Onset | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() The former station building in May 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
General information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location | 447 Onset Avenue Wareham, Massachusetts | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 41°45′25″N 70°40′33″W / 41.75694°N 70.67583°W | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Line(s) | Cape Main Line | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Former services | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Onset station is a former train station located on Depot Street in the village of East Wareham, Massachusetts. Originally known as Agawam, then East Wareham, it was combined with a nearby station under the name Onset Junction in 1891. Known as Onset by the 1930s, it was closed in 1959. The station building remains in use by a business.
The Cape Cod Railroad was extended from Wareham to Sandwich in May 1848.[1] By 1857, Agawam station was located at Onset Avenue, serving its namesake village.[2] The Cape Cod Railroad was acquired by the Old Colony Railroad in 1872.[1] Onset Bay station, about 1.4 miles (2.3 km) east of Agawam at Main Avenue, was added by 1879.[3]
In 1885, the Onset Bay Grove Railroad opened between Onset station (formerly Onset Bay) and Shell Point in Onset Bay Grove, a religious camp meeting site and summer resort.[1][4] Later called the Onset Bay Street Railway, it operated horsecars and steam dummies.[1][5] The Old Colony constructed a new station building at Onset in 1885 to serve transferring passengers.[6]
Around 1888, the competing East Wareham, Onset Bay and Point Independence Street Railway opened between East Wareham station (formerly Agawam) and Onset Bay Grove.[7][8] The Old Colony parked a railroad car at East Wareham in 1889 to serve as an expanded station.[9] In May 1891, the two horsecar lines agreed to merge, which included the abandonment of the Onset Bay Street Railway line to Onset station. The station was closed; the station building was relocated to East Wareham and renamed Onset Junction. The existing East Wareham station was converted to a freight house.[5][10]
The horsecar line was acquired by the New Bedford and Onset Street Railway (NB&O) and electrified in 1901.[11][12] It had a short spur track leading directly to Onset Junction station.[13] The NB&O was abandoned in 1927; by the 1930s, the station was again known simply as Onset.[14][11][15] In 1936, the town proposed to move the station back to Main Avenue.[16]
Onset was intermittently a stop for the Cape Codder and other New York–Cape Cod trains until at least the 1940s.[17][15][18][19][20] Passenger service to Onset ended on June 30, 1959, when the New Haven ended passenger service on its Old Colony division.[21] The former station building, still extant, is used by an antique store.[22]