From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that Greenbush Line be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

	Old Colony Lines
	00.0 mi							South Station
	02.3 mi							JFK/UMass
	07.9 mi							Quincy Center
	35.0 mi							Weymouth Landing
	35.0 mi							East Weymouth
	35.0 mi							West Hingham
	35.0 mi							Nantasket Junction
	35.0 mi							Cohasset
	35.0 mi							North Scituate
	35.0 mi							Greenbush
	11.2 mi							Braintree
	15.2 mi							Holbrook/Randolph
	18.6 mi							Montello
	20.3 mi							Brockton
	21.9 mi							Campello
	27.6 mi							Bridgewater
	35.6 mi							Middleborough/Lakeville
	16.0 mi							South Weymouth
	19.3 mi							Abington
	21.1 mi							Whitman
	24.7 mi							Hanson
	28.4 mi							Halifax
	35.0 mi							Kingston
	35.4 mi							Plymouth

The Old Colony Lines are branches of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, connecting downtown Boston, Massachusetts with the South Shore and cranberry-farming country to the south and southeast. The Middleborough/Lakeville Line winds south through Holbrook, Brockton, Bridgewater, Lakeville and Middleborough, the Plymouth/Kingston Line heads southeast from Braintree, roughly following Route 3 toward Weymouth, Abington, Whitman, Hanson, Halifax, Kingston and Plymouth, and the Greenbush Line heads east from north of Braintree station towards Hingham, Cohasset, and Scituate.

Passenger service along the Old Colony Railroad was discontinued in 1959. Despite high ridership, this line had been a source of problems for the New Haven Railroad, which leased the system. In 1935, the bankrupt New Haven attempted to default on its lease and return ownership of the line to the Old Colony stockholders, however, this drove the Old Colony, which had not run trains in over thirty years, to bankruptcy in one day and the New Haven was forced to run the trains by court order, with a provision that if losses exceeded a certain amount they could abandon the line. The Old Colony Division enjoyed a brief renaissance in the early 1950s under the pro-commuter term of President Frederick C. Dumaine, Jr., however this was not to last. The New Haven's accountants used somewhat dubious practices to shift a greater amount of debt to the Old Colony Division, and the railroad announced that all passenger service would end in 1958. An emergency subsidy was approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for another year, and service finally ended in 1959 with the opening of the Southeast Expressway, which runs alongside the Old Colony right-of-way in many sections.

As congestion and pollution became issues on the Expressway, projects were undertaken to revive service on these railways. In 1971, the South Shore Line of the Red Line opened to Quincy Center, and in 1980 it was extended to Braintree. The line, with state of the art park and ride stations, proved an instant success, leading proposals to restore commuter rail service past Braintree to gain strength. In 1997, the Middleborough and Plymouth lines were reopened with the aim of relieving automobile traffic within the region. The third leg of the project, the Greenbush Line, was planned to reopen at the same time. However, this line faced a number of different challenges. Unlike the other two, the line had been entirely abandoned by the 1970s, without even freight service running. In addition, the line had many more grade crossings than the other two, and was planned to run right down the middle of Hingham's historic downtown area, provoking outcry from residents worried about the continued vitality of the area. After a number of lawsuits, the MBTA and Hingham came to an agreement to build a tunnel underneath the downtown area, which allowed the project to again progress. Revenue service began on October 31, 2007.

• MBTA.com: Old Colony Lines
• Completion of the Greenbush Branch