Peabody – Tewksbury Junction railway line

Peabody MA-Tewksbury Junction MA

Route length:

27.17 km

Society:

last ST

		from Salem
	0.00	Peabody MA (formerly Keilbahnhof , formerly South Danvers)
		to Wakefield Junction
		Bay State Street Railway (Central Street)
		to North Andover
	2.77	Proctor (formerly Proctors Corner)
		Interstate 95
		Newburyport – Wakefield Junction route
		Connection to Newburyport
	5.71	West Peabody MA (formerly West Danvers)
	6.87	Phelps Mills
	10.59	South Middleton MA (formerly Oak Dale)
	14.81	North Reading MA
		Bay State Street Railway (Central Street)
	16.38	Meadowview
	20.42	Park Street (formerly Browns, North Wilmington)
		Interstate 93
		Connection after Agamenticus
		Wilmington – Agamenticus route
		Connection from Wilmington
	22.40	Wilmington Junction MA
		Shawsheen River
	24.70	Burtt's (formerly Burtt's Crossing, Burtt's Mill)
	26.52	Salem Junction MA (formerly Almshouse)
		from Lawrence
	27.17	Tewksbury Junction MA
		after Lowell

The Peabody – Tewksbury Junction (also Salem Branch ) railway line is a railway line in Essex County and Middlesex County in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is 17 miles long and connects the towns of Peabody , Middleton , North Reading , Wilmington and Tewksbury . The standard gauge line is closed.

history

On April 26, 1848, the Salem and Lowell Railroad Company received a concession to build and operate a railway line from South Danvers (now Peabody) to Tewksbury. The company was formally set up on May 31, 1849, and construction began in August of that year. On August 5, 1850, the entire line went into operation. The management was initially incumbent on the Lowell and Lawrence Railroad , whose main line connected in Tewksbury. The Boston and Maine Railroad , whose main line crossed in Wilmington Junction, built a connecting curve and agreed with Lowell & Lawrence a right of use for the section from Wilmington Junction to Tewksbury Junction and on to Lowell. It introduced continuous trains from Boston to Lowell. However, the Boston and Lowell Railroad had a legally anchored monopoly on this city connection , which was valid until 1865. With effect from October 1, 1858, Boston & Lowell leased the railroad and now ran the business itself. The trains running through Wilmington Junction to Boston were immediately discontinued. The Boston & Lowell finally acquired the railway line on July 2, 1879.

However, after Boston & Maine had leased Boston & Lowell in 1887, they now ran the entire route. In the meantime, however, it had opened its own railway line to Lowell , over which the trains ran from Boston, so that the passenger traffic on the line remained sparse. The places touched were all either accessed by other rail lines on a more direct route or had trams that ran to stations on the surrounding main lines. The freight traffic was also not particularly extensive, in addition to local freight traffic, only coal trains from the port of Salem, which drove west, used the route. In August 1924, Boston & Maine stopped all traffic between Wilmington Junction and Tewksbury Junction and closed this section in late 1925. The Lowell Junction – Lowell line, only a few hundred meters further north, was straighter and better developed and also had a connecting curve in the direction of Lawrence, which was used by numerous trains.

Also on the rest of the route only passenger trains ran until 1932. Freight traffic between North Reading and Wilmington Junction ended in May 1935. In early 1939, the section from an industrial connection about one kilometer west of South Middleton to Wilmington Junction was closed. In 1962, Boston & Maine also closed the section between Peabody and the West Peabody junction station. Freight trains went to South Middleton until around 1980. In 1983, Guilford Transportation took over the rest of the route, but it was unused, and finally shut it down in 1987.

Route description

The route begins at Peabody wedge station . The north wing of the station housed not only the line to Tewksbury, but also the Salem – North Andover line , which, however, turns north shortly after leaving the station area. The route to Tewksbury runs in a west-northwest direction and passes under Interstate 95 after about five kilometers . Shortly thereafter, the West Peabody junction station is reached, where the Newburyport – Wakefield Junction railway line was crossed at the same level. From the underpass of State Road 128 to Interstate 95 and again to the west of West Peabody Station, the Independence Greenway Trail , a bike and hiking trail, is now on the railway line. After West Peabody the route turns north and heads west again from South Middleton. The Independence Greenway Trail ends in South Middleton and the route is overgrown as it continues.

At the former North Reading station, Railroad Avenue is still reminiscent of the railway line. The Bay State Street Railway from Lawrence to Boston crossed here on Central Street . Shortly before Wilmington Junction, Interstate 93 crosses the railway line at an acute angle . Ainsworth Road is on the railway line in front of the motorway . Immediately after the motorway, you will reach Wilmington Junction , which is located in the middle of the forest. The passenger station was only used for changing trains. A connecting curve made it possible to bring trains from Boston and Wilmington to the Tewksbury route. The railway line now runs through the sparsely populated urban area of Tewksbury. Between Salem Junction and Tewksbury Junction, the line ended in a triangular track in the Lowell – Lawrence railway . The terminus was on Livingston Street, but trains usually continued to Lowell from here.

passenger traffic

In 1869 three pairs of Lowell – Salem trains ran on the route every day. In the 1870s, Boston & Lowell introduced train routes from Boston or Wilmington to Lawrence via Salem Junction, which changed to the Tewksbury railway in Wilmington Junction and continued on the connecting curve after the Salem Junction stop in the direction of Lawrence. In 1881 ten pairs of trains were available on this route, with an additional train running on Wednesdays. Then there were the three pairs of trains from Salem to Lowell, which were still in service. After the takeover by Boston & Maine, Sunday traffic on the route was stopped.

The offer was significantly reduced after the opening of several interurban trams that connected Lawrence, Wilmington and Lowell. In 1901, in addition to the three trains from Salem, only four pairs of trains ran on the route from Boston via Salem Junction to Lawrence, of which three more were discontinued by 1916. There were further restrictions in the wake of increasing individual traffic after the end of the First World War. In 1920 there were only two trains left from Salem to Lowell and the one remaining pair of trains from Boston via Wilmington Junction and Salem Junction only ran to South Lawrence. After the closure of the western section of the route in 1925, the two trains ran from Salem to Lowell via Lowell Junction and the parallel line, which also runs through Tewksbury, until passenger traffic was discontinued in July 1932.

Sources and further reading

Individual evidence

↑ 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

B&M Corporate History, 1914, page 102 (PDF; 6.60 MB) ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
List of stations (with miles) and staff from 1923 (English)

[1] see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.