West Concord Depot

WEST CONCORD
Station statistics
Address Commonwealth Avenue & Main Street
West Concord, MA 01742
Lines
  Fitchburg Line
Platforms 2 side platforms
Tracks 2
Parking 146 spaces, $4.00 fee,
3 accessible spaces
Bicycle facilities 10 spaces
Other information
Opened 1894
Accessible
Owned by Depot: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority[1]
Parking: Town of Concord
Fare zone 5
Formerly Union Station
Concord Junction
Traffic
Passengers (2009) 518 weekday avg.[2]  0.4%
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station
toward Fitchburg
 Fitchburg Line
Union Station
Location: 20 Commonwealth Avenue
West Concord, Massachusetts
Built: 1894
Architectural style: Queen Anne style
NRHP Reference#: 89000143[3]
Added to NRHP: March 2, 1989[3]

West Concord Depot is a rail station on the MBTA Commuter Rail system in West Concord, Massachusetts. The depot, which opened in 1894, is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Contents

Location

West Concord Depot is located at 20 Commonwealth Avenue near the intersection of Main Street. Service to the station is provided by the Fitchburg Line from Boston to Fitchburg, Massachusetts both inbound and outbound.

History

The depot opened in 1894 as Union Station at the junction of the Fitchburg Railroad and Old Colony Railroad, in a section of Concord that was initially called Concord Junction.[4] Eventually, the name of the station stop, and the section of town, was renamed West Concord. Both railroads were eventually merged into other railroad companies to create larger networks. The Fitchburg Railroad became part of the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1900 while the Old Colony Railroad was absorbed into the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Regular passenger service on the New Haven Railroad portion of the line ceased in 1930s.

The depot is now owned by the MBTA,[1] which purchased the passenger operations of the Boston & Maine Railroad in 1976.[5] The building houses an MBTA office, a restaurant, and a waiting room for morning rail passengers.[4]

West Concord Depot is a Queen Anne Style building which was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.[3][4][6] As of 2007, local residents and businesses along with the Town of Concord and the MBTA were working to restore the station exterior after years of decay. The original railroad diamond is located in the bricks on the former right-of-way of the New Haven Railroad's Lowell Secondary Line between Framingham and Lowell, Massachusetts. This right-of-way is scheduled to become the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail.

Currently, the building holds the Club Car Cafe restaurant.[1]

Nearby destinations

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Town of Concord Update DRAFT June 21, 2007" (PDF). 2008 Community Preservation Plan. Town of Concord. p. 69. http://www.concordnet.org/pages/concordma_news/preservationplan. Retrieved 2007-10-04. 
  2. ^ "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF). MBTA. 2010. http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/documents/Bluebook%202010.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-31. 
  3. ^ a b c "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. no date specified. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
  4. ^ a b c Kehoe, Dorrie (2007). "Renewal of West Concord Depot". The Concord Magazine. http://www.concordma.com/magazine/spring07/westconcorddepot.html. Retrieved 2007-10-04. 
  5. ^ "MBTA > About the MBTA > Transit Projects". MBTA. http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/t_projects/?id=1012. Retrieved 2007-10-04. 
  6. ^ "National Register of Historic Places - MASSACHUSETTS (MA), Middlesex County". nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/MA/Middlesex/vacant.html. Retrieved 2007-10-04. 

External links

Media related to West Concord (MBTA station) at Wikimedia Commons