Dedham (MBTA station)

DEDHAM
Dedham station pictured on an early 20th century postcard
Location	456 Providence Highway Dedham, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°14′53.6″N 71°10′12.47″W / 42.248222°N 71.1701306°W / 42.248222; -71.1701306Coordinates: 42°14′53.6″N 71°10′12.47″W / 42.248222°N 71.1701306°W / 42.248222; -71.1701306
Owned by	New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
Line(s)	Dedham Branch
History
Opened	February 5, 1835
Closed	April 21, 1967
Previous names	Dedham Center
Original company	Boston and Providence Railroad (1835-1888) Old Colony Railroad (1888-1893)
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station Terminus Dedham Branch Stone Haven toward South Station

Dedham (formerly Dedham Center) was a train station located in central Dedham, Massachusetts, at the terminus of the Dedham Branch; it opened in February 1835 with the rest of the Dedham Branch. After April 1966, Dedham station, along with the rest of the Dedham Branch, was part of the MBTA Commuter Rail system; however, it closed just under a year later.

The Boston and Providence Railroad (B&P) had opened from downtown Boston to south of Readville on June 4, 1834, and to Canton on September 12 of that year, but initially had no branch lines; however, it did provide stagecoach connections for Dedham Center, starting on July 28, 1834. Direct train service between Boston and Dedham Center began on February 5, 1835, with the opening of the Dedham Branch from Readville to Dedham Center (the first railroad branch line in Massachusetts). For the first several years of the Dedham Branch's existence, service to Dedham changed often between "Dedham Specials" (through trains from Boston to Dedham and vice versa, using the B&P main line from Boston to Readville and the Dedham Branch between Readville and Dedham) and horse-drawn cars cut out of mainline trains at Readville; Dedham Specials became permanent in June 1842, giving Dedham Center reliable direct train service to Boston (and, incidentally, making it possible for the first time to commute by train for those living in the areas served by the northern portion of the B&P). This pattern of service persisted for the next eight years, until the West Roxbury Branch from Tollgate to Dedham via West Roxbury opened in June 1850; after this point, commuter service to Dedham ran via West Roxbury rather than Readville, although trains continued to run on the old Dedham Branch on non-commuter schedules (some of these trains were horse-drawn shuttle cars to East Dedham, rather than through Boston trains). Commuter service to Dedham via Readville resumed in 1858, but was always lighter than commuter service via West Roxbury; the horse-drawn Dedham shuttles were not entirely replaced with through Boston trains until 1875.

The Walpole Railroad was chartered on April 16, 1846, to build a railroad from Dedham to Walpole; construction had not yet started when it was absorbed by the Norfolk County Railroad in July 1847. The Norfolk County, which had been chartered just three months prior to build from Walpole to Blackstone, began passenger service between Dedham and Walpole in April 1849, and through Boston-Blackstone service via Dedham the next month. In December 1853, the Norfolk County merged with two other railroads to form the Boston and New York Central Railroad (B&NYC); one of the two other railroads had been the Midland Railroad, chartered in May 1850 to build a new Boston entrance for the Norfolk County, branching off the original route at West Dedham. This new route (now the MBTA's Fairmount Line and the proximal segment of the Franklin Line) opened at the beginning of 1855, replacing the original, but ran for only six and a half months before it was shut down by court order following a lawsuit against the B&NYC concerning the new route's grade crossings in Dorchester. Service along the original route from Dedham to Blackstone resumed on August 6, 1855, and ran until March 1857, when the entire B&NYC route from Boston to Mechanicsville, Connecticut reopened for a year under lease to the East Thompson Railroad. After the East Thompson shut down in March 1858, service from Dedham to Blackstone (as well as to Medway via the Medway Branch) resumed, being operated by trustees for the old Norfolk County, and was the only service along any of the former B&NYC lines until February 1867, when the entire B&NYC route was reopened by the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad (BH&E; the successor to the B&NYC).