Medford branch (Boston and Maine Railroad)

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was built in 1835 through West Medford, followed by the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) through the east part of Medford in 1844.[1] On March 7, 1845, the state legislature approved the charter of the Medford Branch Rail-road Company to build a branch line from the B&M mainline to Medford Square.[2] The railroad had been formed by a group of citizens including James O. Curtis earlier that year.[3] The group almost immediately acted on the charter provision which allowed them to transfer the line to the B&M, which constructed the line and opened it as the Medford branch on March 2, 1847.[4] It ran about 1.86 miles (2.99 km) from Medford Junction (north of Wellington station) to Medford Square.[4]

By 1875, an intermediate station - East Medford - had been added at Spring Street.[5] A second stop at Park Street was added by 1889.[6] The East Medford station had been renamed Glenwood by then, and was relocated slightly to the east by 1900.[7][8]

The remaining spur to the Medford branch, seen in 2017

In the 1890s, the B&M double-tracked the branch to provide more frequent service to compete with electric streetcars.[9] The branch was then a busy commuter route; at the peak levels of B&M service in 1906, the branch had 21 daily round trips.[10] However, ridership was soon decimated by the streetcars operated by the Boston Elevated Railway and the Bay State Street Railway.[10] The B&M attempted to end service in 1917; after negotiations with the town, the railroad kept four daily round trips.[11] This increased slightly to six daily round trips by 1919.[10] Operation of a gasoline-electric railcar on the branch was considered in 1925.[12]

Service on the branch was discontinued for some period in 1933–34; the station buildings remained closed after service resumed.[9][13][14] As a marginal route, the branch was often closed entirely during service disruptions like those caused by the April 1946 and March 1948 coal mine strikes.[15][16] By 1949, only a single daily round trip remained.[10] This trip was discontinued on October 1, 1957.[17][18]

The section of the line between Park Street and Medford Square was abandoned in 1959, with the Northern Expressway soon built across it.[1] The section between Park Street and Glenwood was abandoned two years later, while freight service continued on the remaining section.[1][19] In the early 1970s, an underpass for the Orange Line and Reading Line was built at Medford Junction as part of the Haymarket North Extension.[10] (Never-realized plans in the 1940s had called for the Medford branch to be reused as an Orange Line branch.[20]) Regular freight service ended in 2008, though a single trip to deliver a single carload of fish was run in 2010.[1] The only remaining station structure is the Park Street station, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1][21]

Media related to Medford Branch (Boston and Maine Railroad) at Wikimedia Commons