Harvard Branch Railroad

The Harvard Branch Railroad was a short-lived branch from the Fitchburg Railroad to Harvard Square and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Part of the former right-of-way is now used by Museum Street.

The company was incorporated April 24, 1849, and soon built a line 0.70 miles long from just west of Somerville station on the Fitchburg Railroad (at Park Street) southwest to Harvard. On April 19, 1854 it was authorized to abandon the line, and did so in 1855. The Cambridge Railroad started running to Harvard from Boston in 1856 as a street railway, via a different route.

Fitchburg Railroad branches
Boston–Fitchburg
  • Watertown
  • Marlboro
  • Greenville
  • Milford
Fitchburg–Greenfield
  • Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad: Ashburnham
  • Cheshire
  • Peterboro
  • Boston, Barre and Gardner
  • Turners Falls
west from Greenfield
  • Southern Vermont
  • Troy and Boston
  • Bennington
  • Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway: Saratoga Springs/Schuylerville
temporary branches
  • Harvard
  • Lexington

Famous quotes containing the words harvard, branch and/or railroad:

    “The slime pool that the dog drowned in . . .
    A drunk vomiting up a teaspoon of bile . . .
    Washing the polio off the grapes when I was ten . . .
    A Harvard book bag in Rome . . .”
    —Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “That man’s the true Conservative
    Who lops the mouldered branch away.”
    —Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)

    “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
    —Harriet Tubman (1821–1913)