North Grafton – Milford railway line

North Grafton MA-Milford MA
Route length:	26 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Dual track :	-
Society:	Grafton and Upton Railroad
Legend from Boston to Worcester Worcester Tram 0 North Grafton MA ( wedge station ) Connection to Worcester Interstate 90 5 Grafton MA Start of tram Strab. along Williams St. Strab. along Main St. West River 13 West Upton MA Strab. along Milford St. 15th Upton MA Strab. along Brooks St. End of tram M&U 23 Hopedale MA MAW (South Main Street) 25th Milford MA (GU train station) from Franklin 26th Milford MA ( CSXT ) to Framingham and Ashland

The railway line North Grafton-Milford is a single-track railway in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is 16 miles long and connects the towns of Grafton , Upton , Hopedale and Milford . The route is owned by the Grafton and Upton Railroad , which operates regular freight services between North Grafton and West Upton. The remaining section is currently not passable, but not officially closed and is currently being prepared for operation again.

history

The eventful history of the railway began on October 22, 1873 when the Grafton Center Railroad Company granted the concession to build a narrow-gauge branch line from New England Village Station (now North Grafton) on the Boston – Worcester line of the Boston and Albany Railroad to Grafton Center received. The line was opened in three feet (914 mm) gauge on August 20, 1874. Initially, the only railway vehicle was a steam railcar that commuted along the route.

After a change of ownership at the beginning of 1887, the railway company decided to expand operations and initially ceased operations on July 9 of that year. The railway line was retrained to standard gauge and reopened on September 1. In order to represent the intention to extend the company name, the company was renamed Grafton and Upton Railroad on February 17, 1888 . It still bears this name today. On March 12, 1889, the extension to West Upton went into operation. The line from there to Milford was officially opened on May 17, 1890, and regular traffic began the next day, after provisional freight traffic had already taken place from January.

After the rail company built an electric tram line through Upton from Williams Street in West Upton to Brook Street, it also electrified its rail line. Electric passenger service from North Grafton to Milford began on June 23, 1902. Between West Upton and Upton, the railcars used the new tram route. The two railcars required for this were borrowed from the Milford and Uxbridge Street Railway . Freight traffic continued to be handled with steam locomotives, the freight trains only ran once in each direction at night. On April 22, 1919, however, steam operations were discontinued and the railway line between West Upton and Upton was electrified. Two electric locomotives took over the train services in freight traffic. From June 1, 1919, the passenger railcars also drove over the railway line and the tram through Upton was shut down and dismantled the following year.

After the Milford & Uxbridge Street Railway took its vehicles and routes out of service, the railway company also ceased passenger services on August 31, 1928. A general cargo railcar taken over from the Worcester tram now carried out the mail and general cargo transport on the route. On July 3, 1946, the railway ceased electrical operations and started running again the following day with a steam locomotive borrowed from Boston & Albany. Already on July 25th, two new diesel locomotives were put into operation and steam operation ceased.

In the mid-1970s, the railway ceased operations between Hopedale and Milford. A level crossing over Highway 16 was overturned in the mid-1980s, so that this route has no longer been passable. Later, the Milford tracks were also removed, although there was no official closure. From 1988 the trains only ran to Grafton Center, but from October 1993 back to West Upton. In the late 1990s, traffic between Grafton Center and West Upton was suspended again. The railway company was sold in 2008 to a new owner who plans to expand the traffic back to Milford. First the section to West Upton was restored and in October 2011 the new Envirobulk transload terminal in West Upton went into operation, where freight has been reloaded from rail to road since then.

Route description

The line branches off in North Grafton from the main Boston – Worcester line. The connecting curve towards Worcester has been dismantled. The operating company's administration is also located at the four-track freight yard. The route is winding in a southerly direction through the urban area of ​​Grafton. In Grafton Center there is a loading point at the site of the former train station. The route now continues through a wooded area past the West River reservoir. South of the lake, the streetcar branched off from 1902 to 1919 on Williams Street, which was used to handle passenger traffic at that time. This ran through Williams, Main, Milford and Brooks Street, while the railway line passed West Upton and Upton stations. The drivable track ends in West Upton today, a new freight yard was built here from 2009 to 2011. A few hundred meters east of Upton station, the tram line rejoined the railway line in a triangular track.

The railway line now continues winding through an extensive forest area to Hopedale, where it turns in a northeastern direction. On South Main Street was the terminus of the line and a connecting track leads from there to Milford station of CSX Transportation . This track has been dismantled since the 1980s.

passenger traffic

In 1893, five pairs of trains ran from North Grafton to Milford on weekdays and one pair of trains ran from North Grafton to Grafton Center on weekdays. After electrification, railcars ran hourly from North Grafton to Milford until the cessation of passenger traffic in 1928, namely until 1919 on the tram line in Upton, after its closure via the West Upton and Upton stations.

Sources and further reading

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.

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

• Article on the history of the Grafton & Upton Railroad by Gordon Hopper, revised by James Reisdorff, National Railway Bulletin 64/4, 1999. (English)