While the shrill whistle and smoke of locomotives arriving at the Norfolk station have been replaced by the downshifting and diesel fumes of trucks on Route 44, the landscape of Norfolk is still marked by the railroad. There are track beds hidden in the woods, now used as nature trails, and bridge abutments can be found on Route 272 where the tracks passed over Litchfield Road. Back in 1890, when this photo was taken, the arrival of each train at the depot on Station Place was widely anticipated. There were freight trains, milk trains, and passenger trains unloading throngs of summer visitors. The old depot pictured here was replaced by a new granite station in 1896, a gateway more appropriate to Norfolk’s status as an increasingly popular summer resort. If you find it hard to imagine a locomotive, belching clouds of steam and smoke, crossing an overpass on Litchfield Road, or emerging from a tunnel underneath Greenwoods Road, come to the Norfolk Historical Museum. The silent film, “A Race for Love”, made by a group of Norfolk summer residents, includes vintage footage of the locomotive arriving at the station. The film is on a continuous loop during museum hours.

Ann Havemeyer