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Editor’s note: This is part of a series on winter walking places in and near Worcester. Let us know your favorite walking places at wmeditor@gatehousemedia.com.
When walking on the Holden and West Boylston stretch of the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail, it’s easy to imagine taking the same route as a train passenger a century earlier.
In 1924, someone would have had the same view from a train on the Central Massachusetts Railroad that hikers have from the trail today, gazing out the window at the sun sparkling off the Quinapoxet River and the snow on the ground.
The Massachusetts Central Rail Trail is an ongoing effort to turn 104 miles of abandoned railroad track into a green area for hikers and wildlife alike, stretching from Northampton to Boston, and Worcester County is home to some of its most scenic sections.
When Worcester Magazine visited, the trail was covered in a thin layer of snow from a recent storm and the river rushed alongside and underneath. Along the way, tiny streams of snowmelt water bubbled on either side, eventually flowing into the river next to a trail bridge.
Winter Walks: Nature returns to the Mass. Central Rail Trail in Holden
This week’s Winter Walk took us on a route in Holden that was once a busy railroad and is now home to hikers, runners, dogs, and thriving wildlife.
From the parking area on River Street in Holden, there are two paths to take. One of these paths begins directly at the uphill end of the parking lot and meanders northwest through the forest, and this path was never part of the railroad, but it is as well-maintained as the former tracks.
The other path is the rail trail itself, a three-mile segment of what was once the Central Massachusetts Railroad that follows the Quinapoxet River from Holden to the western corner of the Wachusett Reservoir in West Boylston.
The railroad, built during the late 1800s, experienced its heyday at the turn of the 20th century, doing booming business as a way to travel between Northampton and Boston and to any point along the way.
In 1902, construction began on a new route that would take trains around the soon-to-be-filled Wachusett Reservoir, and trains continued bringing passengers and freight between Massachusetts’ western and eastern ends.
As the decades wore on, cars became the dominant mode of transportation, and the Central Massachusetts Railroad felt the effects. Although the MBTA used the tracks as a commuter route for a period of time, a significant amount of the railroad was abandoned by the 1980s.
In 1995, the nonprofit conservation organization Wachusett Greenways formed and began buying land that contained old sections of the railroad in Central Massachusetts, starting with the West Boylston section. Wachusett Greenways now maintains 17 miles of trails on and around the old railroad.
Statewide, the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail currently offers hikers more than 60 miles, although those miles are split up by closed sections and protected conservation land.
There is another open section of rail trail in Holden, starting on Quinapoxet Street, and Oakham, Rutland, and Clinton are all home to open sections as well.
The rail trail is wide and has no steep hills, its surface is made up of densely packed stone dust, so when we visited, there was no need for mud-friendly boots despite the melting snow. Its accessibility makes this Winter Walk more of a laid-back walk than a hike.
Parking for the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail is available on River Street in Holden and Thomas Street in West Boylston. To learn more, visit masscentralrailtrail.org.
Local News
New Hampshire is leading an effort from 25 states to challenge a Massachusetts gun law, and this month, they’re taking it to the Supreme Court.
The centerpiece of the argument is the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, N.H., which reaches across state lines into Tyngsborough. If shoppers park on the south side of the mall’s parking lot, they might end up crossing state lines during a visit.
The attorneys general of New Hampshire and 24 other Republican-led states say this poses a potential problem for firearm holders. A New Hampshire resident who is legally carrying a firearm on their home state’s side of the parking lot may inadvertently be breaking the law when they cross the lot into Massachusetts, where it is illegal to carry without a permit.
Joining New Hampshire are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, who are calling the arrangement unconstitutional. The states have rallied behind Phillip Marquis of Rochester, N.H., to ask the Supreme Court to protect out-of-state residents from Massachusetts’ firearms regulations.
“The geography of the mall is such that a New Hampshire resident might find themselves in Massachusetts if she parks on the south side of the parking lot or visits Buffalo Wild Wings,” reads a brief from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office to the Supreme Court. “If that person is carrying a firearm without a Massachusetts license — which would be constitutionally protected activity in most of the mall—that person risks being charged as a felon and facing mandatory incarceration in Massachusetts.”
The trouble began for Marquis in 2022 when he was in a car accident in Massachusetts, according to the brief. When police arrived, he informed them that he had a pistol on him and was subsequently charged with carrying a firearm without a license.
Marquis previously sued the Commonwealth for the burdens that Massachusetts’ firearms permit law creates on out-of-state visitors, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied his claims. They ruled in March that the state’s nonresident firearms licensing laws were constitutional, according to court documents.
Claiming that the Massachusetts court denied him his Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Marquis has petitioned the Supreme Court to federally overrule that court’s decision. In his petition, Marquis invoked New York State Rifle & Police Association, Inc. v. Bruen, where the court established that state firearms restrictions must be covered by the Second Amendment or adhere to historical firearms regulations.
Using Bruen, Marquis and the Republican attorneys general supporting him are aiming to prove that there is no justification for applying Massachusetts’ firearms restrictions to out-of-state residents and that to do so would be unconstitutional. However, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court found the law constitutional even under Bruen because it intends to prevent dangerous people from obtaining firearms, just as historical regulations have done.
“To the extent that the Commonwealth restricts the ability of law-abiding citizens to carry firearms within its borders, the justification for so doing is credible, individualized evidence that the person in question would pose a danger if armed,” the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision read. “Both case law and the historical record unequivocally indicate that this justification is consistent with ‘the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’”
It’s not immediately clear if the Supreme Court will respond to Marquis’ appeal or when it will make any kind of decision, but lower courts are at something of a crossroads with how and when to apply Bruen to gun possession cases. As such, they are looking to the Supreme Court for a more definitive answer.
Since the proof of historical context that Bruen requires has led to some uncertainty, any ruling that these lower courts make is likely to amount to a partisan decision. However, if the Supreme Court provides more substantive clarity in a response to Marquis, these lower courts just might find the answer they are seeking.
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Massachusetts State Lottery players won two $100,000 prizes Friday from the day’s “Mass Cash” drawings.
The winning tickets were sold at the Roslindale Food Mart on Washington Street and McSheffrey’s of the South End convenience store (with Mobil gas) on Main Street in Woburn.
Mass Cash drawings happen twice daily, at 2 p.m. and at 9 p.m. It costs just $1 to play.
Overall, at least 625 prizes worth $600 or more were won or claimed in Massachusetts on Monday, including 6 in Springfield, 22 in Worcester and 14 in Boston.
The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of winning tickets every day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600.
The two largest lottery prizes won so far in 2025 were each worth $15 million. One of the prizes was from a winning “Diamond Deluxe” scratch ticket sold in Holyoke, and the other was from a “300X” scratch ticket sold on Cape Cod.
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