Grafton & Upton Railroad

After a lengthy battle, a group of Hopedale residents successfully won an injunction against the Grafton & Upton Railroad Co., preventing the railway from clearing roughly 130 acres of forestland in the town, according to a decision from the Worcester County Superior Court signed Friday. 

Grafton & Upton Railroad Co., a rail company in Hopedale which has met controversy with a local developer, received a $500,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Industrial Rail Access Program, according to a MassDOT announcement on Friday.

The Grafton & Upton Railroad Co. is seeking state approval to acquire by eminent domain a 155-acre property in Hopedale to build a rail yard and add track space.

Three judges from the first circuit court of appeals have ruled in favor of the Grafton & Upton Railroad's plan to build and operate a liquefied propane gas (LPG) transloading facility in its North Grafton rail yard.

Tons of freight roll daily into and out of Worcester on tracks used by CSX, Pan Am Railways and the Providence & Worcester railroads. As the economy continues to bounce back from the Great Recession, freight transportation is growing as well, bringing more goods of all kinds through the region on the rails — everything from cars and toilet paper to flammable liquids and hazardous materials.

<i>(UPDATED May 5 at 8:20 a.m.)</i> U.S. Rep. James McGovern has filed a bill that would give states and local communities the ability to regulate propane gas facilities that are operated by rail carriers, his office announced Monday.

More than two years after Grafton selectmen sued to prevent the Grafton and Upton Railroad from delivering and installing four 80,000-gallon propane tanks at a planned North Grafton transloading facility, the dispute continues.

After more than a year-long struggle with the town to construct and operate a liquefied propane gas...

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) ruled last week that Grafton officials cannot interfere with the Grafton & Upton Railroad's proposed construction of an additional rail yard and storage tracks.

Six years ago, it wouldn't have seemed foolish to have thought the Grafton & Upton Railroad was...