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North Station not the first station to have subways and trolleys on the same platform

Old trolley and subway station in Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure out which station this is and when the photo was taken. See it larger.

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Comments

This has to be Dudley Sq or Sullivan Sq. I can't think of anywhere else. I'm leaning heavily towards Dudley Square.

EDIT: Meant to say leaning heavily towards Sullivan. More likely Sullivan than Dudley. But still no idea which.

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At Dudley, the streetcars were inside, and the elevated trains were split between inside and outside. And at Dudley, the streetcar tracks didn't dead-end like the one on the right in the photo.

Forest Hills looked nothing like this, and was elevated-only.

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I'm guessing Dudley, because one of the trolleys is going to Faulkner. I assume that means that it's going to the hospital in JP.

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If you look at the blown-up photo you'll see signs for MALDEN via EDGEWORTH and WEST EVERETT via FAULKNER.

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Anyone who says Dudley I guess was never in the old Dudley.

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As I can see (among others) signs near the streetcars that say Malden and West Everett.

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Stab in the dark for Forest Hills. The Faulkner sign is leading me to believe that

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Yeah, Forest Hills is my guess too... Faulkner, plus it's apparently the terminus of a line that goes back Malden.

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No, Sorry, not Forest Hills. I was a patron of the old station.

The heavy rail (commuter rail) was in a separate reservation adjacent to the old station, about where the current station now resides. The "old" Orange Line Station only carried trains similar to what you have today, be they an older model. The streetcars (trolleys) were on the street/lower level. That station was located about where the lower busway is now on Hyde Park Ave.

I'm placing my money on a very early Sullivan Sq.

Sullivan, like Dudley, had a raised platform train set up as well as a loop for streetcars. It was rebuilt into a loop to accommodate PCC class streetcars that were not double ended. The streetcar loop was eventually abandoned but a service track to the street continued to be available well into the 60s where a special work train would be able to pull old Orange Line trains down onto the street and move them for service or the scrap heap.

Sullivan was the terminus for many years until the extension to Everett was added. The Everett Station was where the current bus repair facility is now.

Dudley was also the terminus for many years until the extension was created out to Forest Hills. By then (early 1900s) it was all electric as we know it today.

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I thought the former Everett Station was located where the Honda dealership stands today?

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It's a good thing they eventually rebuilt the streetcar tracks as a loop if I'm correct in assuming that the 'Enter Here' painted on the floor means some sort of Spanish Solution was being used and passengers boarded and departed from different sides of the main track. I can only imagine how annoying it was for a trolley to drop off passengers on one stub, reverse all the way out, then climb back into the other stub to pick people up.

Also, those stub ends must have made it painful to stage multiple trolleys heading for different destinations.

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Very similar to this postcard of Sullivan.

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Zoom in and take a close look at the little Charlestown trolley; the one sitting by itself with the cute scallop-edged awnings. It looks like it just returned from the Land of Make Believe in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

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Aw, I thought the same thing! I wish there was *some* element of adorable in today's models... This photo made me smile.

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This is almost definitely Sullivan. The city has had only a few huge multimodal stations like this and Sullivan was the only one that had a big domed roof like this.

Also, the ghost bottom right is awesome. Sick pictures. Thanks Boston City Archives.

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I'm sure glad Sullivan Station, and the associated square and roadways, have been modernized. Imagine if we had to deal with that outdated old-fashioned station today.

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Sullivan as pictured in the old days was actually on raised steel about where the Rt 99 traffic circle is now. When the Orange Line was rebuilt onto the surface right of way following old commuter rail and freight tracks, the station was moved to where it is today.

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unlike modern T and commuter rail degenerates it appears that there are no monkey spankers or gropers in this pic.

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Do you really think that there didn't used to be pervs on public transit?

My family has passed along a tale about my great-grandmother. Seems her favorite method of keeping her boys in line was to pinch them hard. Hard enough to leave bruises - like being bitten by a goose!

Well, sometime during the 1920s, she was riding a trolley when some perv grabbed her hand and put it under his hat on his lap, where he was airing things out ...

So, yes, women of an earlier era had to deal with this shit, too.

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Now if Grandma swirly was wearing one of those victorian dresses with the seven rings of steel no groping hand could get through.

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Does anyone else see the "phantom" on the right? I think it's Sullivan Sq.

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I'm pissed that there are no bike racks available for Victorian commuters.

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It is positively Sullivan. It takes one to know one.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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