Lenox Railroad Station | |
Location | 10 Willow Creek Rd. Lenox, Massachusetts |
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Coordinates | 42°21′1″N73°14′44″W / 42.35028°N 73.24556°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1902 |
Architect | James Clifford's Sons |
Architectural style | Tudor Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 89000225 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 16, 1989 |
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. [1]
The former Lenox Railroad Station is located in eastern Lenox, at the northeast corner of Housatonic Road and Willow Creek Road. The railroad tracks run between the station and Woods Pond, a wide bulge in the Housatonic River. The station itself is 1+1⁄2 stories in height, with attached covered passenger shelters extending along the platform to the north and south. The station is Tudor Revival in style, with a stucco and false half-timbered exterior. [2]
The station was built in 1902 by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (or New Haven Railroad), replacing the one that had been built around 1850 by the Stockbridge & Pittsfield Railroad and which had burned to the ground the previous year. It is architecturally unusual in the region, where the Tudor Revival was not commonly seen in railroad station architecture. [2] The station and line were acquired by the Housatonic Railroad, which became the Berkshire Division of the New Haven Railroad in 1892. [3]
From 1937 the Tanglewood hosted summer music events five miles to the west of the station. In peak mid-20th century years of passenger service, the Berkshire,Housatonic,Litchfield,Mahaiwe,Mahkeenac,Taconic,Umpachanee, and unnamed trains on the New Haven's Berkshire Division made stops at the station on trips between New York City and Pittsfield. [4] The station went out of full year service in 1958; thereafter, trains made stops at the station only from May 26 to October 26. [5] [6] [7] The last summer of passenger service was 1970, prior to Amtrak's assuming the Penn Central's operation of intercity trains on May 1, 1971. It now serves as the home of the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum.
Preceding station | New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad | Following station | ||
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Lee toward Norwalk and South Norwalk | Pittsfield Branch | Pittsfield Terminus |
Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield’s population was 43,927 at the 2020 census. Although its population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third-largest municipality in Western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee.
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.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of the New York and New Haven and Hartford and New Haven railroads, the company had near-total dominance of railroad traffic in Southern New England for the first half of the 20th century.
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.
Brewster station is a commuter rail stop on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, located in Brewster, New York.
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 Cape Codder was a seasonal passenger train operated by Amtrak between New York City and Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. It operated during the summer between 1986 and 1996. It was the first regular service from New York to the Cape since 1964. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad previously had operated a train under this name until 1958.
The Danbury Railway Museum is a railway museum housed in the former Union Station on the east end of downtown Danbury, Connecticut, United States. It was established in the mid-1990s following the closure of the station by the Metro-North Railroad in favor of a new station nearby, and primarily focuses on the history of railroading in southern New England and neighboring New York. In addition to the former station building, the museum has a collection of heritage railcars in the neighboring rail yard it shares with Metro-North.
Rhinecliff station is an Amtrak intercity rail station located in the Rhinecliff hamlet of Rhinebeck, New York, United States. The station has one low-level island platform, with a wheelchair lift for accessibility. It is served by the Adirondack, Berkshire Flyer, Empire Service, Ethan Allen Express, Lake Shore Limited, and Maple Leaf.
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.
The Canaan Union Depot, also known as the Union Depot, is located in Canaan Village, in the town of North Canaan, Connecticut, and is a former union station. It was built in 1872 at the junction of the Housatonic Railroad and the Connecticut Western Railroad which was acquired by the Central New England Railway.
Adams is a former train station at 10 Pleasant Street in Adams, Massachusetts. Built in 1899, it served as the town's principal rail station on the North Adams Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad until the mid-20th century. The surviving buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as the Pittsfield & North Adams Passenger Station and Baggage & Express House. The former station is currently the home of a sports bar and restaurant.
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.
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.
Great Barrington station is a former railroad station in Great Barrington, Massachusetts along the Housatonic Railroad Berkshire Line.
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 and Sunday 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.
The Nutmeg train was a unique east-west train through Massachusetts and Connecticut which did not travel along the Atlantic Coast; in the course of following its route it connected several of Connecticut's medium-sized cities. Operated by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NH) from 1950, it took a route from Boston's South Station, running through southwestern Boston suburbs but making no stops until Blackstone, Massachusetts, then through northeast Connecticut along the path of the old Southbridge and Blackstone Railroad, divisions of the old New York and New England Railroad to Hartford's Union Station, and finally to Waterbury's Union Station. Running directly through northeastern Connecticut, it made a shorter trip than the itineraries through Springfield, Massachusetts that the New Haven offered.
The Cape Codder was a pair of day and night passenger trains run by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NH) from the latter 1920s to the mid 1960s, with some brief interruptions. Its distinction was the longest tenure of direct summertime New York City to Cape Cod trains. With the improvement of highways in southeastern Massachusetts, passenger rail traffic diminished, and the Cape Codder service ended with the New Haven Railroad's discontinuing of passenger rail service to Cape Cod.