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The Watertown Branch Railroad was a branch loop of the Fitchburg Railroad that was meant to serve the town of Watertown and the City of Waltham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, as an independent short line railroad; it also serviced the Watertown Arsenal. The line has been formally abandoned and portions are being converted into a rail trail, the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway. A section from School Street to Arlington Street in Watertown has been completed. A small portion in Waltham has been converted into a park called Chemistry Station Park after the railroad station once located there. ==History== The railroad was chartered in 1846 and a second company, the Waltham and Watertown Railroad, was chartered to extend the line to the neighborhood just southeast of downtown Waltham, Massachusetts. In order to keep it out of the hands of its rivals, the Fitchburg took control of both companies before any track was laid and merged them into the Watertown Branch. Construction began from West Cambridge〔The area where the Watertown tracks branched off the Fitchburg main line is now considered part of North Cambridge and Alewife, and differs from the neighborhood called West Cambridge today. It was also distinct from the nearby ''town'' of West Cambridge, renamed Arlington in 1867.〕 in 1847 and was completed to Bemis two years later. By 1851 it reached the Fitchburg's main line at the downtown Waltham station and the branch served as the main passenger line between Boston and Waltham. It was one of the few branch lines to be double tracked, as the line saw quite heavy traffic, especially in the 1880s and 1890s. But things went downhill once the Boston and Maine Railroad took over the Fitchburg in 1900. Passenger service on the line ended in 1938 and the second track was removed by early 1940. The middle section of the line from the Waltham/Watertown line through Watertown Square to East Watertown was abandoned in 1960. This split the branch line in two, but traffic continued on both sides through the remainder of the 20th century. In 1991, about a half mile of track was abandoned on the west side of the line at Bemis, and the remainder of the line back to Waltham was abandoned in 2000. On October 5, 2011, the Surface Transportation Board agreed to allow Pan Am Railways to abandon the final active 1.72 miles of the Watertown Branch from Newly Wed Foods in Watertown to the branch's junction with the Fitchburg Line between Sherman Street and Alewife in Cambridge. No freight had been carried for at least two years.〔( SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD DECISION Docket No. AB 32 (Sub-No. 103X) BOSTON AND MAINE CORPORATION–ABANDONMENT EXEMPTION–MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASS. ) Retrieved 2012-05-02. Note incorrect references to "Waterloo" branch and "BNSF"〕 As of May 2013, all but the approximately half-mile portion between Concord Avenue and the Fitchburg Line was in public hands. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Watertown Branch Railroad」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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