Newburyport (MBTA station)

NEWBURYPORT
Platform at Newburyport station, facing outbound; the 1998-built station building is at left
Location	25 Boston Way Newbury, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°47′53″N 70°52′41″W / 42.79815°N 70.87815°W / 42.79815; -70.87815Coordinates: 42°47′53″N 70°52′41″W / 42.79815°N 70.87815°W / 42.79815; -70.87815
Owned by	MBTA
Line(s)	Newburyport/Rockport Line
Platforms	1 island platform
Tracks	2
Connections	MVRTA: 54
Construction
Parking	814 spaces ($4.00 fee) 24 accessible spaces
Bicycle facilities	22 spaces
Disabled access	Yes
Other information
Fare zone	8
History
Opened	1840; October 28, 1998
Closed	April 1976
Traffic
Passengers (2013)	812 (weekday inbound boardings)
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station Rowley toward North Station Newburyport/Rockport Line Terminus

Newburyport is a passenger rail station on the MBTA Commuter Rail Newburyport/Rockport Line, located between Parker Street and U.S. Route 1 south of downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts. The station is the terminus of the Newburyport Branch of the line, with three parking lots totalling over 800 spaces. The Clipper City Rail Trail, running along the former right-of-way, connects the station to the town center. Newburyport station is fully handicapped accessible.

The Eastern Railroad's original Newburyport station was located in downtown Newburyport, near Washington Street. Opened in 1840, it was a small wooden structure with a two-track trainshed. It was replaced by a larger brick station just to the north in March 1854. The 1854 station was destroyed by fire on March 3, 1892; a large brick structure with a turret was constructed on the same spot.

Service on the Boston and Maine Railroad's Eastern Route was cut back from Portsmouth, New Hampshire on January 4, 1965, as part of a general discontinuance of the railroad's interstate service. The only service past Hamilton/Wenham (after June 28, past Ipswich) was a single round trip to Newburyport with an intermediate stop at Rowley.

On April 20, 1967, Newburyport began partially subsidizing the service; Rowley did not, and its station was abandoned. The state subsidy ended in April 1976, and service was cut back to Ipswich. That December, the MBTA bought the B&M's commuter rail assets, including the Eastern Route up to the New Hampshire state line. Freight service continued until 1984, through the line was not officially abandoned until 1984.

After "one of the briefest abandonments on record", the line was rebuilt by the MBTA, and service to Newburyport and Rowley was reinstated on October 26, 1998. The new station was located south of downtown, where parking and a layover yard could be easily built. (The Guinea Bridge overpass, which allowed trains to cross over Low Street and continue downtown, had been torn down years before, thus making it too difficult to place the train station any further north.) A full-length high-level platform - the MBTA's standard for new construction on routes not constrained by the need to accommodate freight operations along the same route - was built for handicapped access. Since Newburyport is the terminus, trains may pull into either of the island platform's two tracks. A four-track layover yard was constructed south of the Newburyport Turnpike.