Fitchburg – Greenfield railway line
The railway Fitchburg-Greenfield is a railway line in Massachusetts ( United States ).
It is around 90 kilometers long and connects the cities of Fitchburg , Gardner , Athol , Montague and Greenfield , among others . The standard gauge line belongs to the Pan Am Southern , which only operates goods traffic on it. Passenger traffic has existed again since September 30, 2016, after a 30-year interruption, between Fitchburg and Wachusett. It is operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
history
On March 15, 1844, the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad (VT&MA) received the concession for the construction and operation of a railroad line as an extension of the Fitchburg Railroad's Boston – Fitchburg line, which was under construction and completed in 1845 . It should run from Fitchburg via Gardner to the Vermont border. The company was formally set up on November 21, 1844 and began construction the following year. The construction of the route proved difficult due to the topography. To overcome the watershed between the North Nashua River and Otter River , Ashburnham station (later South Ashburnham ) had to be designed as a hairpin . The first section from Fitchburg to Baldwinville (approx. 34 km) went into operation in September 1847. Athol was reached on January 1, 1848, Grout's Corners (now Millers Falls) on January 12, 1849. Meanwhile, on May 8, 1848, the Greenfield and Fitchburg Railroad Company had been founded, which had a concession for the route from Grout's Corners to Greenfield . VT&MA bought this company in the same year and built the extension to Greenfield on its own. It was opened on December 15, 1850.
Operation on the line was initially run by the Fitchburg Railroad, from January 1, 1849, VT&MA itself. On January 1, 1874, operations were again transferred to Fitchburg Railroad, which VT&MA leased. In 1877, the relocation of trains in South Ashburnham was eliminated by relocating the line in this area and installing a 180 ° curve. Around the same time, the entire line was expanded to double tracks. After the Boston and Maine Railroad had leased the Fitchburg Railroad, they took over operations on the route on July 1, 1900. After several floods along the route in 1936 and 1938, the new Birch Hill Dam was built in Royalston, which was inaugurated in 1941. In the course of this, the route was raised in this area. The route here had already been neutrated in the 19th century when the old Birch Hill Dam was built on Beaver Pond. At that time, four bridges over the Millers River were also abandoned and a new train station was built in Royalston on the south bank of the river.
The Boston & Maine stopped the passenger service on the route in 1960. From January 1980, however, suburban trains operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) between Fitchburg and Gardner on the route. The second track was dismantled in 1980 between Westminster and Birch Hill Dam and between Athol and Erving. In 1983 Guilford Transportation took over Boston & Maine and with it the Fitchburg – Greenfield railway line. After disputes with the new owner about shared use of the route, the MBTA stopped passenger traffic to Gardner in 1986. Guilford Transportation has been operating under the name Pan Am Railways since 2006 . In 2009 Pan Am Southern was founded as a joint subsidiary of Pan Am Railways and the Norfolk Southern Railway , which then took over the route and now operates freight traffic on it. On September 30, 2016, the MBTA opened a new train station in Wachusett and regular passenger traffic between Fitchburg and this train station began again.
Route description
The line is the western continuation of the Boston – Fitchburg railway line and begins at Fitchburg station, which is now the terminus for passenger trains from Boston. It initially leads along the Nashua River in a south-westerly direction, but leaves the valley after the old Wachusett station and goes uphill in a north-west direction through Westminster to Ashburnham. The new Wachusett station, which opened in 2016, is about one and a half kilometers west of the old one on Turnpike Road. The South Ashburnham station was designed as a hairpin in the early days of the line. After the opening of the Hoosac tunnel , this obstacle had to be removed, as the train density increased sharply and you had to face competition from the Boston and Albany Railroad . Since then there has been a hairpin bend in which the route turns 180 ° to the south. In this area, the route crosses the watershed between the river systems of the Merrimack River and that of the Connecticut River . In Gardner, which is reached shortly afterwards, the route continues north-west again. Gardner station was originally a junction station where the Barber – Winchendon line was crossed at the same level. Of this route, however, only the section south of Gardner is still in operation. The northern section served as an industrial siding until 2012, but the track crossing was removed in the 1950s and trains from the north could only turn onto the main line towards Fitchburg.
From Gardner, the route runs along the Otter River, which is crossed twice. The village of Baldwinville, a district of Templeton, also had a train station with a level crossing. The crossing railway line Palmer – Winchendon is closed. The railway line then crosses the area around the two Birch Hill dams. The original route passed the New Boston Cemetery and crossed the Millers River north of the mouth of the Otter River. After this bridge is the River Road and further west the Swamp Road on the railway line, which turns here in a south-westerly direction. It leads below the old Birch Hill Dam through the swampy alluvial land to South Royalston, where the train station was on Main Road. The Millers River is crossed twice and again after Royalston station. The route laid during the construction of the old dam branched off the original route at the level of the New Boston Cemetery, crossed the Otter River shortly before its mouth and ran along the south bank of the Millers River to Royalston, where a new train station had been built. In 1941, with the construction of the new dam, the route had to be raised. The Birch Hill Dam Road is now west of the dam on the route used up to that point .
After Royalston the railway line continues winding along the Millers River in a southwesterly direction to Athol. The Athol Union Station served in addition to the trains on the main line also the Boston & Albany, whose trains from Springfield ended here. The now closed line of Boston & Albany flowed west of the station. Continuing along the Millers River, the route to Greenfield continues in a westerly direction and passes through Orange, Wendell, Erving and Farley. A few kilometers after Farley, where the route turns to the southwest, the Millers Falls junction is reached. In contrast to Gardner and Baldwinville, this intersection is not at the same level. The New London – Brattleboro railway runs a short distance alongside the railway line and then crosses it at an acute angle on a bridge. A connecting curve from the direction of Fitchburg towards Brattleboro is used for the handover of cars and is part of the original Vermont & Massachusetts route opened in 1849. Until the opening of the line from New London, the station was laid out as an island station in a track triangle.
The route now continues south-west to Montague and turns here to the north-west. There was a demand breakpoint at Lake Pleasant that was only served in the summer. The railway line then crosses the Connecticut River. Immediately after the bridge begins the extensive East Deerfield freight yard, from where a connecting line to Deerfield branches off. The train then crosses the Turners Falls Branch of the former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and the Deerfield River before the also called Turners Falls Branch of the former Vermont & Massachusetts joins. Like Miller's Falls, Greenfield terminus is a non-level crossing station. The Springfield – East Northfield railway line first crosses the line from Fitchburg and then runs right next to it to the train station, where connection switches enable trains to pass through. The Greenfield – Troy railway , which is the western continuation of the line from Fitchburg, branches off here .
passenger traffic
In 1869, before the opening of the Hoosac Tunnel , two daily pairs of trains ran the route from Boston to the Hoosac Tunnel station. On Saturdays there was an additional train from Boston to Greenfield. Three other pairs of trains on the Cheshire Railroad drove from Fitchburg to Bellows Falls and used the railway as far as South Ashburnham.
With the opening of the tunnel, the train density increased significantly and in 1901 several express trains ran over the route, including the Continental Limited from Boston to Chicago and St. Louis. In addition, three more express trains ran to Chicago and one to St. Louis on weekdays and another train to Chicago on Sundays. Furthermore, the Boston & Maine offered express trains that drove from Boston via Fitchburg and South Ashburnham to Vermont and Canada. There were four trains on weekdays, one going to Montreal, two to Burlington and one to Bellows Falls. On Sundays only the train to Montreal ran. There was also an extensive range of local transport services on the route. Four pairs of trains drove the entire route on weekdays and sometimes continued to Boston and Troy. On Sundays a pair of trains went from Boston to Troy.
However, after the First World War and the global economic crisis, as well as in the wake of increasing private transport, the offer was soon reduced again. In 1932 the Minute Man , one of the most famous Boston & Maine express trains, ran from Boston to Chicago. In addition, there were two daily trains to Montreal via South Ashburnham, namely the Ethan Allen , who was called the Green Mountain Flyer on Sundays , and the Mount Royal . Another express train ran to Rutland, Vermont on weekdays. In addition, three passenger trains ran from Boston to Troy and one each to Williamstown and Greenfield on weekdays. On Sundays only two passenger trains ran from Boston via Fitchburg and Greenfield to Troy and one to Williamstown.
In 1958, shortly before the end of passenger traffic, three pairs of trains ran from Boston to Williamstown and one to Greenfield. One of the trains to Williamstown only ran on weekdays.
In 2016, passenger traffic between Fitchburg and the Wachusett district of Fitchburg (approx. 7 km) was resumed. The operator is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority , which runs its suburban trains from Boston to Fitchburg to the new terminus. A parking facility for these trains is being built in Westminster. With the opening of the new station on September 30th, only two pairs of trains will initially run to Wachusett, the others continue to end in Fitchburg. Regular operations are to start in November 2016 when the parking facility is completed.
Sources and further reading
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Information page of the US Army Corps of Engineers ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ "MBTA to open new station on Fitchburg Line" (Article in Trains Magazine from September 29, 2016, English)
- ↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.
- ↑ News article on trains.com
- literature
- Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1995. ISBN 0-942147-02-2
- Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010. ISBN 1-874745-12-9
- Web links