History of The Rail Corridor
Built during the industrial boom of the 1800s, the railway proved to be a vital commercial link from the Atlantic Seaboard to communities which would have otherwise been isolated in the Berkshire Hills.
In 1845, the Pittsfield and North Adams Railroad developed this corridor with the goal of extending the Housatonic Railroad north to Rutland, Vermont. While the track was under construction, the company was acquired by the Western Railroad, which later became part of the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A), as their North Adams Branch. Mineral traffic developed on the line and a number of limestone operations went into business. The New York Central Railroad took over the B&A in 1900, and upgraded the line, which was sold to the Boston and Maine Corporation in 1981. As a connection to an existing track in North Adams, Boston and Maine ran the line with declining success until they abandoned rail service in 1990. Seeing the potential for recreational use of the corridor, citizens organized to preserve the right-of-way, eventually gaining the local and political support needed to make this rail trail a reality.
Read more about this topic: Ashuwillticook Rail Trail
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, rail and/or corridor:
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And now in one hour’s time I’ll be out there again. I’ll raise my eyes and look down that corridor four feet wide with ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.”
—Colin Welland (b. 1934)