Ayer (MBTA station)

The Fitchburg Railroad main line opened on an east-west alignment through Ayer in December 1845, with an Ayer stop near the modern location. The Stony Brook Railroad opened from Ayer to North Chelmsford with service to Lowell in July 1848; it ran parallel to the Fitchburg for several miles east of downtown Ayer before branching to the northeast at Stony Brook Junction. Located at the junction, Willows station (also known as Sandy Pond) was the only other train station in Ayer and served both the Stony Brook and the Fitchburg.

The Worcester and Nashua Railroad opened between Worcester and Ayer in July 1848; an extension north to Nashua, New Hampshire in December 1848 crossed the Fitchburg at grade and a connecting line was built on the southeast corner of the junction. The Peterborough and Shirley Railroad, opened in 1848, crossed the northern section of the W&N at grade and ran to the northwest. It was leased to the Fitchburg before opening and fully acquired in 1860.

When the Hoosac Tunnel opened in 1875, trains through Ayer could run on the Fitchburg and the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad as far west as Troy, New York. With service to Troy, Boston, Nashua, Worcester, Lowell, and Greenville, Ayer station - sometimes known as Ayer Junction and Groton Junction - was a major rail interchange and the most important station on the Fitchburg Railroad between Concord and Fitchburg.

Consolidation under the B&M

By the 1880s, Ayer station consisted of a large depot that spanned the Fitchburg's tracks. Freight houses were located in the northeast and southeast corners of the junction, coal sheds in three locations, and a small roundhouse at Mechanic Street. The Worcester, Nashua and Rochester Railroad, the successor to the W&N, came under control of the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1886, followed by the Boston and Lowell Railroad (which by then owned the Stony Brook) in 1887. The Brookline and Pepperell Railroad opened in 1894 and connected to the Peterborough and Shirley in West Groton several miles to the north, with trains run through Ayer. When the Fitchburg Railroad was acquired by the B&M in 1900, all lines through Ayer (and most of northern Massachusetts) were under its control.

The B&M replaced the older station with a pair of station buildings located in the northeast and southeast corners of the junction. An island platform between the two Fitchburg main tracks east of the diamond crossing served commuters to Boston, and a second island platform south of the diamond served north-south riders. Two signal bridges built at right angles over the junction in the 1910s and an interlocking tower controlled the various train movements.

Decline of service

With competition from interurban streetcars then automobiles in the early 20th century, the B&M was forced to discontinue service on marginal branch lines, as well as redundant routes built during years of intense competition between railroads. Passenger service on the lightly used Brookline and Pepperell ended in 1931 and on the Peterborough & Shirley in 1933. The Stony Brook, with its flatter grades than the W&N, became the preferred route for passenger and freight service to the north, particularly after a wye was constructed at North Chelmsford in 1930 allowing direct service to New Hampshire. Passenger service ended on the northern part of the W&N in 1934, and part of the route to Nashua was outright abandoned within a decade.

Around the same time that passenger service ended on the three lines, the junction at Ayer was rearranged. Part of Plow Shop Pond was filled in to create the southwest leg of the junction, thus finishing a wye between the Fitchburg main and the line to Worcester. With the line to Nashua barely used, the Peterborough and Shirley was rerouted to the west of Park Street to eliminate the Main Street grade crossing.

In April 1946, the Stony Brook was connected directly to the Fitchburg at Stony Brook Junction, permitting the removal of its redundant rails between there and Ayer. Most local passenger service between Worcester and Lowell via Ayer ended in 1953. The State of Maine used the routing until October 29, 1960, and the B&M ran a single Budd RDC car between Worcester and Haverhill until 1961 by state order. When this service ended, Willows station was abandoned and soon demolished.

The southern depot was demolished around 1960, and the northern depot and surrounding land was sold to a local business owner on September 29, 1960. The provisions of the sale and later transactions included deed restrictions requiring the purchaser to provide an easement for public station access as well as a station facility for 100 years. Service along the Fitchburg main line was cut back to Fitchburg that same year, leaving Fitchburg Line commuter service between Fitchburg and Boston as the sole remaining passenger service through Ayer when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was created in 1964 to subsidize suburban commuter services. The B&M cut service back to West Concord on January 18, 1965 as part of its abandonment of commuter-rail service outside the MBTA's funding district, but the MBTA established funding for restoration of service back to Ayer and intermediate stops effective June 28 of that year. The northern station building was demolished in the late 1960s; a parking lot and a business with no station facilities were built in its place.

In December 1973, state subsidies for towns outside the MBTA funding district were halved, resulting in the MBTA needing to renegotiate subsidies from 14 municipalities. Ultimately Ayer, with just 14 daily commuters, refused to pay its $8200 bill in 1974; Littleton also did not reach an agreement. On March 1, 1975, the line was cut back to South Acton, dropping stops at Ayer, Littleton, and West Acton.

MBTA takeover

On December 27, 1976, the MBTA bought the Boston and Maine Railroad's northside commuter rail assets, including the entire length of the Fitchburg Line. The closure of the Lexington Branch the next month represented the limit of the contraction of the northside lines; as a result of the 1970s energy crisis and especially the 1979 energy crisis, a period of rapid expansion began in the end of the 1970s. Service to Ayer returned along with an extension to Gardner on January 13, 1980. Ayer has seen continuous MBTA service since 1980, although service beyond Ayer was cut from Gardner to Fitchburg at the end of 1986. The W&N just north of Ayer was finally abandoned in 1982, and turned into the Nashua River Rail Trail.

The MBTA installed platforms with yellow edge strips for the 1980 return of service, and later added metal shelters and platform fences to separate passengers from freight trains. No major upgrades to the station were made as part of the Fitchburg Line Improvement Project, though a 2005 report proposed combining Ayer and Shirley into a Devens station with additional parking capacity. The plan was unpopular with local residents, who preferred the stations close to the town centers, and the MBTA dropped the consolidation plan.

Parking issues

Unlike all other stations on the line from Lincoln west, Ayer has no dedicated station parking, despite serving over 400 passengers per day. The lots adjacent to the station are privately owned and serve local businesses, but are often illegally used by commuters using the station. The 30-space Nashua River Rail Trail parking lot is available for commuters on weekdays; some commuters also use street parking and other business lots. Planning began in 2003 for increased parking capacity; five studies in six years concluded with plans for an $11 million, 400-space garage off Park Street, accessibility improvements to the station, and streetscape improvements for pedestrian access. The plans were reduced in scale due to traffic concerns and other issues. $3.2 million in FTA funds (originally intended for expanded parking at Littleton/Route 495 but later rejected) was committed to build a $4 million surface lot. However, the lot was delayed due to conflicts with businesses that would be displaced and the lack of a publicly owned pedestrian entrance (a requirement to use the federal funds).

On April 28, 2014, pedestrian access to the station was partially cut off when the abutting landowner erected a fence on the station's primary access point, forcing riders to walk a short distance along the tracks to a different business lot, in an effort to stop commuters from parking on his business lots. He removed a section of the fence for platform access after meeting with the MBTA, but disputed whether he was required to provide access and station facilities according to the terms of the 1960 land sale. Despite intervention by state legislators and a postcard campaign by residents, an agreement was not reached in 2014. In December 2014, the MBTA rejected a plan that would have created a pedestrian access path and a vehicle dropoff lane, alleging that the landowner had unfairly shifted property lines.

In February 2015, the landowner again blocked station access due to commuters parking on his property after a series of snowstorms. When an agreement had not been reached by March, the MBTA prepared to take the issue to land court. In April 2016, with negotiations between the three parties seemingly at a standstill, the Ayer selectmen voted to begin the eminent domain process, which will then go before public vote at a town warrant meeting in May. The public vote will have two sections - one for just the access route, and one for the commercial property as well. Because of the delays, the federal funding for the project could have been jeopardized regardless of the vote. On June 2, 2016, the town took ownership of the access route and building.

The $4.2 million expansion will expand the rail trail parking lot from 70 spaces to 210. Completion is scheduled for spring 2018. The project will not include renovations to make the station handicapped accessible, unless a different access point is created (which would constitute modifications to the station and thus require accessibility retrofitting under the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, with the parking issues settled, Ayer may be included in the next round of MBTA station overhaul projects.

Current freight service

Pan Am Railways runs intermodal and local freight through Ayer, with the Stony Brook plus the Fitchburg main west of Stony Brook Junction serving as its main line. The southern section of the W&N is now Pan Am's Worcester Branch, used primarily for traffic interchanging with CSX and the Providence and Worcester Railroad at Worcester. There are layups for freight trains east and west of the station on the Fitchburg main line, and a freight yard (known as Hill Yard) about a quarter mile to the south on the Worcester & Nashua, which now serves as Pan Am's Worcester Branch. An additional main track splits just east of the station, runs north of the platforms, and continues for a distance west of the station; Pan Am uses it to store freight cars as well as to access a stub of the P&S which serves a paper plant at Vose near West Groton.