Riverside – Newton Lower Falls railway line

Riverside MA-Newton Lower Falls MA

Route length:

1.9 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Dual track :

-

Society:

most recently Penn Central

Legend

		from Boston
	0.0	Riverside MA

		Beginning of the light rail track
		to Newton Highlands
		End of siding
		Charles River
		to Worcester
		Charles River
		Interstate 95
		old route until 1959 (left)
		Pine Grove Avenue
		Charles River
		MBS (Washington Street)
	1.9	Newton Lower Falls MA

The railway Riverside Newton Lower Falls is a single-track, disused railway line in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is two kilometers long and tied the Lower Falls district of the city of Newton to the Boston – Worcester railway .

history

The Boston and Worcester Railroad built the branch line from their main line to Newton Lower Falls in 1847 to connect the industrial operations there. Traffic developed well and passenger trains usually ran from Boston to Newton Lower Falls. In 1867 the Boston & Worcester merged with other companies to form the Boston and Albany Railroad , which also took over the branch line to Newton Lower Falls and operated from then on. In 1886 the Boston & Albany opened a route from Riverside to Newton Highlands and the suburban trains coming from Boston were now routed over this route. A train shuttled between Riverside and Newton Lower Falls following trains on the main line. With the takeover of Boston & Albany in 1900 by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad (later New York Central Railroad) initially only the owner changed, the management remained with Boston & Albany.

Boston & Albany electrified the line in 1904 and now operated it with tram-like electric railcars. After the decline in passenger numbers, the electrical systems were dismantled again in 1930 and diesel multiple units took over the transport tasks. 1957 the passenger traffic was stopped. Two years later, the railway company moved the route to save a bridge over the Charles River. It now branched off the route to Newton Highlands, which was also converted into a light rail . The depot of this railway was built at the junction. In 1968, Boston & Albany merged into the Penn Central system, which took over freight traffic on the line. This ended, however, south of the light rail depot in 1972. The line was closed in 1976. A short stretch of track at the junction was retained as a siding for the depot.

Route description

The original line branched south of Riverside station beyond the bridge of the main line over the Charles River from the main line and led south. She crossed the river again shortly afterwards. The new route branches off the Riverside – Newton Highlands railway line at what is now the light rail depot and leads south of the river to the southwest, where it first crosses a motorway slip road and then crosses Interstate 95 on bridges. The railroad now curves through a residential area where there was a stop on Pine Grove Avenue. It crossed the Charles River again and ended up in an industrial area. The station area is now a parking lot.

passenger traffic

In 1869, five trains ran on the route from Boston. In 1901, after it was taken over by New York Central, there were 19 pairs of trains on weekdays and six pairs of trains on Sundays. Traffic decreased noticeably after the First World War and in 1945 there were four pairs of trains running Monday to Friday and two on Saturdays. Passenger traffic ceased on Sundays.

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

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