The Bay Colony

As far as I know, the Bay Colony Railroad still exists. There is still a website and apparently it will move freight around Millis if anyone needs freight moved around Millis. The Bay Colony I knew in the 1990s, though, is long gone. The railroad had two halves -- one on Cape Cod and the other half ran between Newton and Millis, which is the part I got to know.

A Bay Colony freight passing through Dover, Massachusetts in the early 1990s

In 1990 I got a job on Chestnut Street in Newton and just across the way was where the Bay Colony crews used to work on their RS-1 when it wasn't quite up to snuff. In addition, the railroad had a pretty big customer right there too and it used to store hoppers full of plastic pellets on a siding there as well. So, to recap, a quirky little shortline using Alco power used to pull up outside my building on a regular basis, work on its equipment and switch cars all day long and all I had to do was look out the window to take it all in. Isn't it great when you have a reason to want to go to work on a Monday morning? 

The Geeps had taken over by the time the new century came.

I took a lot of photos. I also had the luxury of not being tied to my office, so I could duck out from time to time and chase a freight. As the territory I was responsible for overlapped with the Bay Colony's route from Dover to Millis, well, it was almost like working anyway. Before anyone thinks that I was a slacker, the main part of my job occurred on Thursday and Fridays when I worked from 8 am. to 10 p.m. I didn't chase trains on those days. 

One of the last freights I saw, sometime around 2003-2004.

Even after I got a new job, I would still chase the Bay Colony from time to time. I lived in Needham, which was on the line from Newton to Millis and when I heard that odd, goose-like horn blow for the grade crossing in Needham Heights I knew the Bay Colony was passing through. By that time, though, the RS-1 was long gone and the power was an old EMD. Eventually the industry in Newton dried up and the trains didn't run anymore. But I hope you enjoy the sample of pictures I took over the years that will give you a pretty good idea of what things looked like for a little while anyway. 

The old RS-1 bringing in a few cars on a cold, dismal morning.