In this 1896 photo, we are looking east from the Greeley Street crossing  at  the Hudson Center Station (left) and the rear of the Town Hall (now Wattannick Hall) on the right.  From this point the tracks  the headed towards the crossing at Windham Road, on to the crossing at Clement Road and then to West Windham.  A Post Office was established in this station in 1876 and Eli Hamblet was the Postmaster; a position he held until his death in 1896.  It was at this station  that animals and patrons arrived to go to Benson’s. Animals were shipped here and some were walked along the road to the farm. The Jungle Train from Boston brought people on excursions. There was a freight house (center right)  and siding for handling goods. At the height of railroad traffic there were as many as 13 passenger trains plus freight activity each day on this line.  Considering a single track line, this made for a very busy and dangerous section of the line.    The railroad station was later made into a dwelling, but when it was no longer in use it was moved to Benson Park and can still be seen there.  Photograph from the Historical Society Collection.

The steam railroad crossed the Merrimack River into Hudson just south of what is now Veterans Memorial Bridge as you cross from Nashua into Hudson.  It then made a path easterly and slightly north through Hudson.  The tracks crossed Lowell Road at Central Street and then on to Hudson Center and West Windham.  The one railroad station in town was at Hudson Center just off Greeley Street and behind the Town Hall (now Wattannick Hall).  In this 1896 photo we are standing on the tracks near the station looking west along the tracks and the Greeley Street crossing.  The corner of the station house can just be seen in the  right of the photo.  Greeley Street is a narrow dirt road and the area on the opposite side of Greeley appears as a wooded area or field.  Today there are few reminders of the railroad bed.  The area on the left is now the parking lot of the Baptist Church and the  area on the right is the Greeley Street playground.  Photo from the Society collection and courtesy of Len Lathrop. (Published in HLN October 24,  2014.)