Salem, Beverly Halloween Trains Added Amid Record Weekend Crowds

SALEM, MA — After a weekend in which Halloween visitors filled up all Salem municipal garages and satellite parking lots by late morning, the MBTA is adding trains to help ease travel into the holiday's unofficial hometown.

The MBTA said on Wednesday that there will be additional service from North Station to Salem, and between Salem and Beverly along the Newburyport line for the final two weekends before the big day of the dead.

An updated weekend service schedule can be found here.

"The extra commuter rail service is a convenient choice for folks heading to Salem's festivities and an attractive alternative to driving into the Witch City," MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said.

(Also on Patch: Salem Halloween: What To Know If You Are Making The Spooky Trip)

Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll said she is thankful for the added service as city officials are welcoming visitors to the city this year after two years of COVID-19 cancellations and restrictions, but have strongly deterred those from driving downtown.

"Visiting Salem is fun, but trying to find a place to park is not," Driscoll said. "We strongly encourage visitors to plan ahead and take public transportation to get to Salem, so you can spend less time trying to find parking and more time discovering all that our city has to offer."

There will be seven more inbound trains from Salem to North Station with at least two trains per hour after 6 p.m. There will also be four additional outbound trains from North Station to Salem, and two more outbound trains from Salem — one that travels the one stop to Beverly and one that goes to Newburyport.

Visitation was already up more than 80 percent over 2021 counts heading into this past weekend where record crowds were estimated.

Salem officials sent out word early Saturday afternoon that all municipal parking lots — including the Salem commuter rail lot and three satellite lots with more than 800 spaces — were full with many downtown streets closed to traffic.

Taking the commuter rail from one of the stations outside of the city was promoted as the only legitimate route to seeing all the spooky sites downtown.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)