Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

Montrose Station, 1915

Description

"Located on Salem Street between Walton Street and Wiley Street (now Montrose Avenue), the Montrose Station served patrons of the Salem Branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad, first built as the South Reading Branch Railroad. Maps indicate that the tracks ran behind the rattan factory and Newhall Court where it crossed Montrose Avenue near the Salem Street end. The station was located in the area across from what is now Audubon Road. In 1848, a group of investors received a charter to build a railroad from South Reading (now Wakefield) to South Danvers (now Peabody). From there, the South Reading Branch had obtained rights to use two miles of track owned by the Essex Railroad to reach Salem. This South Reading to Salem route officially opened in mid-1850, taking business away from the larger Eastern Railroad which offered service from Salem through Lynn to East Boston, requiring passengers to take a ferry into Boston. The South Reading Branch enabled passengers to disembark at the Centre or Junction Stations in South Reading to take the Boston and Maine Railroad directly into Boston. Intense rivalry between Eastern and B&M led to Eastern's purchase of the majority of the South Reading Branch Railroad stock in 1851. The legislature subsequently required Eastern Railroad to buy all the stock and run a certain number of trains each day for many years, mostly at a financial loss. The competition between Eastern and B&M resulted in each line constructing branch lines to raid each other's markets, eventually leading to Eastern's bankruptcy in 1875 and B&M's lease of the entire Eastern system by the mid-1880s. The railroad from Wakefield Junction to Peabody made little sense because it paralleled the Newburyport line, which also traveled through Wakefield, and riders preferred cars and street railways to the train. The Lynnfield Community Bus Line also traveled through Montrose, as it continued to do until the 1970s. By 1925, only 60 passengers rode the trains daily, leading to the B&M's petition to abandon the line. Permission to abandon the line was granted by the Interstate Commerce Commission in November 1925. The last train arrived in Salem at 6:38 p.m. on Saturday, January 2, 1926. The tracks were removed in 1927." -- Text from calendar by Jayne M. D'Onofrio.

Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2006

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Date

1915

Format

image/jpeg

Publisher

[Wakefield, Mass.] : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

Railroad stations

Railroads

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture : b&w

Extent

14 x 30 cm.