The Flickr Random Image Generatr

Lehen orduan, behe-hodeiak, goiza aurrera juen alhala zerua estaltzen, haize hotza 4 gradu.

Door Erica van Leeuwen-de Bruijn, Kloetinge
Afwisseling van zon en wolken en er staat een koude wind die de vlaggetjes doet wapperen.

Weiden-Gallenbohrer (Archarius salicivorus)
(c) Gaby Schulemann-Maier

FotoJornada Avenida Ibirapuera

Grafton and Upton GP9R GU 1751 (blt. Nov. 1958 as a GP9 for the GTW numbered 4932) recently returned to service after years of being OOS. This is the last rebuilt geep on the property which was once dominated by them early in the rebirth era of the little independent shortline. All her sister vintage first generation units have long since been scrapped (excepting F7A 1501 still OOS) but for whatever reason she was kept to live again. Oddly the road chose to eschew its 80 year old black and yellow scheme and instead adorned it like this, looking more like a Precision Locomotive leaser! Regardless, it's nice to have a classic unit back and nice to have something other than patched out CSXT units to photograph.

The Grafton and Upton Railroad is the rarest of shortlines. It was never part of a class 1, it wasn't a former mainline, it has operated independently since inception, and it sat virtually abandoned save for one mile of track and one customer before rising like the Phoenix seemingly from the dead to be rebuilt from end to end with a diverse, busy, and growing customer base. Now how many lines can say THAT?!

So a bit of history. The G&U story began in 1873 when the Grafton Center Railroad was chartered to build a 3 ft narrow gauge line between Grafton and North Grafton, which officially opened for business on August 30, 1874. At North Grafton the railroad established a connection with the Boston & Albany Railroad, a later subsidiary of the New York Central. The company remained a three-mile narrow-gauge for the next 13 years until July, 1887 when it was renamed as the Grafton and Upton Railroad, converted to standard gauge, and set its sights to the southeast at Milford. Two years later in 1889 the line had reached Upton and on May 17, 1890 the entire route was open to Milford, a distance of 16.5 miles, where it connected with the Milford & Woonsocket Railroad (a later subsidiary of the New Haven).

Between 1894 and 1979 the railroad was owned by its largest customer, the massive Draper Corporation of Hopedale that one time employed some 3000 people as the largest maker of power looms in the country for the textile industry. But in 1978 Draper successor Rockwell Corporation closed the mill and sold the railroad which seemingly had little reason to exist any longer and little future. The track beyond Hopedale to Milford had not been used since 1973 when Penn Central terminated the interchange there since after acquiring the New Haven a few years earlier there was no need to connect with the G&U at both ends. By 1988 the G&U was no longer running to Hopedale at all and the tracks were out of service. In the mid 1990s the G&U did revive the line to haul highway salt down to their tiny yard in Upton for transloading, but I never made it to see that happen before it too was gone.

When I was growing up the G&U had one working locomotive, an Alco S4 resplendent in St. Louis Manufacturer's Railroad paint. I never saw it run, however, as it was always sitting with the stack capped at the railroad's sole customer, Washington Mills just about a mile south of the then Conrail interchange in North Grafton. By the time I had learned of the railroad's existence back then their other two "orignal" units in G&U black and yellow were long out of service. I do have one significant souvenir off original G&U GE 44-tonner #9 bought new in 1946 and scrapped in 2009. Around that same period the two Alcos also sadly met their demise.

But all was not lost...as sad as seeing those locomotives go along with the demolition of the last original G&U buildings in Hopedale those losses signaled a rebirth. In an entirely improbable turn of events the road was purchased in 2008 and the new owner began rehabbing the entire railroad. Over the past decade the line has grown busier than it's ever been with a large new yard and transload facility in West Upton, two busy customers in Hopedale and a new propane distribution facility in North Grafton. And the future is now even brighter as the connection to Milford was reestablished after nearly 50 years out of service and now the new G&U services CSXT's former customers in Bellingham via the MBTA owned Milford industrial track.

Here is GU-1 at one of the signature photo locations on the line at about MP 4.5 as they cut through the fields delineated by ancient stone walls approaching the Old Upton Road grade crossing.

Grafton, Massachusetts
Wednesday April 17, 2024