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Man's love of progress --that Sisyphean desire for betterment-- is nowhere more apparent than in New England. Modernized machinery and methods have transformed many a rural community into bustling urban centers. Fortunately, even the best of plans can fail and yesterday's new ideas are quickly tossed by the wayside, where they return to dust. One such innovation that ushered in a radical change in American life is the railroad. A recent walk along an abandoned railway in Westford, Massachusetts resulted in my rediscovery of what one historian called "the most impressive stone arch structure in the Merrimack Valley." The few living souls that know that this thing exist simply refer to it as the "Stone Arch Bridge Over Stony Brook." Built around 1872 to carry trains from Nashua, New Hampshire to Concord, Massachusetts, the bridge last saw a train in 1925. Although the tracks were removed in the summer of 1926, much of the old right of way through Westford remains clearly visible. The arch spans sixty five feet and is more than twenty five feet thick. Granite stones used in the bridge and its massive wing abutments were cut at a local quarry. The huge gray blocks were hauled to the site by twenty yoke of oxen.
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Irish laborers spent months on this prodigious project, using little more than their hands to build this imposing structure. The construction of a keystone arch requires a temporary wooden structure be built to hold the stones in place until the keystone --the central wedge-shaped stone that locks all the parts together-- is put in place. No mortar or metal reinforcement was used in the construction. For thousands of years, architects aspired to build a structure of this magnitude. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks erected a few similar arches including the Great Pyramid of Khafre, final resting place of the pharaoh Khafre, built sometime around 2530 B.C. Although it is almost 450 feet high, it was apparently constructed without the use of cranes or lifting tackle, modern archaeologists still question how this was accomplished. The Stony Brook Bridge is no less wondrous. There are a couple of stone monuments in South America that exceed it in size. Among the most notable are the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl at Cholula, the largest single pre-Columbian structure in the New World, and the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. They both fall short of the architural purity of the Stony Brook Bridge, as primitive mortar was used in their construction. The Assyrians built palaces with arched ceilings and the Etruscans used arches in bridges, passageways, and gates. The Romans were the first to develop the arch on a massive scale. They used the semicircular arch freely in secular structures such as amphitheaters, palaces, and aqueducts. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine architecture in the East and Romanesque architecture in the West retained the characteristic round Roman arch. Gothic architecture in Western Europe was characterized by the pointed arch, which minimized outward thrust and thus made possible higher, window-filled walls, creating the lofty, spacious interiors of the great Gothic cathedrals.
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The functional beauty of the Stony Brook Bridge is more impressive than any of these renowned heaps of stone, but the train never paused to give its engineers, nor even the passengers, a chance to behold this vision of serenity and purity. Intent on always being on time, the train refused to grant these poor men a second to contemplate what manner of country they passed through. When it was necessary to leave Westford for any reason, people usually took the train. The fare was ninety cents; laborers on the line were paid about sixty cents a day. There were eight railroad stations in the town. In 1906, an electric trolley enabled most residents to ride from home to the train. It wasnt long before the next new idea made all this obsolete. By 1921, the Westford Center Trolley had stopped running, and gradually the passenger train was used less and less. A major contributor to the decline in the number of riders was a mode of transportation known as the automobile. The final years of the Nashua, Acton & Boston line were marked by heavy operating losses, earning it the nickname "Red Line." Passenger service was eliminated in 1924, and the line was only used for three freight runs a week. In May, 1925, the last train crossed the Stony Brook Bridge and tranquillity returned to the woods and fields. The bridge is just far enough into
the woods, now protected by Westford Conservation
Commission, to ensure that it never becomes a major tourist
destination. It has gloriously withstood the test of time,
and stands as a witness to the character of the men who
labored on it. |
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Last revised April 19, 1997 Copyright Edward J. Lisay, Jr. 1997 All rights Reserved For more information mailto:TeddyL1@excite.com | |