Preservation
The railway's Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 19, 1973, and the railway itself was added on October 15, 1973.
A centennial historic plaque from 1926, an original switch frog, a piece of train track, and a section of superstructure from the Granite Railway are in the gardens on top of the Southeast Expressway (Interstate 93) as it passes under East Milton Square. The frog had been displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. The commemorative display is at the approximate site of the railroad's right-of-way as it went through Milton on its way to the Neponset River.
In Quincy visitors can walk along several parkland trails that reveal vestiges of the original railway trestle and the Incline. These trails connect to the quarries, most of which are now filled for safety purposes with dirt from the massive Big Dig highway project in Boston. In years past, many persons were injured—and some killed—while diving into the abandoned quarries from great heights.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation maintains the Quincy Quarries Reservation, which has facilities for rock climbing, and trails connecting the remains of the Granite Railway.
The 2.5-mile (4.0 km) section from Central Avenue in Milton/Adams ending on Taylor Avenue near the I-93 overpass in Quincy is an official Rails-To-Trails multi-use path for cyclists and pedestrians. It will eventually be 8.5 miles (13.7 km) long and connect to the completed end trail near Castle Island in Boston Harbor. At a grade level street crossing there is a granite block with a history marker, giving a brief history of the Granite Railway with its years of operation.
Read more about this topic: Granite Railway
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think we have a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“I do seriously believe that if we can measure among the States the benefits resulting from the preservation of the Union, the rebellious States have the larger share. It destroyed an institution that was their destruction. It opened the way for a commercial life that, if they will only embrace it and face the light, means to them a development that shall rival the best attainments of the greatest of our States.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)