The station viewed from the footbridge.
Grafton has a nice Commuter Rail station in the northern part of the town. I haven't visited the station since September 2019, but I remember it well enough to write a post on it.
Yes, I did find it to be a nice station. It is well done compared to a lot of other Commuter Rail stations (such as Hastings and Plimptonville).
The station sees the schedule that is standard for most other Commuter Rail stations. The station is on the Worcester line, and as of summer 2021, sees an hourly service on weekdays and a two-hourly service on weekends. The trains that short-turn at Framingham do not make it out to Grafton. Grafton is a flag stop for weekday outbound train 537 (12:10 am) and on all weekend outbound trains.
Grafton does have bus connections to the station. The WRTA B line to Northbridge serves the station for select weekday trips. That's it.
The station has the standard mini-high platform, which is in a convenient location for passengers to access. The eastbound mini-high is located at the end of the footbridge over the tracks. Westbound, it is located next to the parking lot. The footbridge at Grafton easily connects the eastbound track with the parking lot, and even is level with the parking lot and has a ramp down to the mini-high.
My big concern with this station is the fare zone. The station is currently in Zone 8, along with Worcester on this line. However, Westborough station is located a mere 2.43 miles away (that is a straight line distance) and that station is located in Zone 7. So why not put Grafton in Zone 7? For reference, Worcester station is 5.73 miles away (straight line distance again, the tracks are quite off from this line).
The station viewed from the footbridge.
Station signage on the low-level portion of the westbound track (Track 1).
My train pulling into the station.
For ridership, the station gets 974 boardings and alightings on an average day.
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Miles in Transit on July 13, 2021 at 12:20 am: Nice post! Good point about the fare zone - Commuter Rail zones feel so arbitrary sometimes. The Lowell Line is really cheap but the Middleborough Line is really expensive. (People have tried to make the excuse that Middleborough is expensive because people are driving from further away, but I really don't think the origin of people's car commutes should dictate the zone of the train station!)