User:Pi.1415926535/Worcester Consolidated Street Railway

The Worcester Consolidated Street Railway was a streetcar system in Worcester, Massachusetts, and surrounding areas of Central Massachusetts.

System
The Worcester Consolidated Street Railway was the third-largest streetcar system in Massachusetts (after the Boston Elevated Railway and Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway). It operated a dense network of urban lines in Worcester plus rural lines across Central Massachusetts. At its maximum extent, the rural lines of the system stretched north to Fitchburg, west to Brimfield, south to the Connecticut state line at Webster, southeast to the Rhode Island state line at Blackstone, and east to Hudson and Marlborough. The system covered an area about 30 miles east–west and 40 miles north–south.

In 1918, near its peak, the company owned 209.97 miles of streetcar lines, leased 28.81 miles, and operated over 13.29 miles owned by other companies for a total of 252.07 miles. Approximately one-third of the track mileage was inside the city of Worcester, with two-thirds making up the rural lines. Like most rural streetcar lines in New England, the company operated largely on public roads, rather than on private right-of-way like interurbans. By 1912, the company had 34.6 miles of private right-of-way, representing about 15% of the system. After the 1909–1911 elimination of most grade crossings in Worcester, the WCSR had 15 grade crossings of mainline railroads, of which three were industrial spur tracks.

The company carried 69.8 million passengers in 1918. Worcester City Hall was the center of the system, with almost all routes passing by it. Most routes passed through the city center, though some terminated at City Hall or Union Station. Hourly overnight service was run on some of the city lines.

In 1916, the WCSR operated 40 streetcar routes: • 1 June and Providence Streets

• 2 Tatnuck and Salisbury Street

• 3 Elm Park and Boynton Street

• 4 Summit and Greenwood Street

• 5 City Hall and Lake Shore

• 6 Lincoln Square and Union Station.

• 7 Jefferson and Bramanville

• 8 Boston and Worcester

• 9 City Line and Union Station

• 10 Worcester and Grafton

• 11 Worcester and Westboro

• 12 Worcester, Shrewsbury, and Marlboro

• 13 Northboro, Westboro, and Marlboro

• 14 Moore Avenue and Union Station

• 15 Summer Street and City Hall

• 20 Webster Square and Barber's Crossing

• 21 Leicester Line and Burncoat Street

• 22 Leicester Line and Lincoln Street

• 23 Webster Square and Union Station

• 24 Lake View and Hadwen Park

• 25 Coe's Square and Franklin Street

• 26 Columbus Park and Normal School

• 27 Columbus Park and City Hall

• 28 Belmont and Upsala Streets

• 29 Canterbury and Hamilton Streets

• 30 Grant Square and South Worcester

• 31 Worcester and Spencer

• 32 Webster Square and Lincoln Square

• 33 Prospect Park and City Hall

• 40 Worcester and Fitchburg via Sterling

• 41 Worcester and Fitchburg via Clinton

• 42 Lancaster and Hudson

• 43 Leominster crosstown

• 45 Worcester and Woonsocket

• 46 Plummers Corner and Whitinsville

• 50 Worcester and Springfield

• 51 Sandersdale

• 52 Worcester and Auburn

• 53 Worcester and Webster

• 55 Webster – Connecticut State Line

In 1918, the company operated 547 streetcars: 321 closed cars, 187 open cars, and 39 unpowered trailer cars. Other equipment included 20 freight cars, 50 work cars, 33 snowplows, and 2 locomotives. Most of the equipment dated from the earlier years of the company and its acquired lines; only 112 of those 547 streetcars were built after 1910. Ten more were delivered in 1920, ten more in 1924, and the final set of 50 in 1927. The WCSR had a number of carhouses across its system, many again inherited from the lines it acquired. Major carhouses in Worcester included those on Main Street (built 1893), Gates Lane (1901), and Grove Street (1927).

WPI test car, cars owned by leased line

Like many street railways, the WCSR was originally built solely for passenger service; freight and express service was only operated from 1912 to 1927. Freight and express business was managed by another New Haven subsidiary, the Electric Express Company, though the WCSR owned the equipment. The WCSR and the Boston and Worcester Street Railway (B&W) built a freight house on Green Street in 1912; it was replaced with a larger facility off Shrewsbury Street in 1918. Springfield–Boston and Springfield–Providence through freight service, jointly operated with other New Haven-owned systems and the B&W, began in 1921. The Providence through service ended in 1924 when the Milford, Attleborough and Woonsocket Street Railway was abandoned.

Power system
Staring in 1893, the main powerhouse for the city lines was a 5.65 MW steam generating plant located on Fremont Street in Worcester. With the expansions and acquisitions of the early 20th century, the WCSR had additional steam generating plants for suburban lines located in Millbury, Holden, Charlton City, Berlin, Northborough, and Leominster by the 1910s. These were smaller plants intended for low-frequency suburban services, with ratings of 225 kW to 800 kW. The Leominster facility also had 500 kW of hydroelectric generating capability. Distributing substations were located in Oxford, Webster, Leicester, and Sturbridge; a fifth at Charlton City was added in 1913.

In 1911, the WCSR modernized its power system. The Millbury powerhouse was expanded with a 5 MW steam turbine; a second turbine of the same rating was installed in 1913. The Fremont Street powerhouse was relegated to auxiliary use. A new distribution substation – then the largest substation in New England – was constructed on Madison Street in Worcester. Its four rotary converters, with a combined capacity of 7 MW, provided 600 volt direct current power to the streetcar lines. The Millbury powerhouse and the Madison Street substation were connected by 13.2 kV transmission lines.

Around 1912, the WCSR began using hydroelectric power supplied by the Connecticut River Transmission Company. A switching station at the Millbury plant fed into the Madison Street substation and the five smaller distributing substations. Substations in northern Worcester, Fitchburg, Leominster, Berlin, Northborough, and West Boylston supplied the northern suburban lines. With the addition of hydroelectric power, the older steam generating plants were reduced to reserve status.

Formation
The Worcester Horse Railway was chartered by an act approved by the state legislature on April 6, 1861, with capital of $100,000. Its first horsecar line ran from Webster Square through downtown to Bell Hill via Main Street and Lincoln Street, with a spur on Front and Grafton streets to the Western Railroad station. The line opened on September 1, 1863; a spur on Pleasant Street opened on November 3. The company was a financial failure; after a failed reorganization, it was seized for insolvency on April 25, 1866.

The legislature approved the formation of the Worcester Street Railway on April 12, 1867, to purchase the property and franchise. The Pleasant Street line was soon removed. The older company was merged into the Worcester Street Railway on December 23, 1867. The company did not resume service on the remaining lines, which caused the state supreme court to appoint a receiver. The property and franchise were sold at auction on August 24, 1869, and a new Worcester Street Railway was formed. The main line was extended north to Adams Square in 1881 – the first extension of the company – creating a 4.90 mile system.

The Citizens' Street Railway was formed on February 27, 1886. By that September, it operated a four-route, 6.60 mile system. Two routes ran from Union Station to Park Avenue and Worcester Polytechnic Institute via Pleasant Street. Another ran from Rural Cemetery to South Worcester via Grove, Main, and Southbridge streets, and the fourth ran from City Hall to Quinsigamond via Front, Green, and Millbury streets. The Citizen's Street Railway purchased the Worcester Street Railway effective May 31, 1887, and renamed the system as the Worcester Consolidated Street Railway (WCSR) on June 10. Several extensions were opened over the next three years.

The WCSR was relatively late to use electric power. The first electrified service was a line to Lake Quinsigamond via Shrewsbury and Belmont streets, which opened on September 4, 1891. It was followed by a line from Main Street to Laurel Hill on December 30, 1891. The company's first power station, the Fremont Street station, was completed in 1893. The system was quickly converted to electric streetcars; the company owned 397 horses on September 30, 1893, and just six horses a year later. By late 1894, the WCSR operated a 30.51 mile system, entirely electrified. Other companies serving Worcester and surrounding towns – all of which the WCSR would later acquire – totaled about 28 miles at that time.

Worcester Traction Company
The Worcester Traction Company was organized in New Jersey on December 24, 1894, and soon acquired the entire capital stock of the WCSR. It obtained ownership of the company's power station and was criticized for selling electricity and renting property to the WCSR at inflated rates. The Traction Company's stock was heavily watered. The city investigated the Traction Company in 1897. It found that only a small part of the Traction Company was owned by Worcester residents and that it had mislead the public about the sources of funding for the system's electrification. The WCSR opened a line to Grafton via North Grafton on December 16, 1898. It featured a lengthy trestle over the Millbury Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad.

The WCSR leased three other rail companies in Worcester in 1895–1896:
 * The North End Street Railway was chartered on June 22, 1891. By September 1891, it opened a 0.64 miles horsecar line running north from Adams Square on Burncoat Street.  An extension northwest on North and Barber avenues, and a separate line on West Boylston Street from Chadwick Square to Barbers Crossing, opened by September 1892.  Over the following year, the line was extended north to Greendale and south to Union Station via Lincoln Street and Summer Street for a total of 5.00 mile. Cars used the Foster Street track of the Worcester and Shrewsbury Street Railway to run to City Hall. The system was also electrified during that year. In December 1893, the North End and the Worcester Consolidated began sharing use of the two companies' tracks on Lincoln Street and Summer Street.   The North End Street Railway was leased by the WCSR on August 1, 1895.
 * The Worcester and Shrewsbury Railroad opened in 1873 as a narrow-gauge stream railroad from Union Station to Lake Quinsigamond. The WCSR leased the line on July 1, 1896, and laid its own streetcar track parallel to the existing track; steam service ended by 1900.
 * The Worcester and Shrewsbury Street Railway (not related to the Worcester and Shrewsbury Railroad) was chartered on July 9, 1892, to build east from Worcester to Marlborough. However, the company only built 0.43 miles of track in downtown Worcester. It was leased by the WCSR on July 1, 1896.

Worcester Railways and Investment Corporation
In the second half of March 1900, a syndicate acquired control of six suburban street railways around Worcester:
 * The Worcester, Leicester and Spencer Street Railway was organized on March 7, 1891. It opened from Webster Square to Leicester along the Upper Post Road on August 18, 1891, with the full route to Spencer opened on September 8.  It was the first line in the Worcester area to use electric power, as the initial segment to Leicester opened two weeks before the Consolidated's first electric line.  The company planned, but never built, a line from Worcester to Southbridge via Rochdale and Charlton City. The Worcester and Millbury Street Railway was chartered on May 13, 1892, and opened between its namesake cities in October 1892.   On May 12, 1893, the legislature authorized the Worcester, Leicester and Spencer to acquire other companies and change its name to the Worcester and Suburban Street Railway.  The company merged with the Worcester and Millbury on January 18, 1895, and the renaming took effect on January 31.
 * The Worcester and Marlborough Street Railway was chartered on April 26, 1897 and opened in stages that year.  The segment between St. Anne's Cemetery in Shrewsbury (about 1/3 mile east of Lake Quinsigamond) and the center of Northborough opened on June 30, with a short extension to the lake on July 11.   It opened east to Marlborough on July 18, and a branch from Northborough to Westborough opened on August 11.  Connection into Worcester was delayed by reconstruction of the Lake Quinsigamond causeway. Temporary track across part of the causeway was used in July.  Through service between Worcester and Marlborough began on August 12, 1897.  Passengers initially had to walk across the grade crossing of the Agricultural Branch in Northboro to transfer between streetcars.  In March 1898, the state gave permission for the street railway to cross the railroad.
 * The Clinton Street Railway was organized on April 26, 1893. It opened a 2.4 mile line in Clinton on September 2, 1893. The 2.4 miles line ran between Lancaster Mills and South Lancaster via downtown Clinton. A short extension south to the Acre neighborhood opened within the next year. On May 7, 1896, the state legislature gave permission for the company to change its name and extend to Leominster.  The name change to Leominster and Clinton Street Railway was approved by stockholders on May 27.  The extension to Leominster opened on June 20, 1896, making the line 12 miles long.
 * The Worcester and Clinton Street Railway was organized on March 3, 1898. It opened between Adams Square (Brittan Square) in Worcester and near Lancaster Mills in Clinton via Main Street / Boylston Street on December 11, 1898.  In Clinton, the company used the tracks of the Leominster and Clinton Street Railway, terminating at Clinton House (High Street at Church Street). Passengers had to change to WCSR cars at Adams Square until April 1899, when a track connection was completed there, allowing through service to Worcester City Hall over WCSR tracks.
 * The Fitchburg and Suburban Street Railway was organized on March 29, 1898. It opened between Fitchburg and Leominster via South Street and Merriam Avenue on July 16, 1898. A short crosstown line was built in Leominster in 1899. The Pleasant Street portion of the line opened on November 29, 1899, and the Water Street portion about a month later.
 * The Clinton and Hudson Street Railway was organized on May 24, 1899. It opened between Clinton and Hudson via Berlin on April 18, 1900.

On October 17, 1900, the latter four companies merged as the Leominster and Clinton Street Railway. In November 1900, the syndicate agreed to purchase the WCSR from the Worcester Traction Company and merge it with the suburban lines. Contrary to previous rumors of Standard Oil, the Montana Copper Kings, or the Worcester Traction Company being behind the syndicate, it was revealed to be businessmen from Worcester and Boston. The consolidation brought about changes in routes, including additional through services, and fares were reduced for some suburban trips. The Worcester and Suburban, Worcester and Marlborough, and Leominster and Clinton were merged with the WCSR on February 23, 1901. The Worcester Traction Company, no longer possessing any street railways, was dissolved by its stakeholders in late 1901.

In July 1901, a group represented by Vermilye and Company created the Worcester Railways and Investment Corporation as a holding company for the WCSR and associated lines. It was backed with capital of $6 million. Its acquisition of the WCSR was the largest financial transaction in Worcester up to that time. The Boston and Worcester Street Railway opened on July 1, 1903, using WCSR trackage within Worcester and part of Shrewsbury. It was the only streetcar line entering Worcester that was not eventually leased or purchased by the WCSR.

New Haven control and final expansions
In 1904, under the presidency of Charles Sanger Mellen, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (New Haven) began buying up street railways in southern New England to reduce competition and feed traffic to its railroad lines. A holding company, Consolidated Railways, was used for the purchases. The New Haven began attempting to acquire the Worcester Railways and Investment Corporation in 1905 and made an offer in March 1906. A 1906 Massachusetts law prohibited railroads from acquiring other corporations – even indirectly – without legislative approval. On June 21, 1906, the New Haven created the New England Investment and Securities Company as a "voluntary association" (trust) in an attempt to circumvent the law. The New England Investment and Securities Company announced in October 1906 that it had acquired majority control of the Worcester Railways and Investment Corporation. It also acquired most of the remaining independent suburban lines around Worcester, as well as the networks surrounding Springfield and Pittsfield, in the mid-to-late 1900s.

Despite the New Haven's maneuvering and attempts to conceal ownership of stock, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in May 1908 that the New Haven must fully divest from the streetcar systems by July 1909. The New Haven then attempted to use its substantial political power to simply legalize its ownership. A 1912 bill to consolidate its Massachusetts holdings into the Worcester, Springfield and Berkshire Street Railway (similar to its previous creations of the Connecticut Company and Rhode Island Company) as a holding company under the direct ownership of the New Haven was vetoed by governor Eugene Foss. In 1913, the railroad succeeded in pushing the Massachusetts legislature to override Foss's veto of a similar bill.

Several of the companies owned by the New England Investment and Securities Company were merged into the WCSR in 1911:
 * The Worcester and Southbridge Street Railway opened towards Southbridge and Sturbridge in 1901. It was acquired by the New Haven in 1906 and merged into the WCSR in 1911.  From 1907 to 1927, the WCSR and the Springfield Street Railway operated Springfield–Worcester through service using the line.
 * The 1903-opened Worcester and Holden Street Railway, and the 1897-opened Worcester and Blackstone Valley Street Railway (including subsidiary Uxbridge and Blackstone Street Railway) were merged with the WCSR in 1911.
 * The Marlborough and Westborough Street Railway was chartered on May 25, 1896, but did not begin construction until 1900.  Its route ran northeast from Westborough to Marlborough via western Southborough on a combination of rural highways and private right-of-way.  The Westborough and Worcester Street Railway was chartered on May 29, 1900.  Construction began soon afterward on its route between North Grafton and Westborough via Westboro Road, Nourse Street, and West Main Street.  The two companies, which had nearly identical boards of directors, merged on April 16, 1901, under the Marlborough and Westborough name.  The North Grafton–Westborough segment of the combined company opened later in April, followed by the Westborough–Marlborough segment on May 1.  In February 1906, the company was acquired by the Worcester Railway and Investment Company.  It reinstituted through service between Worcester and Marlborough, which had been previously run and discontinued by the Marlborough and Westborough.

The 1898-opened Webster and Dudley Street Railway and the 1899-opened Worcester and Webster Street Railway were leased by a Consolidated predecessor in 1902. The lease was assigned to the Worcester and Southbridge in 1907 and assumed by the WCSR in 1911.

The Worcester Consolidated also built some extensions itself during that period:
 * A line on Burncoat Street north from Randolph Road was built in 1911–1912
 * The Providence Street line was extended by 3605 feet, and the Tatnuck line by 4668 feet to West Tatnuck, in 1912–1913.

Decline
Streetcar ridership plummeted after the mid-1910s. Buses began replacing unprofitable streetcar lines in 1924. Freight and express service, unable to compete with trucks, ended in 1927. The long rural lines to Springfield, Fitchburg, Blackstone, and Webster were abandoned in 1927. Clinton service ended in 1928, and Millbury and Marlboro service in 1929. By 1931, the system had largely shrunk to Worcester, with only short routes to Leicester and Auburn crossing the city lines. The New Haven sold the company to the New England Gas and Electric Association; it was reorganized as the Worcester Street Railway in June 1932. Even some of the heavier city lines were converted to buses in the 1930s. By late 1938, the system had just 31.4 miles of track serving five routes.

In January 1941, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approved the conversion of all remaining streetcar routes to buses. However, no routes were converted that year due to a shortage of buses. Wartime regulations disallowed conversion to save on rubber; an additional short turn service on the busiest section of the Main Street routes was even added in 1943. The remaining routes on Pleasant Street (routes 1 and 2) were replaced with buses on November 3, 1945, and the four Main Street routes were replaced on December 31, 1945.

Transition to public ownership
Surviving WCSR structures include the former Millbury power station plus older powerhouses in Worcester, Northborough, Oxford, and Berlin. Former substations survive in Sturbridge and Webster, as well as carhouses in Webster and Berlin. Two WCSR waiting rooms are extant in Charlton; one is on the grounds of a housing complex that includes the former Overlook Hotel that was owned by the WCSR. Another former waiting station is now a house in Westborough. Several former carhouses in Worcester and Westborough survived until the late 20th century but have since been demolished. Portions of the Brimfield line are now rail trails: the Trolley Line Trail in Sturbridge and the Brimfield Trail in Brimfield. Other remains of that line include an embankment in East Brimfield Reservoir and a concrete arch bridge in Brimfield.