Grand Trunk Trail

Around noon today, I set off for Brimfield via Route 67 and then 19 to Route 20.  My destination was the Grand Trunk Trail, accessible from the Five Bridges Road just west of the Sturbridge-Brimfield town line.  I had read about the trail on the web and decided to check it out for myself.

In the parking area, which is a short distance from where the Five Bridges Road  surface changes from asphalt to gravel, there is a kiosk with some information about how there came to be a railroad here.  It’s quite a story:  in 1912, the Canadian railroad magnate Charles M. Hays intended to build a rail connection between Providence, Rhode Island and the Grand Trunk’s Central Vermont Railway in Palmer.  However, Mr. Hays perished on the Titanic, and most of the necessary bridges, tracks, and ties, along with the Rhode Island section, were never completed. Ghosts of the “Old Grand Trunk” can still be seen from Providence to Palmer with various bridge abutments, river crossings, and a mostly intact grade still visible.  In the Brimfield area, as you see here, most of the maintained trail runs on the rail bed of an old trolley line which used to operate between Springfield and Fiskdale.

Trail Uses Old Trolley Line

To operate efficiently, trains require straight tracks and level grades, so the railroad builders often blasted through bedrock, as in this section here:

Batting furiously at the mosquitoes and other noxious insects, I walked east toward Sturbridge, until the trail ended at the river and I had to retrace my steps. About a quarter mile west of this point, one can walk off the trail toward the water, where benches have been placed for a Quinnebaug River Canoe Trail rest stop.

Quinnebaug River Near Brimfield