Capacity Crowd Relives Glory Days of "Train Town" Franklin

The Franklin Historical Museum was filled to capacity Sunday afternoon for a sort of doubleheader event. As part of the Second Sunday Speaker Series, local historian Joe Landry discussed the history of trains in Franklin, dating back more than 170 years, and showed maps, photographs, and film clips to illustrate the long evolution.

At the same time, adjacent to the lectern, Scott Mason's detailed model of the Franklin Depot area as it looked around 1932 provided an additional visual (both pictured above).

Landry pointed out how the arrival the trains brought many Irish railroad workers and their families to town, the first Catholics and the first significant group not descended from English settlers.  After the first mainline was completed from Norwood, through Franklin, and out to Blackstone, branches were gradually added, first to Milford (the current alignment followed by MBTA trains to Forge Park), and later another line to Valley Falls in Rhode Island.

Landry provided background on the economic importance of the railroad, not only for moving people (like the famous White Train that whooshed through Franklin each day in the late 1900s on its way between Boston and New York City), but also coal (the primary fuel for homes and factories) and manufactured goods. At the time, city dwellers were developing a taste for fresh milk and cream, which special morning trains delivered, starting from the Ray's Elm Farm (the current location of Garelick) and arriving in Boston before dawn.

Mason spoke immediately following Landry's talk and shared some of the research and craft that went into the model, including a donation of a replica model locomotives from a friend in Florida.

Both men also shared their personal connections to the trains. Landry grew up near the depot and as a child was neighbors with a locomotive engineer and friendly with the people that worked at the depot. In the unfettered childhood of the time, he and his friends often scampered around the railyards and explored the coal handling conveyor belts, structures and rail cars.

For his part, Mason and friends, as middle school students, often hopped a ride on the caboose of the regularly scheduled freight trains between Franklin and Milford, socializing with the adult train crew for hours at a time.  "If that happened today we would have ended up in foster care and our parents and the train crew would have had a lot of explaining to do,  but back then my mother would often pack me a lunch and just say, be home by  6!"

Those stories provoked nostalgia, and stories, from others in attendance as well, and a degree of wistfulness about an era in the not-so-distant past.

The Train Town diorama will be available for viewing during regular museum hours through Feb. 5. Mason is currently at work on a second diorama that will portray areas along the track immediately further east.