Wellesley Hills station is an MBTA Commuter Rail station in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. It serves the Framingham/Worcester Line. It is located off Washington Street (MA-16) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Wellesley Hills has two low platforms serving the line's two tracks; it is not accessible. Designed in 1885 and completed in 1886, the station was the last of nine stations that H.H. Richardson designed for the Boston and Albany Railroad. It replaced a previous station, built in 1834 with the completion of the Boston and Worcester Railroad.
Wellesley Hills | |||||||||||||
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 Wellesley Hills station platforms; station building is at right | |||||||||||||
| General information | |||||||||||||
| Location | 339 Washington Street Wellesley, Massachusetts | ||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 42°18′37″N 71°16′37″W / 42.3102°N 71.2770°W | ||||||||||||
| Line(s) | Worcester Line | ||||||||||||
| Platforms | 2 side platforms | ||||||||||||
| Tracks | 2 | ||||||||||||
| Construction | |||||||||||||
| Parking | 51 spaces ($4.50 fee) | ||||||||||||
| Other information | |||||||||||||
| Fare zone | 3 | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
| Opened | 1834 | ||||||||||||
| Rebuilt | March 13, 1886 | ||||||||||||
| Passengers | |||||||||||||
| 2018 | 336 (weekday average boardings)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||||
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History
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The Boston & Worcester Railroad (B&W), extending outwards from Boston, reached through the West Parish of Needham in mid-1834.[2] North Needham station (also called Needham) was the terminus for a few months while construction continued towards Worcester.[3] In 1839, the line was double tracked through the area.[4]
Around 1844, the railroad proposed to relocate the station building to West Needham, which had more population.[5] A new station building was constructed there instead.[6] Improvements were made to Needham station around 1846.[7] It was later renamed Grantville, then briefly Nehoiden, and finally Wellesley Hills in 1881 when the West Parish was fully separated from Needham as the town of Wellesley.[3]
Wellesley Hills station was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in 1885 for the Boston & Albany Railroad,[8] and was the last in a series of stations he designed, all featuring rough-cut light colored stone with dark stone trim around windows and doors, slate roofs, and varying amounts of decorative dark stone carvings.[8] As a B&A station, it originally served both commuter trains in the Boston Metropolitan Area and long distance trains toward Albany, New York.
By 1962, the disused station building was converted to a dry cleaning shop, with large plate glass windows added to the façade.[9] The previous station building, constructed in 1855, has been moved across the road and converted to a private residence.[10]
In June 2021, the MBTA issued a $28 million design contract for a project to add a third track from Weston to Framingham, including reconstruction of the three Wellesley stations and West Natick station. The project was expected to cost around $400 million, of which rebuilding Wellesley Hills station would be $43–45 million, with completion in 2030.[11]
References
edit- ^ Central Transportation Planning Staff (2019). "2018 Commuter Rail Counts". Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
- ^ Humphrey, Thomas J. & Clark, Norton D. (1985). Boston's Commuter Rail: The First 150 Years. Boston Street Railway Association. pp. 21–25. ISBN 9780685412947.
- ^ a b Fiske, Joseph E.; Ellen W. Fiske (1917). History of the Town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Boston, Chicago: The Pilgrim Press. p. 26. OCLC 6541911 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Karr, Ronald Dale (1995). The Rail Lines of Southern New England. Branch Line Press. pp. 278–283. ISBN 0942147022.
- ^ Report of the Directors of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Boston and Worcester Railroad. June 3, 1844. p. 27.
- ^ Report of the Directors of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Boston and Worcester Railroad. June 2, 1845. p. 10.
- ^ Report of the Directors of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Boston and Worcester Railroad. June 1, 1846. p. 10.
- ^ a b Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, H.H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works, MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1984
- ^ "Few Trains, But Stations Still Busy". Boston Globe. February 16, 1962. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Harwood, Herbert H. (Spring 1992). "History Where You Don't Expect It: Some Surprising Survivors". Railroad History (166): 103–125. JSTOR 43523701.
- ^ Kelly, Maribel (June 21, 2021). "MBTA Contract No. C72PS01: Worcester Line Track and Stations Accessibility Improvements (P0261) Design and Engineering Services" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
External links
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Media related to Wellesley Hills station at Wikimedia Commons