Woburn station - Misplaced Pages

Railroad station in Woburn, Massachusetts For the current station in Woburn, see Anderson Regional Transportation Center.

Woburn

1908 postcard of Woburn station

General information

Location

Pleasant Street at Woburn Common (until 1959)
Main Street at Summer Street (1959–1981)
Woburn, Massachusetts

Coordinates

42°28′44″N 71°09′10″W / 42.47885°N 71.152748°W / 42.47885; -71.152748 (until 1959)
42°28′36″N 71°09′00″W / 42.476784°N 71.149932°W / 42.476784; -71.149932 (1959–1981)

Owned by

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

Line(s)

Woburn Branch

Platforms

Tracks

Other information

Fare zone

History

Opened

1844

Closed

1981

Former services

Preceding station	MBTA		Following station
Terminus		Lowell Line Woburn BranchClosed 1981	Cross Streettoward North Station
Preceding station	Boston and Maine Railroad		Following station
Central Squaretoward Concord, NH		Boston – Concord, NH via Woburn Loopuntil 1959	Woburn Highlandstoward Boston
Terminus		Woburn Branchafter 1959	Cross Streettoward Boston

Woburn station was a railroad station on the Woburn Branch (formerly the Woburn Loop), part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Lowell Line.

History

It was closed in 1981 when service on the Woburn Branch was terminated due to poor track conditions and insufficient funding; service north of Woburn station had already been discontinued in June 1959.

After the closure of the Woburn Branch, all trains travelling outbound from North Station on the Lowell Line simply stayed on the main line all the way north to Lowell. The only station on the Lowell Line left in Woburn was Mishawum, a low-capacity station that was only meant to serve the sparsely-populated northern neighborhoods of Woburn. The need for a larger station in the city quickly became apparent, so in 2001, the Anderson Regional Transportation Center, signed on MBTA maps as "Anderson/Woburn," was opened. Today, Anderson RTC is the MBTA station with the second-highest number of daily train departures outside of downtown Boston (30), and serves both the Lowell and Haverhill lines, as well as Amtrak trains on the Downeaster service.

Although the northern part of the Woburn Branch within the town of Wilmington (about a mile in length) is still used as an industrial spur to service customers along the line in South Wilmington, and the right-of-way of the entire branch is still owned by the MBTA, the part of the branch within Woburn is abandoned. After its closure, the former station building was destroyed by vandals.

References

Massachusetts Public Service Commission (1920). Annual Report of the Public Service Commission, Volume 1. Wright and Potter Printing Co. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
Daniel Lampariello (2011-12-24). "Commuter Rail to New Hampshire". bostontoat.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). Boston Street Railway Association.
Karr, Ronald D. (1995). The Rail Lines of Southern New England - A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press. ISBN 0-942147-02-2.
Karr, Ronald D. (1994). Lost Railroads New England. Branch Line Press. ISBN 0-942147-04-9.
^ Humphrey, Thomas J. & Clark, Norton D. (1985). Boston's Commuter Rail: The First 150 Years. Boston Street Railway Association. pp. 17, 55–70. ISBN 9780685412947.
"T changes start today". Boston Globe. February 1, 1981. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
Henry, Alan P. (August 10, 1977). "There's no depot like an old depot". Boston Globe. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.

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