A group of Newton North students from the Auto Shop unveiled their historical handiwork this morning in front of the high school – a beautifully restored railroad switch from what is now the Upper Falls Greenway.
Back when the Upper Falls Greenway project began, a quick thinking citizen (we call him the Mystery Man) contacted the Friends of the Greenway. He had spotted five railroad switches in various stages of rust and disrepair along the right-of-way. At that point, the railroad tracks were in the midst of being torn up. He said “round up a crew. I’ll bring the trailer, the tools and the torch. Let’s save them and figure out what to do with them.” A crew of neighbors met on a Saturday morning and hauled these VERY heavy switches up on the Mystery Man’s trailer.
Since then the Mystery Man came up with a plan. He coordinated with Paul Wagner, the Auto Shop Teacher at NNHS, the Friends of the Greenway, and the DPW. The students at North painstakingly salvaged and restored these pieces of our railroad history. The DPW has already installed the first one beside The Depot Coffee Shop, where the Greenway crosses Oak St. Today the NNHS students handed off the second completed switch and there will be at least one more by the time they’re done.
Each one’s been rebuilt, sandblasted and repainted so they look brand new.
It was a wonderful idea to keep these way cool artifacts of Newton’s railroad history and make them part of the new Greenway.
Many thanks to all the Newton North students that worked on them, to Paul Wagner for overseeing them, to the DPW for installing them, and most of all to the Mystery Man for dreaming up and pulling this wonderful community wide project together.
Amazing work and quick thinking on the part of the neighbors!!! Great job to all!
@John Pelletier – Our Mystery Man isn’t even a neighbor. He lives at another end of the city but he does love the Greenway. He recruited the neighbors around here as the muscle, to man-handle those hunks of iron off the right-of-way.
I saw the switch that is now installed outside the Depot this morning. It was also interesting to meet the DPW guys last week as they were preparing to fix it into its permanent position at this site. Everyone seemed to be delighted to be preserving a piece of Newton’s history.
As I was walking to my car, parked behind the Depot, I stopped to examine the switch and realized that it actually works. The mischievous part of me lifted the iron handle and moved the flag to a new slot position. But then my goodie-two- shoes side made me put it back…in case a train on Oak Street might be mistakenly misdirected or pointing it somewhere else might cause some negative thing to happen…but I might be tempted again tomorrow…
I love everything about this project. I saw the one at the Depot today. It looks great. Thanks to all involved. I also love incorporating the students at NNHS. A great accomplishment all around.
I was one of the people that marginally helped to lift and package these signals away some time back. Another tip of the hat to Jerry and everyone else that made this possible. These signals were magnificent gems, even in their encrusted state. The involvement of theAuto Shop at Newton North got me thinking about something that’s been gnawing at my brain for sometime, and I’ll post it when I have enough time to compose and think it out.
This is just one great thing about living in Newton. While we all live in one of the Villages, we are all Newtonites. The city works together as a team to accomplish things that individually we would be told “It can’t be done”, but together, it always gets done. A special thanks to that Mystery Man who does things because they need to get done, not because he is looking for appreciation.