Taunton was a passenger rail station located south of Oak Street in downtown Taunton, Massachusetts. As Taunton Central Station, it served local and Boston-focused routes from 1836 to 1958. A later station at the same site served Amtrak's Cape Codder from 1986 to 1996, and Cape Cod and Hyannis Railroad commuter trains in 1988.
History
Taunton Central Station
The New Bedford and Taunton Railroad opened from Mansfield to Taunton in August 1836 - one of the first branch lines in the state. Its Taunton Central Station was located between Oak Street and Wales Street, surrounded by the Taunton Locomotive Manufacturing Company and Mason Machine Works. The line passed to the Old Colony Railroad in 1879 and the New Haven Railroad in 1893. The New Haven operated passenger service through Taunton, including Boston - Fall River and Boston - New Bedford routes, in addition to the seasonal New York - Cape CodCape Codder service. Year-round NH passenger service to Taunton ended in 1958. Taunton briefly saw service again, during the summers of 1960 to 1964, when the Day Cape Codder and Neptune returned.
A new station nearby was built for Amtrak's Cape Codder service from 1986 to 1996. Located off Oak Street next to the GATRA Bloom Bus Terminal, the station consisted of a single bare asphalt platform serving the single track. Cape Cod & Hyannis Railroad commuter trains stopped at the station on Attleboro-Cape Cod runs in 1988. the 1980s-built platform is still extant, though partially covered by vegetation, and the old ticket window could be seen in the Bloom Bus Station that served as the terminal, until a renovation in 2015.
At several times during the South Coast Rail planning process, the site was under consideration as a station for MBTA Commuter Rail service to Boston. In September 1995, the MBTA filed an environmental notification form for construction of the project, with a routing following the Northeast Corridor to just north of Attleboro and a new bypass connecting to the branch line to Taunton. The station would have been upgraded to a full-length high-level platform to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. However, further reports suggested a route through Stoughton which would not stop at the station location, and the project was eventually cancelled in 2003. When planning was restarted in 2005, alternatives through Attleboro and Stoughton were considered. The Stoughton alternate chosen in 2009 included two possible routing options, one following the former Whittenton Branch which would have a station at the Oak Street location. This would have provided convenient transfers to GATRA bus services, but resulted in longer travel times as the Whittenton Branch includes several major curves. The FinalEnvironmental Impact Statement, released in 2013, selected a route further east with Dean Street station as a downtown stop instead. The FEIS included the possibility of using the Whittenton Branch, but a station would have been built at Dana Street several blocks to the north of the Oak Street location, where the straighter track geometry would be more favorable for the construction of full-length high-level platforms.
