The story
The Ware River Railroad was an independent line that ran from Palmer to the Cheshire Railroad in Winchendon. It was built in 1868. The first section, from Palmer to Gilbertville, opened in 1870, and the rest three years later. Until 1873 it was leased to and operated by the New London Northern Railroad.
It was eventually taken over by the Boston and Albany Railroad and run as its Winchendon Branch. The B&A wanted to run the Ware River Line in conjunction with the Monadnock Railroad in order to gain access to the resort areas of Peterborough, New Hampshire. When the B&A failed to gain control of the Monadnock, the Ware River Line was not very profitable.
By 1968, the line came under the control of the Penn Central, and tracks were abandoned between South Barre and Waterville, splitting the line in two. The Boston and Maine Railroad took over the line from Waterville to Winchendon and operated it until it was abandoned in 1984. Penn Central continued to operate the line south of Barre, but in 1975 all services between Gilbertville and South Barre were discontinued. Conrail operated the line between Palmer and Ware and applied for abandonment of the remainder of the line.
From Wikipedia’s article on Massachusetts Central Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3