April 2024

Governor Maura Healy allocated leftover Federal pandemic relief funding, and DCR authorized a $2.3 million contract to build a 0.3 mile segment from the current Weston terminus to Jones Road.

January 2024

ARPA funds dedicated to MCRT Weston-Waltham Phase 1, a reconstruction of a segment of the Charles River Bike Path, the Clippership Connector, a 0.5-mile extension of the Blackstone Greenway at the Canal Street Bridge in Blackstone to Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and other trail projects.

October 2022

DCR hosted a listening sessions and presented 25% designs for both the bridge over Route 128 and the bridge over the MBTA Fitchburg Line tracks.

Later, the project was split into Phase 1 (MBTA bridge) and Phase 2 (Route 128 bridge) to accelerate Phase 1 construction, as Phase 2 would have an undetermined timeline from the 1265 Main Street roadway reconfiguration blocker.

December 30, 2010

Shortly after the theft of MBTA property in Berlin is discovered, the MBTA agrees to lease it's property, at no cost, to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). DCR now has the right to construct a 23 mile State Park between Waltham and Berlin. Securing funding for design and construction will be an ongoing challenge.

The trail name is now: the Mass Central Rail Trail - Wayside, in recognition that the 23 mile Wayside trail is a member of the 104 mile Mass Central Rail Trail.

December 8, 1997

While Berlin, Hudson, Sudbury, Wayland, Waltham, Belmont, and even Weston first vote in favor of the Wayside Rail Trail, a second Weston town vote is negative. This delays progress on all sections of the Wayside Rail Trail, including here.

April 1997

The "Central Massachusetts Rail Trail Feasibility Study" was commissioned by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which found construction of a 25-mile (40 km) trail from Berlin to Belmont to be feasible.

The Wayside Rail Trail Committee, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is formed to advocate for the trail. WRTC President Andrew Greene quickly proposes the "Wayside" Rail Trail name. In Sudbury, the proposed trail is adjacent to the site of the former Wayside Inn Railroad Station, near the historic Wayside Inn, in turn associated with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic novel "Tales of the Wayside Inn".

December 1996

In 1996, the MBTA was directed to perform a feasibility study for the reactivation of passenger service. The MBTA concluded there would be very limited benefits for the major costs involved, as high as $177,931/rider.

Rail trail use over the MBTA's land is now a serious possibility.

1980

Once the Massachusetts Central Railroad chartered in 1869, this railroad section eventually became the MBTA's Central Mass Branch. Due to low ridership, the final passenger train rain in 1971. By 1980 the last freight train ran west of Waltham. (In 1994, the final freight train in Waltham ran between Bacon Street and Clematis Brook.)

An extensive history of the final days of the Central Mass Branch is presented by the talk below.