Rowley

Rowley is the penultimate passenger rail station on the Newburyport branch of the MBTA Commuter Rail's Newburyport/Rockport Line. The official address is given by the MBTA as 70 Railroad Avenue, although it is actually located north of Railroad Avenue, between Depot Way and Oyster Pond Road. Parking is available on the north side of Railroad Avenue between Depot Way and the railroad tracks.A previous station in Rowley, serving trains from the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M)'s Eastern Route (the precursor to the Newburyport portion of the Newburyport/Rockport Line), was closed in April 1967, when the B&M received permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue all service on the line (which had been cut back from Portsmouth to Newburyport in January 1965); at that point, service beyond Ipswich consisted of only one daily round trip to North Station. Both Rowley and Newburyport were, at the time, outside the MBTA's service district; the town of Newburyport signed a subsidy agreement with the MBTA, allowing it to continue to receive service, but Rowley did not, and its station closed. The current station opened on October 26, 1998, as part of the restoration of service on the Newburyport/Rockport Line between Ipswich and Newburyport. As with Newburyport, the new station was built with a full-length high-level platform, which allows level boarding for all cars of even the longest MBTA trains.