Palmer – Winchendon railway line
The railway Palmer Winchendon is a railway line in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is around 80 kilometers long and connects the cities of Palmer , Ware , Hardwick , Barre , Templeton and Winchendon , among others . The standard gauge line belongs to the state of Massachusetts and is partially closed. The Massachusetts Central Railroad operates freight services on the remaining section of the Palmer – South Barre line .
history
As early as April 26, 1847, the Barre and Worcester Railroad Company received a concession to build a railway line from Palmer via Barre and Holden to Worcester . The company was set up on May 19 of that year and soon further routes were planned. On March 24, 1849, the company was renamed Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad ; it was reorganized under this name on September 6th. In 1850 other entrepreneurs planned a route from Palmer along the Ware River to Winchendon. They founded the Ware River Railroad Company on May 24, 1851 and received a concession for this route. However, since both companies could not raise enough money to finance the construction of the railway, the project was suspended for almost 20 years. The Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad later abandoned the plan to build a railway line in the Ware River valley and instead built the Barber – Winchendon railway line .
In 1868 the Ware River Railroad Company was set up again, and that same year began building the railroad from Palmer to Winchendon. In July 1870 she opened the first section from Palmer to Gilbertville. The operation initially led the New London Northern Railroad , which operated a main line through Palmer and had a track connection to the railway line in the direction of Winchendon. In December 1871 the line to Baldwinville was completed. After that, the railway company had to interrupt the construction for lack of money and filed for bankruptcy on April 1, 1873. On June 12, 1873, it was auctioned and the Boston and Albany Railroad took over the train. This company owned the other main line through Palmer. The Ware River Railroad Company has now been repositioned for the third time. The Boston & Albany led the operation on the existing section and opened the remaining route to Winchendon in November 1873.
The Boston & Albany in turn was later taken over by the New York Central Railroad , which absorbed the Ware River Railroad in April 1961. From the 1930s, the Boston and Maine Railroad had the right to use the route between Gibbs and Barre after it had closed its own route, which ran parallel and often within sight. Passenger traffic ended in 1948 on the entire route. From 1968 the operator was called Penn Central , which immediately after the takeover requested the closure of the section from South Barre to Waterville and completed it in the same year. She sold the short section from Waterville to Winchendon to Boston & Maine, which handed it over to Guilford Transportation in 1983 . It was shut down in 1984.
In November 1975 the regular freight traffic between Gilbertville and South Barre ended and in 1976 the line between Ware and South Barre should be closed. With the takeover of Penn Central by Conrail , this plan was not realized and the new owner continued to operate the route. Conrail sold the route in 1979 to the state of Massachusetts, which leased it to the newly formed Massachusetts Central Railroad (MCER). MCER has been operating freight traffic between Palmer and South Barre since December 11, 1979.
Route description
The railway line begins at the former Palmer Union Station , where the main lines Worcester – Albany and New London – Brattleboro cross. It initially leads north directly next to the route to Brattleboro, which turns near the underpass under Interstate 90 . The route to Winchendon runs a short distance north and in the Thorndike district makes a tight curve into the valley of the Ware River. It now runs for over 50 kilometers along the river and crosses it several times.
At the Gibbs junction, the line meets the North Cambridge – Northampton line for the first time , which runs parallel from here to Barre. In Gibbs there is a parking facility that was built on the route of the disused parallel line. The line to Winchendon now runs further east of the river and only meets the parallel line again at Ware station. The two routes separate again, but shortly after Ware they both cross the river and then cross at the same level. At the Creamery junction there was a connecting track between the lines, which again run a little further apart from here to South Barre. Today the tracks end in South Barre, here is a siding to an industrial area.
Shortly after South Barre, the parallel lines meet for the last time, the Barre station was shared. The route to Winchendon then turns north and continues along the Ware River, while the route to North Cambridge continues eastward. The railway line now leads through the sparsely populated towns of Williamsville and Phillipston to Templeton. In the Baldwinville district, the railway line first crosses the Otter River and then the Fitchburg – Greenfield railway line at the same level . Eleven kilometers further on is Winchendon, where railway lines from five directions once met, but all of them have been closed. Three of the routes that approached the city from the south, including the route from Palmer, crossed the Millers River shortly before the terminus .
passenger traffic
In 1881 four pairs of trains ran on weekdays from Palmer, two of them to Winchendon, one to Barre and one to Gilbertville. In the late 1890s, two pairs of Sunday trains were introduced from Palmer to Barre. After a regional tram was opened between Palmer and Gilbertville, one of the Sunday train pairs and the weekday train to Gilbertville were canceled by 1906. In 1909 at the latest, the Sunday train to Winchendon was extended. The weekday train pair Palmer – Barre drove for the last time in the following years and with the end of the First World War the railway company stopped the Sunday traffic again.
After the Great Depression , traffic decreased even further and in 1933 one of the two pairs of trains to Winchendon was stopped. The other had been running as a mixed train since the 1920s and this train was the only remaining train with passenger transport until the cessation of passenger traffic in 1948.
Sources and further reading
- Individual evidence
- ^ Edward A. Lewis: American Shortline Railway Guide. (5th edition) Waukesha WI: Kalmbach Publishing, 1996. Page 190.
- ↑ 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