Phyllis on the railroad bridge over I-95.
History gives answers only to those who know how to ask questions.
-Hajo Holborn
Today, Phyllis, Waldo and I are walking on the last piece of improved Mass Central Rail Trail. It starts just east of I-95 and runs east for about 4 miles. Then there is an approximately 3-mile gap followed by the 6-mile piece that we’ve already walked, going into downtown Boston. The day is reasonably warm, for winter, but we’re still clad in parkas. The sky is blue and there isn’t much of a wind. The ground is dry and snow free. Perfect winter day for a nice walk.
We park both of our cars in the parking lot of a New York Life building. The plan is to do a roundtrip, for a total of about 8 miles. To the west of the lot is the end of the Weston portion of the Mass Central Rail Trail. To the east are streets and powerlines, cut by I-95 running north/south. There is no trail where we start and what map I could find online shows there are two ways to cross the freeway to where the trail starts. One involves a prosaic, convoluted path, following surface streets. The other is some kind of straight-line path that goes directly over the highway, but I can’t tell just what it is, except it doesn’t appear to be a street. In Weston, the trail follows some power lines, so, leaving the parking lot, we opt for walking underneath the continuation of those powerlines. There is no obvious railroad bed.
We don’t go far and we come across an old railroad bridge that crosses over I-95. It doesn’t appear to be old enough to have been built in the nineteenth century, when the railroad was built, and the freeway was built between 1957 and 1988. The last train ran on the railroad in 1980, so, I suspect the bridge was built sometime significantly before that, but after 1957. But, who knows? It may have been built earlier and ran over another road that was replaced by the freeway. I feel a little like an archeologist on these walks and entertain myself with speculation about stuff like this as I walk through history.
On the other side of the bridge is a clear railroad bed that still holds iron rails. In less than a block, we have to cross a street and, on the other side, is a well-marked, paved rail trail. The area is not industrial, but it is commercial, with businesses running along both sides of the street. Once on the rail trail, we leave the sterile, uninteresting patina of twentieth-century city and penetrate into a tree-lined tunnel of nature. This is greater Boston and there is city all around us, but civilization is held at bay along where the trail leads. Whoever originally had the idea of turning old, unused railroad beds into rail trails was a genius.
Waldo loves going on new walks. You can tell by his demeanor – he’s excited, out at the front end of his leash, pulling as if he were on an emergent mission. He’s sniffing and occasionally picking up sticks, like he does anywhere he goes, but he does it with so much more fervor. His border collie shows, too. I train him to sit and wait at places where we have to cross a street. If Phyllis crosses without waiting (she’s not as well-trained), he gets upset and tries to drag me across the street to keep his herd together.
We pass a few people, but not nearly as many as were on the part of the trail that runs into downtown Boston. There are a few bikes and other people with dogs, but most of those that we meet are just out for a walk like we are. I’m always amazed, and pleased, at how many people use these paths for walking and biking. I had no idea of their existence, let alone their popularity, until Waldo came into my life and I had to find someplace to burn off all that border collie energy. I am definitely the better for it.
As always, Phyllis and I carry on a stream of consciousness conversation as we walk along. She and I have many overlapping interests and philosophies, but there are a few points of disagreement here and there. When they come up, we broach them and let them go when we come to an impasse. We are good friends and companions, not clones. For the most part, we bitch about the same stuff, commiserate over life’s inequities and celebrate the wonder of human existence. I can’t give you more detail than that, though, because it’s all flow of consciousness stuff and the flow keeps going on. And on.
Eventually, we arrive at a place where we’re not so much following a path as walking down a very long, narrow parking lot behind some commercial buildings. At the end of the tarmac, an unpaved dirt path continues on in the same direction. It certainly looks like railroad bed, with raised middle and dips on both sides for drainage, but we have to turn around or it’ll be dark before we get back to the cars. We gotta leave something for another day, you know.
And there will be other days.
Heading west, near the end of our walk.