South Acton – Marlborough railway

South Acton MA-Marlborough MA
Route length:	19.71 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Society:	last BM
Legend from Boston 0.00 South Acton MA to Fitchburg Concord, Maynard and Hudson Street Railway (Main Street) Fort Pond Brook Assabet River 3.56 Maynard MA Concord, Maynard and Hudson Street Railway (Main Street) 8.27 Lake Boone (formerly Whitmans Crossing) Assabet River (2 ×) 10.33 Gleasondale MA North Cambridge – Northampton line (Central Mass. Jct.) Assabet River 13.65 Hudson MA (formerly Feltonville) after Thayer Assabet River 19.71 Marlborough MA (no connection to the route to Marlborough Junction )

The railway line South Acton-Marlborough is a railway line in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is 19.71 kilometers long and connects the cities of Acton , Maynard , Stow , Hudson and Marlborough . The standard gauge line is closed.

history

In order to connect the former settlement of Feltonville (now Hudson ) to the Boston – Fitchburg line of the Fitchburg Railroad , which was completed in 1845, the Lancaster and Sterling Branch Railroad Company received a concession on April 16, 1846 . As the name of the company suggests, the route was originally supposed to continue via Feltonville, Bolton and Lancaster to Sterling. Part of this planning was later taken up again by the Lancaster Railroad . The company was bought on June 2nd of that year by the Fitchburg Railroad, which built the route to Feltonville on its own. It went into operation in July 1850. Entrepreneurs from Marlborough wanted to extend the route to the center of the city and founded the Marlborough Branch Railroad Company in 1852 , which was granted the concession for the extension on April 30 of that year. It was agreed with the Fitchburg Railroad that they would lease the route and operate it as soon as it was completed. On March 1, 1855, the extension to Marlborough was opened. The Marlborough Branch Railroad had to go bankrupt as early as 1858 and on March 27 of that year the government granted approval that the company could be reorganized as the Marlborough and Feltonville Branch Railroad Company , but this did not take place until 1860. On April 15, 1862, the Fitchburg Railroad finally bought the route from Feltonville to Marlborough.

From 1900, the Boston and Maine Railroad was in charge of operations after it had taken over Fitchburg. Passenger traffic on the line was quite sparse, as the city of Hudson on Boston could be reached more directly via the North Cambridge – Northampton railway and Marlborough also had another railway connection. In addition, an overland tram was built from South Acton via Maynard to Hudson at the beginning of the 20th century. As early as 1932, passenger traffic between Maynard and Central Massachusetts Junction ended on weekdays, only on Sundays a single train ran until 1934. This section was shut down in 1943 after the through freight traffic had also ceased. The passenger trains to Marlborough ran from 1932 to 1939 on the North Cambridge – Northampton line, to which a track connection had been installed shortly after 1900 at the intersection of the two lines (Central Massachusetts Junction). In 1939, however, passenger traffic to Marlborough was discontinued, and in 1958 between South Acton and Maynard.

Also in 1958, however, passenger trains returned to the line after passenger traffic to the west of Hudson was suspended on the North Cambridge – Northampton route. The trains on this route from the direction of Boston now drove over the connecting curve at Central Massachusetts Junction and ended at Hudson Station, which was right in the city center and was reactivated as a passenger station. On January 15, 1965, however, passenger traffic on this route finally ended. Freight traffic on the two sections still in operation was irregular from the 1970s. In 1979 the line between South Acton and Maynard was shut down, and the following year the section from Central Massachusetts Junction to Marlborough also suffered this fate.

Route description

The line branches off the Fitchburg main line at the old South Acton station and heads south. The station was originally designed as a wedge station . The train crosses Main Street and then crosses Fort Pond Brook over a bridge that is still there , which is dammed up in this area to form a small reservoir. The route runs parallel to Main Street and Brown Street to Maynard, where it turns southwest. Parallel to Nason Street, the railway line then crosses the Assabet River for the first time, which it now follows almost to the terminus. After the bridge, the former Maynard train station is reached. The railway line then continues along the south bank of the Assabet River. In this area it now serves as a forest path. On Sudbury Road there was a Lake Boone stop northwest of the lake of the same name.

The route now crosses the river twice and reaches the urban area of ​​Stow. In the Gleasondale district, the train station was on Marlboro Road. From the level crossing over Wilkins Street to just before Hudson Station, there was an interurban tram line operated by CMH right next to the railway line. Shortly after this level crossing was the Central Massachusetts Junction , which was sometimes also called Gleason Junction . Here the North Cambridge – Northampton railway crosses the route to Marlborough. Only the abutments remain of the bridge. A connecting curve enabled trains coming from North Cambridge to turn towards Marlborough. The railway line is used as a cycling and walking path from here to Marlborough terminus, the Assabet River Rail Trail .

In a westerly direction the route continues to Hudson. The river bridge was special because it carried both Main Street and the railroad that crossed Main Street at an acute angle on the bridge. The parallel tram line turned onto Main Street. The rail line now runs right next to Main Street to Hudson Station, where it turns south. Hudson station was also developed as a wedge station, but the line to Thayer that branches off here was never used by regular trains and was dismantled 16 years after its completion. The railway line to Marlborough now continues south, crosses the Assabet River one last time and curves around to the terminus on Cashman Street. There was no track connection to the Marlborough Junction – Marlborough railway line, which ended southeast of the city center .

passenger traffic

In 1869, three pairs of trains, one of which went through to Boston, were enough to handle the traffic on the line. The train density continued to increase and in 1901 eight trains ran on the route on weekdays and four on Sundays. An additional train ran on Wednesdays and Saturdays. After the opening of the overland tram, which ran from Concord and South Acton via Maynard to Hudson, and another tram from Hudson via Marlborough to Boston, passenger traffic on the railway line declined. The Boston & Maine met the competition by running trains from Boston via Wayland and the North Cambridge – Northampton railway and the rail link on Central Massachusetts Junction to Marlborough. In 1916 three pairs of trains ran on this route every weekday. Five daily train pairs drove from South Acton to Marlborough, some of them also running from Boston.

After the First World War and the global economic crisis, however, the train service was significantly reduced, not least due to the increase in individual traffic. In 1932, only one pair of trains ran from Boston to Marlborough via Wayland and one pair of trains from Boston to Maynard via South Acton on weekdays. The Maynard to Hudson section was only used by a single Sunday morning train from Marlborough to South Acton, which had no connection to Boston in South Acton. There was no longer any train going in the opposite direction. This single Sunday train ran until around 1934. The train to Marlborough was also canceled in 1939. After the Second World War, Saturday traffic was also discontinued, so that a train from Maynard via South Acton to Boston only drove Monday to Friday in early work traffic, which then ran in the opposite direction in the evening.

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

• B&M Corporate History, 1914, pages 193, 200–202 (PDF; 7.7 MB) (English)
• List of stations (with miles) and staff from 1923 (English)