Draft:Mount Hope Branch

The Mount Hope Branch (also known as the North Dighton Industrial Track) was a short freight railroad branch located in North Dighton, Massachusetts. The 1.1 mile (1.8 km) single-track spur formerly ran from the Dighton & Somerset mainline to the Mount Hope Finishing Company, a mill that specialized in textile finishing and bleaching.

The branch was abandoned in 1951 alongside the closure of the Mount Hope mill.

History and route
The track was commissioned and built by the Mount Hope Finishing Company in 1906 to support railroad freight access to their mill complex. The mill was located along the Three Mile River, roughly a mile west of the Taunton River and the Dighton & Somerset mainline. Three years later, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad would service the mill for forty-two years until the Mount Hope Finishing Company closed their Dighton plant and moved operations to Butner, North Carolina, in 1951.

The branch split west of the D&S mainline at a junction near Railroad Avenue before crossing Somerset Avenue and South Street. The line then crossed the Three Mile River before terminating at the Mount Hope Finishing Company site west of Warner Boulevard.

In the present day, most of the railroad infrastructure between Somerset Avenue and Warner Boulevard remains in place, including the roughly 200-foot long (60.9 meter) wooden trestle that crosses the Three Mile River. Most of the rails have since been obscured by foliage, and crossbucks are still extant on South Street. There are no remnants of the branch east of Somerset Ave, as most of the right-of-way has since been redeveloped. The D&S mainline near Railroad Ave is abandoned, and the former junction with the Mount Hope Branch is no longer extant.