Newburyport (MBTA station)

NEWBURYPORT

Platform at Newburyport station, facing outbound; the 1998-built station building is at left
Location 25 Boston Way
Newbury, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°47′53″N 70°52′41″W / 42.79815°N 70.87815°W / 42.79815; -70.87815Coordinates: 42°47′53″N 70°52′41″W / 42.79815°N 70.87815°W / 42.79815; -70.87815
Owned by MBTA
Line(s)
  Newburyport/Rockport Line
Platforms 1 island platform
Tracks 2
Connections MVRTA: 54
Construction
Parking 814 spaces ($4.00 fee)
24 accessible spaces
Bicycle facilities 22 spaces
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Fare zone 8
History
Opened 1840; October 28, 1998[1]
Closed April 1976
Traffic
Passengers (2013) 812 (weekday inbound boardings)[2]
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station
Newburyport/Rockport LineTerminus

Newburyport is a passenger rail station on the MBTA Commuter Rail Newburyport/Rockport Line, located between Parker Street and U.S. Route 1 south of downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts. The station is the terminus of the Newburyport Branch of the line, with three parking lots totalling over 800 spaces. The Clipper City Rail Trail, running along the former right-of-way, connects the station to the town center. Newburyport station is fully handicapped accessible.

History

An early woodcutting of the first (1840-built) station
The third (1892-built) Newburyport station in the early 20th century

The Eastern Railroad's original Newburyport station was located in downtown Newburyport, near Washington Street. Opened in 1840, it was a small wooden structure with a two-track trainshed.[3] It was replaced by a larger brick station just to the north in March 1854. The 1854 station was destroyed by fire on March 3, 1892; a large brick structure with a turret was constructed on the same spot.[1][3]

Service on the Boston and Maine Railroad's Eastern Route was cut back from Portsmouth, New Hampshire on January 4, 1965, as part of a general discontinuance of the railroad's interstate service. The only service past Hamilton/Wenham (after June 28, past Ipswich) was a single round trip to Newburyport with an intermediate stop at Rowley.[4]

On April 20, 1967, Newburyport began partially subsidizing the service; Rowley did not, and its station was abandoned. The state subsidy ended in April 1976, and service was cut back to Ipswich. That December, the MBTA bought the B&M's commuter rail assets, including the Eastern Route up to the New Hampshire state line.[4] Freight service continued until 1984, through the line was not officially abandoned until 1984.[5]

After "one of the briefest abandonments on record", the line was rebuilt by the MBTA, and service to Newburyport and Rowley was reinstated on October 26, 1998.[5] The new station was located south of downtown, where parking and a layover yard could be easily built. (The Guinea Bridge overpass, which allowed trains to cross over Low Street and continue downtown, had been town down years before, thus making it too difficult to place the train station any further north.) A full-length high-level platform - the MBTA's standard for new construction on routes not constrained by the need to accommodate freight operations along the same route - was built for handicapped access. Since Newburyport is the terminus, trains may pull into either of the island platform's two tracks. A four-track layover yard was constructed south of the Newburyport Turnpike.

As part of the $2.1 million restoration project, a brick waiting room was built west of the tracks, incorporating two arches from the Newburyport YMCA building, which had burned in 1987. The building was complete by 1998, but it and the small coffee shop inside did not open until February 11, 2002.[1] The coffee shop has since closed.

Bus connections

The Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority operates local bus service in the region, with the 54 Amesbury-Newburyport-Salisbury route stopping at Newburyport station.

The Newburyport Summer Shuttle, which runs from the station to Plum Island via downtown Newburyport, operates Fridays through Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The service, funded by the town and the MVRTA, began in 2015.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Roy, John H. Jr. (2007). A Field Guide to Southern New England Railroad Depots and Freight Houses. Branch Line Press. p. 197. ISBN 9780942147087.
  2. ↑ "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14 ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  3. 1 2 Currier, John J. (November 1906). History of Newburyport, Mass., 1764-1905. pp. 399–403.
  4. 1 2 Belcher, Jonathan (22 March 2014). "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). NETransit. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  5. 1 2 Karr, Ronald Dale (2010). Lost Railroads of New England (Third ed.). Branch Line Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780942147117.
  6. ↑ Hendrickson, Dyke (15 June 2015). "Accessibility, convenience in summer shuttle service, officials say". Retrieved 18 June 2015.
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