Winchester – Woburn – Wilmington railway line

Winchester MA-Wilmington MA

Route length:

9.62 km

Society:

most recently MBTA

		from Boston
	-0.51	Winchester Center MA ( BSS on Main St)
	0.00	to Lowell via Montvale
	approx. 0.7	Cutters (formerly Symms)
	1.30	Cross Street (formerly Richardson)
		Connection Horn Pond
	2.11	Woburn Highlands MA (formerly Horn Pond)
		Bay State Street Railway (Main Street)
	2.93	Woburn MA (formerly Woburn Center)
		Bay State Street Railway (Pleasant Street)
		Bay State Street Railway (Winn Street)
	4.55	Central Square
		Interstate 95
		Bay State Street Railway (Main Street)
	6.50	North Woburn MA
		Industrial connection
	9.62	from Boston via Montvale (North Woburn Junction)
		Bay State Street Railway (Main Street)
		Bay State Street Railway (Burlington Avenue)
	11.81	Wilmington MA
		to Wilmington Junction
		after Agamenticus
		after Lowell

The Winchester – Woburn – Wilmington (also Woburn Loop ) railway line is a railway line in Massachusetts ( United States ). The actual route is about ten kilometers long and connects the cities of Winchester , Woburn and Wilmington . It begins and ends in the open on the Boston – Lowell railway line . The standard gauge line has been closed except for an industrial connection at the northern end of the line.

history

When the main line Boston – Lowell was opened in 1835, the city of Woburn was inadequately connected. The city's train station was two kilometers east of the center. In order to better connect the city, a branch line from Winchester Station, which was then called South Woburn, was to be built. The Woburn Branch Railroad Company received a concession for this route on March 16, 1844. The company was formally set up shortly thereafter and merged on May 9 of that year with the Boston and Lowell Railroad , which operated the main line. On December 30, 1844, the line went into operation.

An extension of the route to the north should enable the connection of trains from the direction of Boston to Lowell via Woburn. The license for this was given to the Woburn Branch Extension Railroad Company on April 23, 1847. The company also merged with Boston & Lowell in 1848, but construction work on the line was initially not started. It was not until 1885 that the railway company carried out the construction and opened the line from Woburn to North Woburn Junction on November 30th of that year. Most of the suburban trains going from Boston to Wilmington and Lowell now ran through Woburn. In 1854 the Boston Ice Company opened a siding that branched off on Cross Street and led to Horn Pond , where ice was mined in winter. The Horn Pond Branch Railroad Company , which had received the concession for this approximately 800 meter long route, merged with Boston & Lowell, which led operations on this siding. In 1919 the connection was shut down and dismantled.

From 1887 on, the Boston and Maine Railroad , which Boston & Lowell had leased, was in charge of operations. In June 1959 the Boston & Maine stopped the passenger service north of Woburn and closed this section in 1961. In 1976 the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bought the route, but left the suburban traffic to Boston & Maine. In January 1981, all traffic between Winchester and Woburn had to be stopped because the urgently needed route renovation could not be financed. The line was closed the following year and later dismantled.

Route description

The line branches off the main line north of Winchester Center station and runs in a north-westerly direction through the urban area of Woburn. The Woburn station was on Pleasant Street. There is a parking lot here today. In the further course, where the railway has been shut down since 1962, a road was built on the route. From Winn Street, where the route turns north, the former railway line is overgrown. It ran through North Woburn next to Middlesex Street, Hart Street and Main Street. Immediately north of the Interstate 95 freeway exit , the railroad crosses Main Street and now runs east of that street. North Woburn Station was at the Merrimac Street level crossing. At the northern end of the line, just before the confluence with the main line, there is a four-track loading station.

passenger traffic

In 1869 nine trains ran on the line that was then completed to Woburn. After the opening of the northern extension, many trains to Wilmington and Lowell ran over the route. In 1916, eleven trains ran Monday to Friday, twelve on Saturdays and five trains on Sundays. They mostly drove on to Lowell. In addition, eight trains went to Woburn on weekdays, nine on Saturdays and four on Sundays. The commuter traffic remained brisk despite the increasing individual traffic and in 1960, after the suspension of passenger traffic on the northern part of the route, 22 trains ran from Boston to Woburn on weekdays.

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 89–90 (PDF; 6.9 MB) ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
List of stations (with miles) and staff from 1923 (scroll down) (English)

Individual evidence

↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.

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