Previous stations The
Fall River Railroad opened from
Myricks to
Fall River on June 9, 1845, and to the
Old Colony Railroad at
South Braintree in December 1846. A temporary depot further north was used until the Central Street tunnel was completed in September 1845. The former station was converted to store coal in 1858. Newport was the terminal of the steamers until 1869, when they returned to Fall River. Steamship service between Fall River and New York ended in 1937, and passenger service between Fall River and Newport ended the next year. The line continued to be used for freight service by the New Haven and its successors
Penn Central and
Conrail, then finally as the
CSX Fall River Subdivision. After the state purchased the line in 2010, freight service (which runs only as far south as Ferry Street) was transferred to the
Massachusetts Coastal Railroad. A 2009 conceptual design called for a single
side platform serving one track, with access at the center of the platform from City Gates Plaza. Plans released as part of the Final Environmental Impact Report in 2013 moved the platform about to the south, and added a second track for freight trains to pass the station. In 2017, the project was re-evaluated due to cost issues. A new proposal released in March 2017 called for early service via Middleborough by 2024, followed by full service via Stoughton by 2029. Battleship Cove would have only been built during the second phase. By mid-2017, plans called for the first phase to be completed in 2022, and to include stations at
Freetown and Battleship Cove in Phase 1 rather than Phase 2. However, the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report released in January 2018 pushed Battleship Cove back to Phase II. ==References==