Medfield Junction

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MEDFIELD
File:Medfield Junction 1906 postcard.jpg
Medfield Junction station on a 1906 postcard
Location West Mill Street at Adams Street
Medfield, Massachusetts
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Owned by New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
Line(s) Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
History
Opened November 18, 1861[2]
Closed April 21, 1967[1]
Services
Preceding station   MBTA.svg MBTA   Following station
toward Millis
 Millis Branch

Medfield Junction is a railway junction and former train station located in northwest Medfield, Massachusetts. It is the junction of the Framingham Secondary and the former Millis Branch. The station was open from November 1861 until April 1967.

History

Medfield Junction station

File:Medfield Junction interlocking diagram, February 1911.jpg
1911 diagram of Medfield Junction

On November 18, 1861, the Charles River Railroad (part of the New York and Boston Railroad) was extended from Needham Center to Medway via Medfield; a station at Medfield opened then or shortly after.[2] In 1867, the Mansfield and Framingham Railroad opened on a perpendicular route, crossing the Charles River line at Medfield Junction and opening its own station closer to the center of Mansfield.[3]

By 1898, both lines through Medfield Junction were owned by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.[3] Patients traveling to Medfield State Hospital were transported from the station in horse-drawn wagons.[4] A freight wreck at the junction on October 23, caused by an engineer proceeding through an open derail, killed two railroad employees and injured four more.[5]

Closure

Passengers service between Mansfield and Framingham ended in 1933, and Medfield Junction (often referred thereafter as simply Medfield) was once again the sole railroad station for the town.[3]

Passenger service on Charles River line was cut back from Woonsocket to West Medway as the West Medway Branch in 1941, and reduced to a single daily one-car round trip (which was combined with a longer Needham Heights train at Needham Junction) in 1955.[2][1] The newly-formed Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) started subsidising continued NYNH&H service on the portion of the moribund West Medway branch running from Boston to Millis on 24 April 1966; service on the truncated Millis Branch was discontinued on 21 April 1967 due to extremely poor ridership.[2][1] The remaining stations, including Medfield, closed at that time; all except Dover and Millis, were later demolished.

Current use

The Framingham Secondary passed through Conrail, CSX, and finally into state hands in 2015; CSX runs regular freight service on the line through Medfield Junction.[6] The Bay Colony Railroad took over freight service on the former Millis Branch east of the junction from Conrail in 1982, and west of the junction in 1987.[3] As of 2015, the old Bay Colony service through the Junction is occasional gravel trains moved towards Millis.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

External images
image icon October 1923 freight wreck at Medfield Junction
image icon 1934 photo
image icon undated photo of the station building
image icon undated photo showing the track layout
image icon December 1970 photo by Donald Haskel (RailPictures.net)
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