East Junction Branch

The East Junction Branch is a railroad line owned and operated by the Providence and Worcester Railroad in the U.S. state of Rhode Island and by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Massachusetts. The line runs from the P&W's East Providence Branch in East Providence, Rhode Island northeast to Amtrak's Shore Line (Northeast Corridor) at East Junction in Attleboro, Massachusetts along a former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad line. In Massachusetts, CSX Transportation operates local freight service via trackage rights, which it also has on the Shore Line north towards Boston. The P&W has overhead trackage rights in Massachusetts over the East Junction Branch, Shore Line, and CSX's Middleboro Subdivision, New Bedford Subdivision, and Fall River Subdivision to the state line in Fall River, to reach its line to Newport, Rhode Island. [ [http://www.pwrr.com/PWmap2.html Providence & Worcester Railroad Service Map] ]

History

The East Junction Branch is part of the original Boston and Providence Rail Road, opened in 1835. [PDFlink| [http://www.prrths.com/Hagley/PRR1835%20June%2004.wd.pdf PRR Chronology, 1835] |95.9 KiB , June 2004 Edition] It became a branch in 1847 with the opening of the new line from East Junction to Providence. [PDFlink| [http://www.prrths.com/Hagley/PRR1847%20Apr%2005.pdf PRR Chronology, 1847] |40.7 KiB , April 2005 Edition] The B&P was leased by the Old Colony Railroad in 1888,Fact|date=February 2007 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad leased the Old Colony in 1893.Fact|date=February 2007 It remained a New Haven line until 1969, when the New Haven was merged into Penn Central Transportation. [PDFlink| [http://www.prrths.com/Hagley/PRR1969%20June%2004.wd.pdf PRR Chronology, 1969] |80.5 KiB , June 2004 Edition] The MBTA acquired the piece in Massachusetts on January 27, 1973, despite it not seeing any passenger service, [Jonathan Belcher, PDFlink| [http://members.aol.com/eddanamta/busfiles/contents.pdf Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district 1964-2006] , October 4, 2006 version] and the P&W later acquired the Rhode Island portion from Conrail, which had taken over Penn Central's lines in 1976.Fact|date=February 2007

References