page_title: Hamilton/Wenham station
section_title: Branches
hierarchical_section_title: Hamilton/Wenham station / History / Branches
caption_attribution_description: English: Early divided back postcard of a trolley at Asbury Grove
context_page_description: Hamilton/Wenham is an MBTA Commuter Rail station in Hamilton and Wenham, Massachusetts. It serves the Newburyport Branch of the Newburyport/Rockport Line. It is located just south of the intersection of Bay Road and Walnut Road, and straddles the Hamilton–Wenham town line, with the southern end of the platform geographically in Wenham.
context_section_description: Two branches were built from the station in the 1870s. The Asbury Grove Branch ran 1.1 miles (1.8 km) northwest to Asbury Grove Camp Meeting Ground, a Methodist church meeting area, starting in August 1871. It never saw regularly scheduled passenger service, but instead was used for special summer-only trains to the camp. A parallel trolley line was constructed in 1894, vastly reducing demand for the branch line. In 1896, Willow Street (which crossed the branch near the station, and was used by the trolley line) became a public street. The state legislature refused to approve a grade crossing, which were very controversial at the time. The B&M, hardly interested in the non-longer-profitable branch, abandoned it in 1901.
  The Essex Branch ran 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast from Hamilton-Wenham to Essex and Conomo starting in 1872. The line originally had four stations: Miles River (at Bridge Street), Woodbury (at Essex Street), Essex Falls (at Apple Street), Essex (at Shepard Drive).< 
  In 1887, the branch was extended 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east to Conomo station at Southern Avenue. The Interstate Commerce Commission denied the B&M's 1926 request to abandon the branch, but allowed closure of the Essex - Conomo section in 1927. The remainder had limited commuter service; most traffic was wood for shipbuilding and ice from Chebacco Lake. The Great Depression destroyed the shipbuilding demand, and the advent of electric refrigerators eliminated the need for natural ice. The B&M applied for abandonment in August 1942; the request was approved that November, and the rails were removed in December 1942 as scrap steel for the war effort. Only the Conomo depot, now a private residence, remains extant.
caption: A trolley at Asbury Grove. The 1894 introduction of this trolley line caused the decline and abandonment of the B&M's parallel branch line.
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