East Gardner, Mass.  (Just where was this obscure little Boston & Maine depot- and are there any remains?)

Not too long ago I bought an original negative of a steam locomotive with boxcars in tow as it passed by the peculiar East Gardner, Massachusetts Depot. The image was taken in 1940. Here is a negative of the negative. (I think that's what you call it, but I'm not positive.)

  I love this photo.

 East Gardner was a small station on the former Boston & Maine Fitchburg line that went from Boston to Fitchburg, on through the Hoosac Tunnel in the western part of the state, and ultimately to Chicago. Once upon a time it was a very busy railroad. These days it sees a fair amount of freight traffic, although passenger service ended in 1960.

 Judging by the diminutive nature of the depot in the photo, I don't think it saw much traffic even in its heyday. It was hard to figure out the location using any current maps, even though it could be spotted on an antique topo map. It seemed that modern day development had boxed off the area, making it rather inaccessible. So I was even more curious to try and find it.

As fate would have it, I have a pal who lives nearby who is silly enough to go hiking with me and check out places like this. Even more fortuitous, as we shall see, is he works for the Dept. of Corrections. Which works out great, because one of the things that has blocked off this site is a state prison. I wouldn't have known not to park in a spot where there would have  been guys with badges and shiny boots looking to tow it. D'oh!

   He figured out  a good place to park nearby, and we headed over there with a couple of vintage photos in hand, along with a digital camera to try and match up a contemporary shot. As it turned out, a photo taken today from the same spot as the one above would be obscured by later day bushes. But another photo we had with us worked out great.

 The results of this are on the--------> next page