The Pittsfield and North Adams was incorporated on March 3, 1842, by special act of the State of Massachusetts. The original owners of the P&NA developed this corridor with the goal of extending the Housatonic Railroad (1836) north to Rutland, Vermont. It was organized December 18, 1845 and opened for operation on December 1, 1846. Before the tracks were under construction, the company was acquired by the Western Railroad of Massachusetts, which allowed the Housatonic to use the line until the Western Railroad became part of the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A) on November 2, 1870, as their North Adams Branch. Mineral traffic developed on the line and a number of limestone operations went into business. The New York Central Railroad took over the B&A in 1900, and upgraded the line, although it allowed the B&A and its branches to operate under its old name. Brochures and schedules of the New York Central made the North Adams Branch seem as if it were a segment of the Harlem Division, despite the fact that the aforementioned line terminated at Chatham Union Station in New York.[1] Some brochures with this extension actually pre-date the purchase of the B&A by NYC.[2]
In 1961, the B&A name was officially phased out, making the North Adams Branch into a branch of the NYC. Along with the rest of the New York Central, the line was merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968 to form Penn Central Railroad,[3] which faced bankruptcy within two years. Penn Central was bought out by Conrail in 1976, and kept the North Adams Branch intact, until they sold the branch to the Boston and Maine Corporation in 1981. Despite the connection to an existing track in North Adams, Boston and Maine ran the line with declining success. The 1983 purchase of B&M by Guilford Transportation Industries had no effect on the line, so it was abandoned in 1990. Seeing the potential for recreational use of the corridor, local citizens organized to preserve the right-of-way, eventually gaining the local and political support needed to convert much of the line into the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail.[4] Surviving structures along this branch include former stations in Cheshire, Adams, and North Adams.
