Northampton Street Railway | |||
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![]() A Northampton Street Railway car on Main Street, 1907 | |||
Overview | |||
Owner | Northampton Street Railway Company | ||
Area served | |||
Transit type | Light rail
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Headquarters | 125 Locust Street Northampton, MA 01060-2066 | ||
Operation | |||
Began operation | September 8, 1866 [1] : 912 August 26, 1893 (electrified) [2] 1933 (bus) [3] | ||
Ended operation | December 25, 1933 (rail) [4] August 22, 1951 (bus) [5] [a] | ||
Technical | |||
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge [1] : 912 | ||
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The Northampton Street Railway (NSR), founded as the Northampton and Williamsburg Street Railway, was an interurban streetcar and bus system operating in Northampton, Massachusetts and its villages of Florence and Leeds, as well as surrounding communities with connections in Amherst, Easthampton, Hadley, Hatfield and Williamsburg. [7] For a time, there also was through service from Northampton to both Holyoke and Springfield, operated jointly with the Holyoke and Springfield Street Railways. [8]
In 1903, the Northampton Street Railway merged with the Greenfield & Deerfield Street Railway to form the Greenfield, Deerfield & Northampton Street Railway, which, only two years later was acquired by the Northampton & Amherst Street Railway, subsequently renamed the Connecticut Valley Street Railway. [9] [10]
Ultimately a prolonged labor strike beginning in August 1951, led to the company ceasing all services and relinquishing its routes and franchise later that year. [6] Following its bankruptcy, several of the railway company's former bus routes were assumed by Western Massachusetts Bus Lines. [11] Purchased two years after the company ceased operations, today the railway's former headquarters serves as the main garage of the Northampton Department of Public Works. [12]
With the transformation of the Northampton street railway line to bus service Tuesday
Northampton Street Railway — Built as a horse railway in 1866, later extended and electrified in 1893, this company at the peak of its trolley operations had about thirty-five miles of track in Northampton, Williamsburg, Easthampton, Hatfield, Hadley and Amherst. In addition to its local service to these communities, the company operated a joint through car service to Holyoke with the Holyoke Street Railway, with which it connected at Mt. Tom Junction. At certain times, through cars were also operated to Springfield.
In that same year, 1903, the Greenfield & Deerfield Street Railway company built a line from the south side of the Deerfield river at Cheapside to Old Deerfield. The next year the Cheapside bridge was built and the line was extended to South Deerfield, while in 1905 the Greenfield and Deerfield company merged with the Northampton Street Railway company to fill the gap through Hatfield, making Holyoke's great resort at Mountain park, Mt Tom, as accessible to local residents as to those of Springfield.
Fortier's Western Massachusetts Bus Lines will serve Northampton, Easthampton, Hadley, Amherst, Florence, Leeds, Williamsburg, and Mount Tom Junction for the present, with service nearly on a par with that given by the defunct Northampton Street Railway Co. which went out of business after union drivers struck for higher wages last August.