Community Corner
Then and Now: Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway
The former popular street trolley cars are long gone but most of the routes are still around.
In this Then photo you can see the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company trolley tracks on today’s Main Street, near Silver Lake. The street car company was part of a network of interurban street trolley car companies that connected the Boston suburbs.
The street car system around Wilmington started some time around 1892 with a line running from Reading to Billerica. By 1895, there was a line looping through Wilmington on its route to and from Woburn.
The trolley cars were a very popular form of transportation to Woburn and Wilmington for “cityfolk” looking to vacation in Wilmington and for some residents to work in and near Boston. The trolleys began to fall out of favor around the 1930s and 1940s as the automobile’s popularity rose and better suburban roads sprang up in the suburbs.
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The railway company continued to serve some of their old routes as a bus company, but the company was completely dissolved in 1952.
In the Now photo you can see the street as it is today, paved and automobile-friendly.
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Editor's Note: This will be the final week of Then and Now. Be sure to check with Wilmington Patch on Friday, April 1, when we introduce a new weekly column.
