North Scituate is an

MBTA Commuter Rail The MBTA Commuter Rail system serves as the commuter rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's transportation coverage of Greater Boston in the United States. Trains run over of track to 141 different stations, with 58 statio ...

station in

Scituate, Massachusetts Scituate () is a seacoast town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on the South Shore, midway between Boston and Plymouth. The population was 19,063 at the 2020 census. History The Wampanoag and their neighbors have inhabited ...

. It serves the

Greenbush Line The Greenbush Line is a branch of the MBTA Commuter Rail system which serves the South Shore region of Massachusetts. The line runs from downtown Boston, Massachusetts through the cities and towns of Quincy, Weymouth, Hingham, Cohasset, an ...

. The station, located at 777 Country Way in North Scituate village, is the primary station for Scituate, while nearby Greenbush station primarily serves as a park-and-ride for adjacent communities. Like the other stations on the Greenbush Line, North Scituate consists of a single full-length high-level platform which provides accessible boarding to the line's single track.

History

South Shore Railroad

The modern

was originally built as the

South Shore Railroad The South Shore Railroad was a railroad in Massachusetts. It was incorporated in 1846 to provide rail service between Quincy and Duxbury, Massachusetts through the towns of Hingham, Cohasset, Scituate and Marshfield. History The 11.5 mile l ...

, which opened to Cohasset in 1849. The Old Colony-backed Duxbury and Cohasset Railroad, chartered in 1867, which opened from Cohasset to Duxbury in 1871, including a stop at North Scituate. Three other stations were, at various times, located in Scituate: Egypt station at Captain Pierce Road, Scituate (also called Scituate Harbor) at First Parish Road, and Greenbush at Driftway. After financial troubles in the 1870s, the Duxbury and Cohasset was joined with the South Shore under the fold of the

Old Colony Railroad The Old Colony Railroad (OC) was a major railroad system, mainly covering southeastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, which operated from 1845 to 1893. Old Colony trains ran from Boston to points such as Plymouth, Fall Ri ...

in 1877. The Old Colony was leased to the

New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

in 1893.

New Haven Railroad

Ridership on the Greenbush Line diminished in the 1930s due to increased competition from automobiles. The line enjoyed a brief uptick in traffic in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

with the construction of the

Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot The Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot, is a former United States Navy ammunition depot located in Hingham, Massachusetts. At its peak, it employed over 2,400 people. It also consisted of 90 buildings at that time. The Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot A ...

and the

Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot Annex The Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot Annex, sometimes called the “Cohasset Annex” or "Hingham Annex" by local residents, covered sections of the towns of Hingham, Massachusetts, Hingham, Cohasset, Massachusetts, Cohasset, Norwell, Massachusett ...

. The number of daily trips was increased from 4 to 8 after World War II under Frederick C. Dumaine, Jr., and modern diesel trains including

Budd RDC The Budd Rail Diesel Car, RDC, Budd car or Buddliner is a self-propelled diesel multiple unit (DMU) railcar. Between 1949 and 1962, 398 RDCs were built by the Budd Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The cars were primarily adop ...

s were introduced in the 1950s. However, the New Haven Railroad continued to lose money on the service, and after Dumaine was ousted the railroad announced all trains would cease running in 1958. Only an emergency subsidy by the state kept trains running until June 30, 1959 when the Southeast Expressway opened and all passenger train service ended. The former Spanish-style station, built in 1908-09, is located on Gannett Road near the modern station. It was converted for commercial use by 1962.

MBTA era

Calls for the former Old Colony lines to be reactivated began in the 1980s; the Plymouth/Kingston Line and Middleborough/Lakeville Line were reopened in 1997. After much controversy surrounding various aspects of the $534 million project, construction of the

was completed in mid-2007. The Greenbush line and North Scituate station were opened for full service on October 31, 2007 after a ceremonial train the previous day.

References

External links

{{commons category
MBTA - North ScituateStation from Google Maps Street View
Stations along Old Colony Railroad lines Railway stations in the United States opened in 2007 MBTA Commuter Rail stations in Plymouth County, Massachusetts 2007 establishments in Massachusetts