Great Barrington | |||||||||||
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| General information | |||||||||||
| Location | Castle Street Great Barrington, Massachusetts United States | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 42°11′38″N73°21′54″W / 42.19389°N 73.36500°W | ||||||||||
| Owned by | Housatonic Railroad | ||||||||||
| Line(s) | Berkshire Line | ||||||||||
| Platforms | 1 side platform | ||||||||||
| Tracks | 2 | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Opened | 1901 | ||||||||||
| Closed | 1971 | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
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| NRHP reference No. | 98000680 [1] | ||||||||||
| Added to NRHP | June 11, 1998 | ||||||||||
Great Barrington station is a former railroad station in Great Barrington, Massachusetts along the Housatonic Railroad Berkshire Line.
The railroad was chartered in 1836 and began placing rails in Bridgeport Connecticut and on the line from North Canaan, Connecticut in Great Barrington in September 1842. [2] The station was built in 1901 to replace an earlier one on Railroad Avenue. [3] The line ran north to Stockbridge, [4] Lenox Railroad Station, Lee Station. In Pittsfield, it stopped at Pittsfield Depot, and later, at Union Station. Passenger service ended on April 30, 1971. [5] It has been a stop on the Berkshire Scenic Railway. [6] [7] [8] The station is a contributing property within the Taconic and West Avenues Historic District. [9] [10]
In 2008 the railroad began considering the possibility of resuming commercial passenger service along the entire line from the Danbury Branch to Pittsfield, and in May 2010 began a formal study of the same. At the time, the estimated cost of upgrading the railroad to support passenger trains was estimated to be between $100 million and $150 million, not including the cost of the required equipment. [11] It decided it would not renew its agreement with Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum to continue operating passenger excursions over their railroad.
In July 2014, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) authorized the purchase of 37 miles of the railroad's Berkshire Line from the Connecticut border in Sheffield through Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Lee, and Lenox to Pittsfield, where it joins the CSXT Railroad main line. MassDOT's purchase is intended to extend rail services to New York City via Southeast Station, following track improvements for passenger and freight service between Massachusetts and Connecticut. [12] [13]
Berkshire County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,026. Its largest city and traditional county seat is Pittsfield. The county was founded in 1761. The Berkshire Hills are centered on Berkshire County. Residents are known as Berkshirites. It exists today only as a historical geographic region, and has no county government, with the exception of the retirement board for former county workers, and certain offices such as the sheriff and registry of deeds.
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Naumkeag, a public garden and historic house, the Austen Riggs Center, and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French.
Lee is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 5,788 at the 2020 census. Lee, which includes the villages of South and East Lee, is part of the Berkshires resort area.
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, a ski resort, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van Deusenville and Housatonic.
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lenox includes the villages of New Lenox and Lenoxdale, and is a tourist destination during the summer.
The Berkshires are a highland region located in western Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut in the United States. Generally, "Berkshires" may refer to the range of hills in Massachusetts that lie between the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers. Highlands of northwest Connecticut may be seen as part of the Berkshires and sometimes called the Northwest Hills or Litchfield Hills. The segment of the Taconic Mountains in Massachusetts is often considered a part of the Berkshires, although they are geologically separate and are a comparatively narrow range along New York's eastern border.
The Housatonic River is a river, approximately 149 miles (240 km) long, in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United States. It flows south to southeast, and drains about 1,950 square miles (5,100 km2) of southwestern Connecticut into Long Island Sound.
The Housatonic Railroad is a Class III railroad operating in southwestern New England and eastern New York. It was chartered in 1983 to operate a short section of ex-New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in northwestern Connecticut, and has since expanded north and south, as well as west into New York State.
The Danbury Branch is a diesel branch of the Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line in the U.S. state of Connecticut, running from downtown Norwalk north to Danbury. It opened in 1852 as the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad. Until the early 1970s, passenger service continued north from Danbury to Canaan, Connecticut, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Metro-North took over operation of the line from Conrail in 1983, and the modern-day branch is mostly single-tracked.
The Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center is a transit facility located in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The $11 million facility is named after Joseph Scelsi, a longtime State Representative who represented Pittsfield. Owned by the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority (BRTA), it is serviced by local BRTA bus services, Amtrak intercity rail service, and Peter Pan intercity bus service. The second floor of the building houses two classrooms used by Berkshire Community College and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Massachusetts Route 183 (MA 183) is a 31.94-mile-long (51.40 km) north–south state highway in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The entire route travels from a continuation of Connecticut Route 183 by Colebrook, Connecticut, to U.S. Route 7 and US 20 in Lenox.
Lenox station is a former Housatonic Railroad train station in Lenox, Massachusetts. Built in 1902, it served as the town's railroad station, on a line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, until 1970. Now home to the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum, it serves as a stop on the heritage railroad service provided by the museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 as Lenox Railroad Station.
U.S. Route 7 (US 7) in of Massachusetts is a 54-mile (87 km) section of the larger federal route extending from southern Connecticut to the northernmost part of Vermont. Within Massachusetts, the entire route in Massachusetts is within Berkshire County.
Yokun Ridge consisting mainly of West Stockbridge Mountain and the Lenox Mountain massif, is a ten-mile stretch of the Taconic Mountains south of Pittfield, Mass. The term was invented in 1971 by a conservation group to draw attention to a perceived geographical continuity. The name was accepted in 2009 by the United States Board on Geographic Names. The area is notable for its recreational and scenic value, as well as its conserved land and proximity to the tourist attractions of Lenox and Stockbridge. Yokun Ridge is in West Stockbridge, Stockbridge, Lenox, Richmond, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Approximately one-third of the zone is protected as open space reserve, municipal watershed, and wildlife sanctuary.
The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum is a railroad museum located in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States that offers historical exhibits. The museum was founded in 1984 as a not-for-profit organization. During the 1980s and 2003–2011, it offered tourist train rides between Lenox and Stockbridge on the Housatonic Railroad right-of-way. In 2016 the museum began tourist train service in North Adams, Massachusetts.
The Housatonic Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, chartered in 1836. Opened between Bridgeport, Connecticut, and New Milford, Connecticut, in 1840, it was completed to a connection with the Western Railroad in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1842. Branches were later built to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Danbury, Connecticut, and Derby, Connecticut, the latter as part of the Housatonic Railroad's purchase of the New Haven and Derby Railroad in 1887.
The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in the U.S. states of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The heritage area interprets and promotes the historical, cultural and scenic features of the upper Housatonic River valley in the western part of both states. The heritage area focuses on five themes: the area's role as a resort for writers, artists, actors and musicians, the scenic landscape, the area's role in industry, the American Revolutionary War, and the social and religious groups associated with the area.
Lee station is a former railroad station in Lee, Massachusetts. It was built in 1893 to serve passenger traffic on the Housatonic Railroad, which operated the tracks that run through the town between Pittsfield to the north and Connecticut to the south. It served as the town's main passenger station until passenger service was terminated in 1971 by the Penn Central Railroad, the NYNH&H's successor. In 1976 the building was converted to office use, and in 1981 it was rehabilitated and opened as a restaurant. It also serves excursions of the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 as Lee Station.
The Berkshire Flyer is a seasonal Amtrak passenger train service between New York City and the Berkshire Mountains in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, via the Hudson Valley. The weekly train departs Penn Station on Friday afternoons during the summer and returns on Sundays. The route's 2023 season began on May 26 and ran through October 9 as the second year of a three-year pilot program.
The Berkshire was a New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad named train running from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was the longest-running north–south train in Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut and the Berkshires of Massachusetts. From New York City it followed the New Haven Line to South Norwalk, the Danbury Line to Danbury and the Berkshire Division to Pittsfield. It began in the 1940s and ran until 1968. The train was preceded by the Berkshire Express, of c.1938-c.1943. It terminated at Pittsfield Union Station until 1960, when the New Haven moved it to another station in the city.
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