Fitchburg Line

The Fitchburg Line is an MBTA line that runs from Boston's North Station to Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The line is along the tracks of the former Fitchburg Railroad, which was a railroad line across northern Massachusetts, United States, leading to and through the Hoosac Tunnel. It is one of the more scenic commuter rail lines, passing by Walden Pond between Lincoln and Concord. At nearly 50 miles, the Fitchburg Line is the second-longest line in the system, and ranks as one of the worst lines in terms of on time performance. The MBTA attributes this to the facts that the line has the oldest and least adequate infrastructure in the system and commuter trains must compete with freight traffic, mainly between South Acton and Ayer. Despite this, the Fitchburg Line still draws about 10,000 daily riders, and the MBTA expects it to draw even more once upgrades to the line are completed.

Read more about Fitchburg Line:  History, Planned Improvements, Accessibility, Station and Junction Listing

Famous quotes containing the words fitchburg and/or line:

    The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    What comes over a man, is it soul or mind
    That to no limits and bounds he can stay confined?
    You would say his ambition was to extend the reach
    Clear to the Arctic of every living kind.
    Why is his nature forever so hard to teach
    That though there is no fixed line between wrong and right,
    There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed?
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)