Somerville station
Somerville station on an 1884 map
General information
Coordinates42°22′54.5″N 71°6′25.7″W / 42.381806°N 71.107139°W / 42.381806; -71.107139
Line(s)Fitchburg Railroad
History
ClosedJuly 9, 1938
Former services
Preceding station Boston and Maine Railroad Following station
Cambridge
toward Waltham
 Watertown Branch Union Square
toward Boston
Cambridge
toward Fitchburg
 Boston – Fitchburg
Harvard Square
Terminus
 Harvard Branch
1849–1857
 Terminus

Somerville station was a train station on the Fitchburg Railroad in Somerville, Massachusetts.

History

The Park Street grade crossing in 2012

A short-lived station opened at Kent Street in 1842.[1][2][3]: 81  By 1851, Somerville station was located 0.2 miles (0.32 km) to the east at Park Street, near the junction of the Harvard Branch Railroad.[4][5] The station building was located on the north side of the tracks, just west of Park Street.[6][7] Like Union Square and other local stops, Somerville was served primarily by Lexington Branch trains in the mid-19th century.[8]

Planning to eliminate the eleven remaining grade crossings in Somerville, five of which were on the Fitchburg Route mainline, began in 1900.[9] In 1906, the city engineer proposed to raise 1.8 miles (2.9 km) of the line between Beacon Street and Somerville Avenue to eliminate the five level crossings, but that scheme was not adopted.[10] The other four crossings were eliminated in 1908–1912, but the Park Street grade crossing remained.[11] In 1935, the city requested that the crossing be replaced with a bridge as part of a Works Progress Administration-funded grade crossing elimination program.[12] It was not, and the location has continued to see collisions.[13]

Horsecar and later electric streetcar service cut ridership at urban stations; by 1917, Union Square and Somerville stations were served by 4–5 daily Watertown Branch trains plus several off-peak mainline local trains.[14] As passenger volumes dwindled, the station building was rented to an upholstery maker by 1924.[15] By 1929, their only service was two inbound and one outbound Watertown Branch train.[16] Service to the two stations ended on July 9, 1938, along with the end of passenger service on the Watertown Branch.[17][18][19]

References

  1. ↑ "Railroad to Fresh Pond". Boston Post. July 14, 1842. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ PRESERVATION STAFF REPORT for Determination of Preferably Preserved (PDF) (Report). Somerville Historic Preservation Commission. September 25, 2018. p. 1.
  3. ↑ Samuels, Edward Augustus; Kimball, Henry Hastings (1897). Somerville, past and present : an illustrated historical souvenir commemorative of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the city government of Somerville, Massachusetts – via Internet Archive.
  4. ↑ Dinsmore, Curran (1851). American Railway Guide, p. 94, at Google Books
  5. ↑ H.F. Walling (1854). "Map of the City of Cambridge".
  6. ↑ Postcard: Boston & Maine Railroad Somerville, Massachusetts Station – via Nashua City Station
  7. ↑ Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society, Somerville, Mass. station – via Flickr
  8. ↑ ABC Pathfinder Railway Guide. New England Railway Publishing Company. 1858. p. 16 – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ "To Abolish Grade Crossings". Boston Globe. December 27, 1903. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "To Abolish Somerville Grade Crossings". Boston Globe. January 28, 1906. p. 26 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Two Somerville Grade Crossing Improvements Nearly Complete". Boston Globe. December 16, 1912. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Somerville". Boston Globe. June 11, 1935. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ DeCosta-Klipa, Nik (March 20, 2017). "Man fatally struck by commuter rail train in Somerville".
  14. ↑ Local Train Service. Boston and Maine Railroad. September 30, 1917. pp. 80–81 – via Wikimedia Commons.
  15. ↑ ""To Let" Sign on Railroad Station at Prospect Hill". Boston Globe. July 19, 1924. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ Time Tables. Boston and Maine Railroad. September 29, 1929. pp. 45–49 – via Wikimedia Commons.
  17. ↑ Central Transportation Planning Staff (January 2004). "Chapter 5C: Service Expansion" (PDF). 2004 Program for Mass Transportation. Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 16, 2008. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  18. ↑ Humphrey, Thomas J.; Clark, Norton D. (1986). Boston's Commuter Rail: Second Section. Boston Street Railway Association. ISBN 9780938315025.
  19. ↑ "At the State House". Boston Globe. April 12, 1938. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
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