The B&M Depot at West Townsend, Massachusetts- gone? Or not?

  I recently came across an interesting mystery because of an antique postcard listing on eBay. I was determined to win the auction because I was quite intrigued. The person listing the card claimed the postcard depicted a "B&M depot in Townsend, Mass." Here is a scan I made of the card after winning the auction.

Pretty interesting. It can't be the extant depot at Townsend Center, but it does resemble the former depot at Townsend Harbor, one stop to the south. (That depot is long gone.) So what it made me wonder is- could the building in the postcard be the depot at West Townsend, one stop to the north? I had never seen a picture of West Townsend, so I figured it was possible, although I like to approach these things as a skeptic.

To my way of thinking, what this image shows is an interesting old garage in Townsend and nothing more. I say that because it seems to have been taken when the actual depot was still being used for it's original purpose. Passenger service on this line was discontinued during the 1930s, a couple of decades after this photo was taken, judging by the auto parked in front.

This interesting branch line of the Boston & Maine went from Ayer, Massachusetts to Greenville, New Hampshire. It was abandoned west of Townsend in 1979, although service west of the Vose factory at West Groton was embargoed in 1981. Past West Groton the line is very overgrown and obscure.

 When I asked the person listing the postcard what made him think it was a depot, it came down to a local rumor that an old depot was still there, although now used as an auto repair place, and that it looked like this.

A check of an antique topo shows that the depot was just north of Rte 119, where the tracks crossed the road.

A modern day satellite image from Google shows a building of the right shape, aligned correctly to be a former depot, but too far from the road to be quite right. But it COULD be a former freight depot, and it sure looks like it could be "used as an auto repair place", because of all the cars parked around it. In any even it sure warrants a trip with my camera.

Then the plot thickened a bit. Lo and behold, a listing for a postcard of the depot at West Townsend turned up shortly after the mystery postcard. And of course I had to be the high bidder.

Looks pretty good, but not quite right. This just makes me want to head on over there one of these days. Mighty intriguing.

Right after making this page, I got antsy, and I went for a ride to West Townsend to check this all out.

Click here to see what I found.