Melrose Highlands station

Melrose Highlands is an MBTA Commuter Rail station on the Haverhill Line located in the Melrose Highlands neighborhood of Melrose, Massachusetts. It is the most used station in the city, and was originally planned to be a station on the cancelled extension of the Orange Line to Reading. The station is accessible.

Melrose Highlands
An inbound train at Melrose Highlands in 2012
Location497 Franklin Street, Melrose, Massachusetts
Coordinates42.4695°N 71.0684°W / 42.4695; -71.0684
Owned byCity of Melrose
Line(s)Western Route
Platforms2 side platforms
Tracks2
Connections MBTA bus: 131
Construction
Parking77 spaces ($2.00 fee)
2 accessible spaces
Disabled accessYes
Other information
Fare zone1
History
Openedc. 1845
Rebuilt1903
Previous namesStoneham (until c. 1887)
Passengers
2018306 (weekday average boardings)[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA Following station
Melrose/Cedar Park
toward North Station
 Haverhill Line Greenwood
toward Haverhill

History
Melrose Highlands station around 1908

The Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) opened its line from Wilmington Junction to Boston on July 1, 1845. Stoneham station opened on Franklin Street in the east part of Stoneham then or soon thereafter.[2] In 1853, the east part of Stoneham was annexed into Melrose (itself split from Malden in 1850 due to development around the rail line) and soon renamed Melrose Highlands.[3]

Unusually, the B&M did not rename the station - likely to compete with the rival Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) for Stoneham traffic.[4] (The B&L had its Montvale station slightly closer to downtown Stoneham, and opened the Stoneham Branch directly to the town in 1862.)[2] The B&M leased the entire B&L system in 1887, ending the competition.[2] The station was soon renamed as Melrose Highlands, though the Stoneham name was still locally used for some time thereafter.[5][6]

The original station was on the west side of the tracks just south of Franklin Street.[5] In 1903, the B&M built a larger station just north of Franklin Street.[7] The station was demolished in the 1950s or 1960s.

The MBTA, formed in 1964 to subsidize suburban commuter rail service, began funding Reading Line service on January 18, 1965.[8][2] Mini-high platforms on the north end of each platform opened in January 2006, making the station accessible.[9]


References
  1. Central Transportation Planning Staff (2019). "2018 Commuter Rail Counts". Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
  2. Humphrey, Thomas J.; Clark, Norton D. (1985). Boston's Commuter Rail: The First 150 Years. Boston Street Railway Association. pp. 15, 55, 67–68. ISBN 9780685412947.
  3. Goss, Elbridge Henry (1902). The history of Melrose, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts. City of Melrose. pp. 20-21, 487–488 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Diller, J.S. (1880), "The Felsites and their Associated Rocks North of Boston", Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 7 (2): 178 – via Google Books
  5. "Part of Melrose". Atlas of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. George H. Walker & Company. 1889. pp. 66–67 – via Ward Maps.
  6. Nason, Elias (1890). A Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts. 1. Heritage Books. p. 453 – via Google Books.
  7. "Melrose Highlands station, Melrose, Mass". Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society – via Flickr.
  8. Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). NETransit.
  9. "Improved Accessibility At Rockport CR Station" (Press release). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. June 28, 2006.

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