Spur at Hamilton-Wenham

I'm curious about that short spur from the mainline at Hamilton-Wenham Station. Is it part of the former Essex Branch? if so, why did they retain it when the line was abandoned, and when was it last uesd? Thanks

There were two lines that went off of Hamilton-Wenham. The first and most famous was the Essex Branch that went across the current parking lot of the shopping plaza and headed off towards Essex. In fact there is a book written by Dana Story called "Daily Except Sundays". This book is of the diaries written by Dana's Grandfather, Phillip Adams, who was an engineer on the Essex Branch. If you can get a hold of a copy, it really tells you what a small town branch line was like in the late 1800's and early 1900's. In fact the Walker Transportation Collection has copies of the book. Their web site is here: http://www.walkertrans.org.

The second is the Asbury Grove Branch that went across Route 1A from the current MBTA station and ended across the street from the entrance to Asbury Grove Camp. This branch line is very hard to trace as there are a lot of houses near or on the ROW, but if you know what you are looking for, traces of it can still be found. There was a station at the end of this Branch that sat up on the hill directly across the street from the Camp's entrance. There were wide wooden steps that went down to street level. A house was built on the depot site 5 to 7 years ago. The Walker Transportation Collection has both a map of the Asbury Grove Branch and a very rare photo of the depot. It is avaliable to view. In fact this was the only depot on the line and the branch was built just to provide a direct rail route for campers to get to Asbury Grove.

There is a third spur off of the Eastern Route in Wenham and that is by the current golf course. It was an ice house spur to Wenham Lake. If you go down/up Route 1A, right along the edge of the golf course by the woods, you can see a flat spot that looks like a ROW. Well, that is it. You can trace it all the way to the mainline. That tiny little spur was worked on by Granville Dodge, who went on to engineer the Trans-Continental Railroad. Hey, you have to start somewhere.

Hope this helps.

I forgot to mention that the Essex Branch went out in 1941 and the Asbury Grove Branch ended sometime in the 1920's. Also a good portion of the Essex Branch has a natural gas pipeline running underneath it, thus the reason why it is still there.

There is a section of the Essex Branch you can drive on! Out in Essex, forget the name of the street (Harry Homans or something?) and there is still a milepost in someones driveway. You can see lots of other things in that area too.

Just to clarify a couple of points:

The last train on the Essex Branch was in December of 1942. A week later, the tracks were gone! That short stub remained as a yard track in the Hamilton-Wenham yard for many years while there was still a bit of "team track" business left. The final use of it came as a ramp for loading the equipment stranded by the Beverly bridge fire in 1984, onto flatbed trucks for transport over the road to Danvers where it was rerailed and taken to Boston over the Newburyport branch to Wakefield Jct.

The Asbury Grove Branch went out around 1901-03, after the local streetcar line had taken away most of the passenger traffic. The trolleys stopped right outside the Grove entrance gate. There never was any freight service on the AG line. Only a few photos taken on the branch have ever surfaced. Certainly one of the most obscure lines of the B&M.

That answers my question about whether the stub was part of the Essex branch. Thanks for all the other info as well. I gotta get up there and explore the area this spring.

If I'm not mistaken, the depot in Essex is still there... or at least it was 10 years ago. Is this correct?

Conomo Station (South Essex) is still there and is well maintained as a private home. I think Essex Station itself is gone, although I could be mistaking.

Conomo is still there, but the depot in Essex is long gone. It stood approximately where the ballfield/tennis courts are. In fact, the enginehouse was still standing until 3 or 4 years ago. It was used by the DPW and was located behind the Town Hall. It was a genuine Eastern Railroad one stall enginehouse, but was quietly torn down by the town.