Unimproved, but walkable.
Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.
-Frank Borman
A paved piece of the Mass Central Rail Trail, starting in Wayland, ends where it crosses the Assebet River Rail Trail, in Hudson. The continuation of the railroad bed from there, still outlined with rusted steel rails, goes on, but it’s overgrown a bit. In the past, Waldo and I bushwhacked from that trail-crossing into downtown Hudson (about a mile or so). It’s going to be fairly cool today, with highs in the low 70s, so I decided we should return to Hudson, where we left off, and see if we can continue the trek all the way to Berlin, a distance of about 5 miles. The maps list the route that we will follow as “Protected/Unimproved.”
Today, Hudson has a population of around 20,000. It was once a part of Marlborough (population 42,000, as of 2024) and became a separate town in 1866. The railroad that ran from Marlborough to Hudson (north/south) was built just 11 years prior. The Central Mass Railroad (running east/west) was started in 1870 and completed all the way to Northampton in 1887. Berlin was the next stop west on the Central Mass RR from Hudson. So, all this happened right around the time of the Civil War (1861 – 1865), or shortly thereafter.
There is spotty evidence of the old railroad bed in the town of Hudson, but because of the construction of streets, parking lots and buildings of various sorts, it can be hard to follow. Railroads, like as not, run in straight lines, so when I find evidence of the old right-of-way, then lose it, all I have to do is keep going in the same direction until it reappears. When it does, it usually is overgrown with weeds and small-bole trees.
I have no idea why, but Waldo loves bushwhacking. He charges up ahead, as if he knows exactly where we’re going, which is usually pretty obvious, at full trot. When he makes an error, his leash gets all tangled up in the tree trunks and weeds. It’s a pain for me when that happens, but, hey, he’s having a lot of fun. So, I accept the consequences and give him his head until I have to redirect him and untangle the mess.
Once out of town, the railroad bed is mostly easy to find. But it is not necessarily easy to follow. There are six different scenarios. First, the way is clear and has a well-trodden path to follow (it happens, but not all that often). Then there are times when the path is obvious, but overgrown with small trees and weeds that makes the trek a bit of a slog, but it’s not that bad. Third, there are times when it becomes a real pain to fight through all the foliage, but Waldo and I are intrepid. There are also times when the way is overgrown enough that I have to question whether or not it’s worth the effort. Usually, when that happens, there is no easy way to leave the railroad bed, so it’s continue on to see if it gets better (which it almost always eventually does) or backtrack. Backtracking is something I would only do as a last resort and we successfully avoid that. Then there are places where it is clear that I really don’t want to go in there without a machete (I don’t have one) and I look for streets, parking lots or other paths I can more easily walk on, that run, more or less, parallel. Finally, there are places where the railroad bed, along with the rails, just stop and I can’t see where they used to run on. So, again, it’s find some other way to go until we can get back on the path. Between Hudson and I-495, we confront all these.
I-495 is approximately halfway on our route. It was built in 1957 and the last train to Berlin ran in 1958. So, there is a tunnel that was built over the old railroad and it’s easy to walk through. Just before we get to I-495, the going goes from impossible (we had to leave the railroad bed and walk around it) to a slog (once we got back on it). Then, just as I-495 comes into sight, things turn into an easy walk, with a cleared roadbed and a well-used footpath. It continues on as a pleasant way to go until we cross Sawyer Hill Road in Berlin (around a mile or so further), then it becomes a never-walked, real pain with not just weeds, but thorn bushes and swampy areas to navigate. So, the nice path starts at the I-495 overpass, that is really hard to get to from the east, and runs west to a country road that has nothing else around it. The trail, literally, starts nowhere and goes to nowhere. Why in the world would anyone choose that length of old railroad bed to keep clear and walk on? Curious.
The last bit we have to walk runs from Sawyer Hill Road to Highland Street, Berlin (population 3,500). The town (such as it is) is just to our south and we leave the train tracks and take to the streets and highways to get back to our car in Hudson. The going isn’t as hard, but it’s difficult because we have to go along Rte 62, which is a two-lane highway with fast moving traffic. There are no sidewalks and the shoulder is narrow (sometimes less than a foot wide). I keep Waldo on a very tight leash and we finally make it safely back to Hudson and our car. I’m sure Waldo doesn’t have nearly as much fun walking alongside the highway, but by that time, we’re both just thinking of getting back to the car and home. It’s been an interesting walk, but we’ve had enough. For now.
Next leg of the trek is from Berlin to Clinton. It, too, is about five miles long and is listed as “unimproved.” That’s a term that I now know can mean just about anything.
Except paved.
End of the day’s walk, at the I-495 overpass.