Monday, April 2, 2007

Milestones

Your progress along the trail is marked by literal milestones, engraved in Roman numerals of a sort.

Milestone VIII, near I-95 in Lexington

These Roman numerals run from top to bottom. The numeral I lies on its side and V stands upside down. X is the same any way you look at it. There are no prefixes: four is IIII, not IV.

Westbound distances start from Alewife Station in Cambridge, where the trail entrance has no distance marking, and end at Bedford Depot Park with milepost X. Eastbound distances start with mile I at the Depot, so the two sides of each post always add up to XI.

5 comments:

Yury Kats said...

Cool, I've seen these a milltion time, but I never noticed the numerals. Or haven't realized these were numerals!

Trail Skater said...

Ditto. I couldn't make head nor tail of them until somebody explained it to me.

Yury Kats said...

I was running on Lexington/Bedford end of the trail for the 1st time today and didn't see any milestones past VIII. Did I miss them or are they just not there, I wonder?

Trail Skater said...

Hi Yuri,

Milepost VIIII is just short of the crossing at Wiggins Avenue as you travel outbound. It's inconspicuous among the trailside foliage. Milepost X is at Bedford Depot Park, right before the rail car that's displayed there. It's visible in the foreground of the photo accompanying my June 19th posting.

Yury Kats said...

Thanks! Paid attention today and saw both. Number VIIII is indeed well hidden in the bushes, but how I missed Number X I don't know. :)