The Old Fitchburg Depot

Fitchburg was once a rail center. Trains went through the center of town, right across Main Street, several times a day. I don't know just how often, but they were frequent. I went to Clark University back in the mid 1950s. I would take the train from Claremont, N.H., to Fitchburg, where I had to get off and wait for a bus to Worcester. I almost always rode the train. There were a few times, when I got a ride home with another student, and in May, my aunt and uncle, who lived in Worcester, would drive me home, along with all my stuff that would not fit into the big trunk that I shipped home. My aunt and uncle always came to Claremont to see my family and put flowers on the graves of my grandfather and grandmother (my uncle's and my mother's parents.)

When the train from Claremont arrived in Fitchburg, we would get out at the old Victorian train station. It was a magnificent building, weighted with atmosphere.

When I would visit my parents, of course, I would travel the same way, but in reverse. I would take the bus to Fitchburg and change to the train. There was usually about a half hour to an hour wait either way.

Whenever I was in Fitchburg, someone would always ask, “Are you Finish?” because I had blonde hair. This surprised me. Usually people would ask me I were Norwegian or Swedish. But in Fitchburg, people would always ask me if I were Finish. It was not until several years later, when I was married and we moved to Fitchburg to live, that I discovered the reason why. Fitchburg had one of the largest Finish populations in the United States, and they were mostly blonde-haired people.

Several times during my senior year of college, instead of going to Fitchburg and taking the train to Claremont, I took the bus to Springfield, where I changed and took another bus to Claremont. There was no direct bus from Worcester to Claremont.

The main reason for this change was that I had met the man who would later become my husband. He was a senior at American International College in Springfield, and he came from Easthampton. So I would try to see him on my way home.

In the summer of 1958, after I had graduated from college, I got a job working as a reporter in the Women's Newsroom of The Evening Gazette in Worcester. I had to work weekends, which did not bother me, because I actually had more time off that way. We got out early on Saturday, and I did not have to be back at work until Tuesday morning.

So on one Saturday in August, I decided that I would take the bus to Fitchburg and then take the train to Claremont. I was in for a big surprise, however. When I arrived in Fitchburg and went to buy a ticket, the ticket agent said there were no more trains to Claremont. Instead I would have to take a train to Greenfield, and in Greenfield change to a train to Claremont.

The train for Greenfield would not leave until 9 p.m. And I would have to wait in Greenfield for the train to Claremont.

There were no buses I could take, so I called my parents and told them I would not arrive in Claremont until about 1 a.m.

That was the first inkling I had that rail transportation in the United States was declining and would almost vanish, except for freight trains. Up until then I had taken it for granted we would always have railroad trains.

When I was a child, the family car was stored in the garage during the war. So whenever we wanted to travel —and it was only to Manchester to visit my mother's side of the family— we always took the train.

I had seen so many 1940's movies with glamorous movie stars riding on a train and having dinner in the dining car. I associated trains with glamour. I loved them. I always thought it was a delightful way to travel. And there was mystery as well as glamour associated with them. I read Agatha Christy's Murder on the Orient Express. I was enthralled.

But by the mid-1950s Americans owned cars, and the jet airplane had taken off. Who had need for or cared about the railroad train?

When my husband and I moved to Fitchburg in the fall of 1962, I looked forward once again to seeing the old Victorian depot with its tower. One of my first excursions in Fitchburg was to take a bus from Lunenburg (where we had rented a cottage) to downtown Fitchburg. I wandered about looking for the depot but could not find it. I was positive I was in the right section of Main Street, but I could see no depot. Instead there was a shopping plaza there.

Finally the realization began to sink in. The depot had been torn down.