Lowell & Boston Street Railway

Built

1901

The Lowell & Boston Street Railway built the electric line on Boston Road from Billerica Centre south through Pinehurst to the Burlington line, part of a through route from Lowell to Woburn that was known in Billerica as the Woburn line. Its directors, among them Richard Faulkner of Billerica, petitioned the Burlington selectmen in the summer of 1900 for a line through that town, and that November changed the plan to run north to Billerica and meet the Lowell cars there. On January 3, 1901 the Billerica selectmen, Charles H. Kohlrausch Jr., Edward B. Haskell and Josiah Wright, granted the company a location "to lay tracks and operate a street railway from the Burlington line to Billerica Centre," and reported that "suitable assurances have been given us that they will extend their line to Tewksbury via Billerica avenue." Section 23 of the order provided for a petition for that extension. In 1901 the directors asked the board to take no action on it until a conference could be held with the Lynn & Boston company, which then controlled the Lowell lines, and on July 3, 1901 the selectmen extended the time to September 1. The extension was never built.

The company paid the town's costs of the location, and in 1901-1902 it paid $1,000 "on account of bond to build from Billerica Centre to Lowell"; it did not build that part, and the town meeting of 1903 voted on the motion of Josiah Wright that the money "be expended for macadam road." It also paid $300 toward the town's macadam on Boston Road. The track was laid beside the road, partly on strips bought from the owners of the farms along it, among them the Crosby and Spaulding farms in 1901. Work began in the spring of 1901 and the cars began running on Labor Day 1901, in time for the opening of Pinehurst Park, the trolley park on the Shawsheen River at Boston Road and Cook Street. The cars ran through to Lowell over the Lowell company's tracks from the Centre, and the trip from Woburn to Lowell took about forty minutes for a 15 cent fare. Near Pinehurst Park the line crossed the Shawsheen on its own trestle beside the road bridge (Boston Road Bridge over the Shawsheen River).

The line never paid well. By 1904-1905 the town was dealing with "Receivers Lowell & Boston St. Ry. Co.," and on March 20, 1905 the railway was taken over by the Lowell & Woburn Street Railway, incorporated that day to hold and operate it. On September 28, 1906 the Lowell & Woburn was consolidated with the Boston & Northern Street Railway, which became the Bay State Street Railway in 1911 and passed in 1919 to the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway. The town used the line for school children from Pinehurst: in 1912 the school committee obtained "better electric car service on the Woburn line, so that a car reaches the Centre at 8.30 A. M.," for some sixty pupils, and in 1916 the Bay State ran a school car for the Pinehurst section at 8.30 in the morning.

The suspension of car service on the Woburn line early in June 1921 forced the school committee to hire the Woburn and Reading Bus Company to carry the Pinehurst and East Billerica pupils. The selectmen (Thomas F. Sheridan, Richard T. Perry and Maurice A. Buck) reported that "the Woburn line was discontinued several months ago and in order to keep travel on this route, we issued a bus license to the Woburn-Reading Bus Company to operate its machines between Billerica Centre and the Billerica-Burlington town line." By the end of 1923 the Eastern Massachusetts had its own bus license and "now handles the traffic between the Common and the Billerica-Burlington Town line." In 1930 the town meeting voted to buy "the old Trestle of the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway on Boston Road, near Pinehurst Park" for one dollar, so that Boston Road could be widened.

Operators

Lowell & Boston Street Railway (1901-1905)
Lowell & Woburn Street Railway (1905-1906)
Boston & Northern Street Railway (1906-1911)
Bay State Street Railway (1911-1919)
Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway (1919-1921)

Lowell & Boston Street Railway

Lowell & Boston Street Railway

Operators

References