Location Niantic, Connecticut Tracks 2 | Disabled access No (Amtrak)
Yes (SLE) | |
 | ||
Line(s) Clamdigger (until 1972)
Beacon Hill (1978-1981)
Shore Line East (proposed) Opened Pre-1915 (NYNH&H)
30 April 1978 (Beacon Hill) Closed 28 January 1972 (Clamdigger)
24 October 1981 (Beacon Hill) Electrified 25,000V (AC) overhead catenary | ||
Niantic (also known as East Lyme or East Lyme and Niantic) was a train station on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), located in Niantic, Connecticut, which served intercity and commuter rail trains until January 1972 (the last of these being the first iteration of Penn Central's—and later Amtrak's—Clamdigger commuter service), and again from April 1978 to October 1981; a new station has since been proposed to be built in Niantic to serve the Shore Line East commuter rail line.
Contents
Former stations
Niantic was a stop on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H)'s New Haven-New London commuter train (named the Clamdigger during the Great Depression) from its inception in 1898. At some point before 1915, a wooden train station was built in Niantic at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and the NYNH&H's Shore Line; the original station was destroyed by the 1938 New England hurricane, but trains continued to stop at Niantic. The NYNH&H was taken over by Penn Central at the end of 1968; after 30 April 1971, Penn Central continued to run the Clamdigger under contract to Amtrak. By this point, Niantic station was known as East Lyme and Niantic. In January 1972, citing increasing losses, Amtrak discontinued the Clamdigger.
In 1975, the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) made plans to restore commuter rail service between New Haven and New London, with a twice-daily Clamdigger making the same stops as the pre-1972 train, including to the former Niantic station (now to be named simply East Lyme); although negotiations with Penn Central were successful, budgetary constraints prevented these plans from coming to fruition. Although Amtrak restored the Clamdigger in 1976-1977, and again briefly from January-April 1978, neither service stopped at East Lyme/Niantic. However, the 1978 iteration of the Clamdigger was replaced effective 30 April of that year with the Beacon Hill between New Haven and Boston South Station, which did serve a station at East Lyme. Service to East Lyme/Niantic ended for the final time in October 1981, when the Beacon Hill was discontinued amid cuts to Amtrak's budget.
Proposed return of service
In 1981 and 1986, bills were introduced in the Connecticut General Assembly proposing a restoration of commuter rail service between New Haven and New London. The 1986 bill prompted a study analysing the feasibility of a restored commuter rail line along this route; due primarily to heavy congestion on the adjacent segments of Interstate 95, such a service was deemed feasible, and Shore Line East (SLE) service began between New Haven and Old Saybrook stations on 29 May 1990. Beginning in 1996, some SLE trips were extended eastward to New London, and further increases in service to the latter station took place in 2010 and 2013; however, they did not make any stops between Old Saybrook and New London.
In April 2012, a state report was released detailing four possible sites for an infill station in East Lyme. Two of the sites were near downtown Niantic, while the other two were in Rocky Neck State Park. A 2015 bonding proposal from Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy allocated $750,000 to the planning and construction of a new station and parking lot in Niantic (out of an estimated $30,000,000 required to bring the new station fully into service).