The enigmatic Whately, Massachusetts Depot.

Is this still standing somewhere in Whately, (South Deerfield), Mass.?

  October, 2008:

 This afternoon a series of entries on my pal Gary's website about a possible extant depot, (or perhaps even two depots), along with a couple of tantalizing clues, aroused my curiosity. As is often the case, I wound up going for a long ride with my camera to check it out.

  It would seem that the former Boston & Maine depot at Whately, Massachusetts, (South Deerfield), might very well be still standing today, and I was eager to visit the area and investigate.


   The clues that a vintage railroad depot might be still standing in this area were:


  No less than three different mentions of a depot at Whately, Mass. on Gary's site:


   His site featured the vintage photo at the top of this page. It's a photo of a passenger depot on the Boston & Maine Railroad, identified as "Whately, Mass." This depot was said to be standing today at "Rte's. 5 & 10 at Christian Lane".  Also, there was said to be a freight depot  at, "110 Christian Lane", made of wood, and erected "before 1890".


  If that wasn't enough to entice me, there was also said to be an extant, "East Whately Depot", at "Rte's. 5 & 10 at Christian Lane". These two, (or perhaps three?), structures were said to house businesses today. All were said to be on their original sites, having never been moved.

   There were two rail lines that passed through this area- the now abandoned, (and quite obscure), New Haven RR line, as well as the former Boston & Maine, a line still very active today. To complicate things, both railroads once had stations called "Whately" and they couldn't have been too far apart. Neither had a station called "East Whately", and I can find no evidence there ever was such a stop.

   For more information about what might be there today, I turned to online satellite maps. Which revealed this:

   I must say, this image was a real convincer. "Depot Rd." is also called "Christian Rd." (When I drove out there, I noticed my navigation system calls it "Christian Rd.". There is no "Depot Rd." loaded in the current software.)

  From Space, it sure looks like there's a former depot at the spot where the B&M crosses Depot Rd. It's perfectly positioned to be a freight house, set back behind where the passenger station would have been, perpendicular to the tracks. Best of all, it more or less fits with the vintage photo. In the vintage photo, the train would be blocking the view of this freight depot.

  From the clues at hand it seemed there was a former freight depot still in its original location on the rail line- and perhaps also a passenger station which had been moved nearby from the original site.

   It all looked good, and sounded mighty intriguing. So I determined to take a ride and see.

   I filled my travel mug with fresh coffee, loaded some interesting podcasts onto my iPod for the ride, and made sure I had spare batteries for my camera. (That's one you learn the hard way. Oh, yes- always bring extra camera batteries.)

   It was a sunny afternoon, but getting late, and my only concern was making the two hour ride before the sun went down. It's a beautiful area, terrific for exploring. One caveat for anyone hunting for old depots in this region- there sure are a lot of buildings that look like depots. It seems half the buildings around here are big, beautiful old barns. (Tobacco barns, yes?) So the area is loaded with "decoys". It's a great place for an old depot to hide- and nobody might notice.

   The Plot Thickens
  _________________

Just after the sun went down I managed to reach the spot where the B&M crosses Depot Rd.

I drove up and- BAM! I saw this...

Whoa! Holy Cow. Sure looks like an old depot, doesn't it?

Well. Not so fast.

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