page_title: MBTA Commuter Rail
section_title: Freight service
hierarchical_section_title: MBTA Commuter Rail / Freight service
caption_attribution_description: Boston Sand and Gravel plant, taken from an w:MBTA commuter train.
context_page_description: The MBTA Commuter Rail system serves as the commuter rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's transportation coverage of Greater Boston in the United States. Trains run over 398 miles of track to 141 different stations, with 58 stations on the north side with the remaining 83 stations on the south. It is operated under contract by Keolis, which took over operations on July 1, 2014, from the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company.
  As of the third quarter of 2019, average weekday ridership of the system was 119,800, making it the sixth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S., behind the three New York-area systems, the Chicago-area system, and the Philadelphia-area system. The line's characteristic purple-trimmed coaches operate as far south as North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and as far north as Newburyport and as far west as Fitchburg, both in Massachusetts.
  Trains originate at two major terminals in Boston—South Station and North Station—with both transportation hubs offering connections to Amtrak, local bus, intercity bus via South Station Bus Terminal, and subway lines.
context_section_description: On the North Side lines, as part of the original sale agreement, B&M and its successor Pan Am Railways (formerly Guilford Transportation Industries) retains "perpetual and exclusive" trackage rights for freight service. Pan Am provides freight service on those lines.
  Boston Sand and Gravel has an agreement with Pan Am to operate its shortline New Hampshire Northcoast Railroad trains from Ossipee, New Hampshire to just north of Boston's North Station to supply aggregates to its plant on the Boston/Cambridge border. An occasional move occurs with run-through power from Norfolk Southern Railway to supply coal the Merrimack Station power plant in Bow, New Hampshire, over the Fitchburg Line. The Haverhill and Fitchburg lines also host four to six Pan Am manifest freight trains per day.
  On the South Side lines, CSX Transportation retains trackage rights over much of the former New Haven territory. Limited service is also provided by the Providence & Worcester Railroad on the Providence Line, principally from Central Falls (the intersection with its main line to Worcester) through Providence towards New Haven (although some freights go as far east as Attleboro before leaving the corridor). The Bay Colony Railroad provides a limited amount of service on some lines.
  CSXT used to provide intermodal, autorack, and general merchandise over the Worcester Line, a part of CSXT's Boston Line. This part of the Commuter Rail network could host over 12 mainline freight trains per day, including descendants of Conrail's expedited intermodal Trail Van trains. Currently most freight service terminates in Framingham, and a trainload facility in Westboro, with limited freight service east through Beacon Park Yard in Allston to a few local customers. In 2013 CSX moved its intermodal service from Beacon Park to an expanded yard in Worcester.
  On its former Old Colony division, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H) essentially vacated its right of freight operations by abandoning the tracks in 1959. As MBTA rebuilt the tracks, it gained freight service rights, and those rights were franchised to Conrail (predecessor to CSX), which provided freight service on the former Old Colony division.
caption: Boston Sand and Gravel and tracks as seen from an MBTA train
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