The bids are in!

MassDOT advertised the Acton-Maynard section of the trail for construction on September 15, 2015. Six Massachusetts construction companies submitted bids by the February 23, 2016 2:00 PM deadline. The bids ranged from $6,719,972 – $10,445,269. The next step will be the winning bidder selected in April-May and construction starting in June-July. Once construction starts, it will take 24 months to finish.

This new section will end at the South Acton MBTA station. The rebuilt station opened on December 19th and features raised platforms and elevators to cross the new double tracks.

ARRT Billboard

The ARRT may be the only rail trail project in the country that had its own billboard! It alternated between Main Street (Rt-62) and downtown Hudson, on South Street. When the Hudson section of the trail was completed in 2005, the Main Street billboard was torn down to make way for the path. The owner, AK Media, paid for all the printing and labor. Congratulations to Michelle Ciccolo, Carol Jonietz and Joey MacAloney for initiating the billboard project. Subsequent designs were the work of Carol Jonietz, Joey MacAloney and Lee Estrin.

 

 

 

 

December 2004
Main Street

 

 

 

 

May 2003
South Street

 

 

 

 

 

July 2002
South Street

 

 

 

 

 

May 2002
Main Street

 

 

 

 

February 2002
Main Street

 

 

 

 

October 2001
Main Street

 

 

 

 

 

June 2001
Main Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 2001
Main Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 13, 2000 saw the posting of the first ARRT material on the AK Media billboard in Hudson.

CrossFit Rail Trail

The busiest part of the rail trail has always been the Rite Aid parking lot on Rt-85 in Hudson. The small commercial strip mall has 3-6 stores and designated parking for the trail. For several years the fancy back-lit sign out front has had a couple of empty sections as tenants came and went. I’ve always fantasized that we could get the landlord to put up the ARRT logo and name, as an extra fancy way of announcing the trail.

So I thought I was hallucinating last week when I drove past the mall and thought I saw our name in the 4th spot! But the reality was even better, as Hudson now has the “CrossFit Rail Trail” fitness center in one of the buildings, right next to the trail.

A few days later I stopped by and got a tour of the facility with PJ Massey, one of the owners. He choose the name to help make it unique and because of its proximity to the trail.

CrossFit Rail Trail is a 4,000 sq. ft. fitness facility designed to provide a quality CrossFit experience. At CFRT you will not find typical gym equipment like treadmills, ellipticals or nautilus machines. Upon entering through one of our 5 garage doors you will find a wide open space filled with pull ups bars, kettlebells, medicine balls, plyo boxes, Olympic bars and more. There is plenty of parking in front or behind our space where on any given day may find our team tossing a football, shooting hoops or engaging in a game of whiffleball homerun derby!

Best of luck to PJ and Mike. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Rails

The towns of Acton and Maynard have signed a contract with Francesca Demolition of Duxbury, to remove the 1.2 miles of steel RR rails that are on the ground along the ARRT right of way. Only the rails are being removed in this phase of the project, with the complete trail construction still scheduled to start in 2016. The rails will be removed and recycled.

The trail supporters welcome this most tangible milestone in the Acton-Maynard ARRT project!

(update) Francesca Demolition has started to remove the RR rails in Maynard. They started behind Cumberland Farms on Friday and will then move on to High Street. After Maynard is finished in a couple of weeks, they will move on to Acton.

Date Nails

Maynard ARRT volunteer and Beacon columnist David Mark has written an interesting article about date nails on the railroad. Don’t know what a date nail is? Follow this link and learn all about them.

I think I see a new ARRT Google map in our future:)

Hot Hot Hot!

So here I am at 5:00 PM Friday, sitting in my car in the humid 93 degree heat, counting bicycles. I must be crazy! Even Chennai India is 9 degrees cooler.

Three times a year, the state coordinates bike trail counts. The summer count is Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 4-6. I decided to cover Friday evening, with the other ARRT volunteers  taking Saturday.

We had skipped the last 3 counts, as the RT-85 construction project had the ARRT crossing all torn up. The trail is mostly returned to normal now.

RT-85/Washington Street is our favorite spot, meeting the three census requirements of (1) lots of parking, (2) a Duncan Donuts  100 feet north and (3) last but not least, more traffic than anywhere else on the trail! We get everything; bikes, baby carriages, joggers, walkers, skateboards and even roller skaters. Considering the heat, the 15-20 users per hour was decent.

ARRT Spring Update

March has been a good month for the ARRT. There has been progress in many areas and here are the details.

Back in November 2011, AECOM finished the Acton-Maynard 25% trail design and submitted it to MassDOT for review. The state asked for some parts of it to be redrawn.  That work was finished at the end of February and can be seen on the ARRT website at http://www.arrtinc.org/design/arrt_design.asp. Based on the new version, MassDOT has tentatively agreed to finally hold the public 25% design hearing in late spring.

Based on this news, the MPO staff is going to recommend on April 4th that the Acton-Maynard construction funding be restored into the 2017 TIP as a “first-tier” project! More on this as we get into the spring TIP season.

The ARRT calendar has several upcoming events, including the Maynard and Marlborough spring trail cleanups and more work on the caboose windows.

Rail Trail Flat Bread Co.

I’m always interested in new businesses that name themselves after the rail trail. We already have a townhome complex and bike shop. Now there is a restaurant!

The Rail Trail Flat Bread Co. opened in early December, in downtown Hudson, just 3 blocks from the trail. Michael Kasseris and Karim El-Gamal picked the location because they felt that the Hudson area was ready for a new restaurant.

Last Friday I went and checked it out. The first surprise is how packed this place is. Two blocks of the usually empty night-time Wood Square, were full of parked cars. Only found a spot on the 3rd block. There were at least 60 people inside, with a waiting bench for takeout, every seat at the bar taken and most of the tables full.

Finally seated at the bar, Crissy was pouring a wide variety of craft brews. Coincidently, someone posted her picture to the facebook page just minutes before I sat down.

RTFB is a welcome addition to the Hudson community.

Acton – Then & Now

There has been a train station in South Acton for more than 160 years.  It’s been there so long, its use has almost come full-circle. The first photo on the left is from 1908 and shows the nearly brand new 2nd station. It’s a full service building, with a heated waiting room, a manned ticket window and large awnings in each direction.  Standing on the platform, there are 4 sets of tracks in front; east & westbound mainline to Boston and Fitchburg, a freight siding and the track to Marlborough that is the route of the ARRT. This station was on School Street, more than 1000 feet east of the current MBTA platform and parking lot.

In the 2nd photo, taken in 1965, the station is boarded up and closed.  It eventually burned down and the MBTA moved down the tracks and built the big parking lot and single boarding platform we use now.

Jump forward to 2012 and the preliminary track work for the new RR station starts in July.  On July 21st, commuter trains for 3-4 weekends will stop short of the South Acton platform and passengers bused the rest of the way to Littleton and Fitchburg. So where did the MBTA locate the temporary stop? Back at the old station! As you can see in the last photo, crews have spruced up the old parking lot, put in a set of stairs and restriped the concrete. The weekend passengers may not appreciate the historical context, but rail fans will.

Community Service Day

Every spring the seniors at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School participate in Senior Community Service Day – a half-day of volunteer work to be performed in Acton. This year, on April 27, ten students met at the Sylvia Street access point to the Acton section of ARRT to clear the trail of a winter’s worth of downed trees and brush. The students braved poison ivy and the risk of deer ticks. They used hand saws and branch loppers to clear  a bit more than half a mile of a path that runs next to the abandoned railroad tracks.

Information and picture provided by ARRT volunteer David Mark.