water – piped form the big water tank – for flushing as well as drinking. Old newspapers were torn into strips for toilet paper – a job performed by the station assistant. A two armed railroad semaphore on the roof sent messages to approaching train crews. In the late 19th and early 20th century, before telephones came into common use, residents would come to the station to send telegraph messages. The Wayland Depot is one of the last remaining and best preserved of the original Central Mass Railroad depots, the others being in Weston, Waltham Highlands, Gilbertville, and Amherst.

TURNTABLE /WATER TANK /SIDINGS
In 1887 commuter service between Wayland and Boston increased, and Wayland became the turn-around point for trains that did not go further west. Additional facilities were needed. Cars needed sidings to park on overnight or when not in use. Locomotives needed a convenient way to turn around for the trip back to Boston. They also needed routine maintenance and water. Engine fires had to be kept burning overnight at a low level so the locomotives would be ready to go in the morning. Four parallel passing tracks were built, each with switches at both ends. There was a siding on the east side for general freight and coal cars and one on the west for lumber, feed, and idle passenger coaches. Cars and locomotives could be moved from track to track as necessary. One of the switches has survived. Part of the main line track and some of the other siding tracks are left in place to remind trail users of the hustle and bustle of those days.

West of the depot was a turntable, engine-house and water tank for turning, storing and servicing steam engines.  The turntable had two granite-block rings. The inner, lower ring had a circular rail, on which sat a large frame with flanged wheels. Everything was so well balanced that the frame, with a railroad car or locomotive on it, could be rotated by human power. A small shed for storing milk was also located west of depot.  Nearby was a 50,000-gallon water tank used to supply water to steam locomotives.  An engine pumped water into the tank.