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Back Bay station used to look a bit different
By adamg on Tue, 08/11/2009 - 1:22pm
Back Bay station in 1976, before the el was taken down and before Copley Place.
From this collection of photos from the days when the Penn Central still existed and still ran passenger trains in New England.
Via Cosmo Catalano.
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Comments
The first link isn't a link,
The first link isn't a link, I think?
Try now
Sorry about that.
True, it was before the el was taken down...
Buit the el never ran through Back Bay Station, it ran down Washington St, a half mile away...
kind of true
But the El's demise meant back bay had to be torn up to put the NEW orange line in, so...
You're right
Sorry, didn't mean to imply the Orange Line went through or near it. I was thinking how they built a whole new station there partly because of the new underground Orange Line.
el
Just curious... was it really known on the street as the el? I've heard that in Chicago, but not Boston.
Small Sampling
I never called it "The El". I called it "The Elevated", if anything. MY WIFE, who grew up using it more than I did, since her childhood was in the projects in JP, also never called it "The El", and I think she once called me out for calling it "The Elevated", for that matter. To her, it was just "The Train To Forest Hills" or something similarly generic, at least until it became the Orange Line.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The Main Line
I've heard old timers call it the main line, which is an abbreviation for the formal name, just as el or elevated would be. I think it was officially the Boston Main Line Elevated Railway or something along those lines. Main line distinguishing it from the mismash of trolley lines plying the streets and boylston/tremont subway tunnels.
Boston Elevated Railway Co.
There's still a BERy manhole cover on Cummins Highway in Roslindale, next to the still standing, but crumbling power substation for the Washington Street trolleys that haven't run in, what, 60 years?
Look down more often!
There are BERy manhole covers all over the city!
To go with the trolley poles still up all over the place?
And not just along Centre Street in JP.
Not Positive On This, Henry, But...
... I believe the part of the line that ran through the tunnel (Dover Street - tunnel - North Station) was the main line, so-called because the Atlantic Avenue elevated branched off of it around Harrison Avenue, completing its secondary route by meeting the main line again at North Station? I may be misremembering.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
That seems logical. Most of
That seems logical. Most of what I know about it comes from a discussion on railroad.net:
http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=58...
The opening post is by a guy who seems extremely knowledgeable about the 'T, and he describes the main line as running from Forest Hills to Sullivan Square. But I'm not sure there necessarily is a definitive answer on that.
Forest Hills - Sullivan Square
That's what I meant as the main line, actually. I only singled out the Dover - North Station segment because that was the part that differed from the Atlantic Avenue branch.
Oh, and thanks for giving me that link. Now I'll geek out over there and get fired from my job :-)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The Elevator
In my grandmother's Italian accent it was "the elevator"
What about ....
The Rattler?
Shouldn't that be
The Rattlah.
I grew up calling it the El
I always called it the El growing up.
Another interesting point,
Another interesting point, it was not the only el in town. Again, my knowledge is only from what others have told me. By the time I moved to Boston, the only remaining el was the Causeway Street El, which is now gone, too. But there was the Washington St. El, the Atlantic Ave. El (also never replaced with suitable service when it came down), the Charlestown El. Maybe some others, too.
Park To Charles
This is the only bit of elevated remaining, correct? The tiny crossover from just outside of the Beacon Hill tunnel to Charles/MGH?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
North Station to Lechmere?
A viaduct is not an elevated?
And why-a no chicken?
Well, Of Course!
I suppose the willful forgetting of that might violate the sanity clause in my contract.
(Go for it, Adam.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Adam already got to this,
Adam already got to this, but it's easy to forget the stretch just before Science Park where the green line emerges. I think it just doesn't look like an el, whereas the section between Beacon Hill and Charles St. clearly does. Parts of the Ashmont branch are still elevated, too, though not in a way that's noticeable from the street.
True
There are a couple of spots where the Ashmont crosses on small bridges over streets, near Fields Corner. I suppose those count. For that matter, there's one small section of the Riverside line, just outside of Riverside itself, that similarly crosses a bridge over a street.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
And if we really want to
And if we really want to split hairs, the Mattapan line is elevated during it's approach to Ashmont station. Now what was that about geeking out?
And Also...
... when it leaves Cedar Grove Cemetery and crosses over the bike path (which used to be the freight train tracks) before Butler Street.
You want to geek? OK, we'll geek! :-)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Main Changes
As Neal points out, the El never went there. The main differences between this photo and today's back bay station are:
Cool picture, really looks out of place next to the garage.
A little history...
Just to railgeek a little, the entire Southwest Corridor Park between Back Bay and Forest Hills used to be the embankment where the Amtrak trains used to run. Where the Orange Line is now would likely be the outbound tracks 3 & 4; the inbound tracks have been tracks 1 & 2. When they brought back the commuter rail in 1987, they eliminated Track 4 altogether. The outbound platform of the current Hyde Park station was built right over Track 4; back then, Hyde Park had a far narrower platform and no ramps for the handicapped.
In that 1976 picture, trains would head out at grade. The trains would then run on a two-story embankment between Cumberland St and the Forest Hills rail yards before coming to street level. This was to eliminate a lot of at-grade crossings and to speed up travel time. There is still an embankment on the Needham line between Forest Hills and Roslindale Village, which parallels South Street.
Before Back Bay was razed, the area was fairly run down. A lot of autobody shops, flophouses and the like dotted the track area. Once the trains were sent underground and Copley Place was rebuilt, the area flourished.
Bussey Street
Part of that embankment on the Needham Line crosses Bussey Street in Roslindale. You turn off Washington Street in Roslindale and drive a block and there's this massive stone arch bridge that you wonder what the hell it's doing there, in the middle of nowhere. There's a small plaque on the side that explains the Bussey Street disaster.
To be nitty-picky, it's the
To be nitty-picky, it's the Bussey Bridge over South street. Benjamin Bussey had owned the property that became the Arboretum, but Bussey street runs between Walter and South streets.
Very near there was the site of the Bussey Woods Murders.
http://www.jphs.org/victorian/bussey-woods-murders...
Cool
Thanks for posting the link...
Interesting photos
I'd be interested in seeing what it was like inside it too. There's one photo of the waiting room on the platform of the current back bay station... It looks very similar to photos I have seen of the shuttered Pawtucket/Central Falls station in Rhode Island.
cool photo -- what street is that?
Neat photo; thanks for posting!
I'm curious -- which direction is the camera facing, and what street is that in front of the headhouse? If that's the Hancock Garage on the left, then I'm guessing the street is Dartmouth, and we're looking more or less towards the financial district -- which would make the train in the shot headed towards what is now the southeast corridor park and Ruggles station. Is that right?
Dartmouth St
yes, it's Dartmouth Street. you're facing east.
Somewhere there is a pic of NEMC station circa 1968/9
Such a thing has to exist, and I'd love to get my hands on it. I'm willing to bet there's an entire series of photos taken when the station was constructed.
It's amazing to think of that kind of foresight existing when looking back from 2009.
"OK get this, we're going to spend millions to build a new underground Orange Line station. It's going to be amazing."
"Really, where?"
"Right about where the El comes to the surface."
"Um, won't that cause problems? How will the trains get to the El?"
"Don't worry about it. I didn't say we're going to need the station NOW, but after the El is gone. Maybe in like 1987 or something. I'm thinking May."
"That's insane... but it makes sense! The hospital is going to be sitting on top of that site by then. It'll cost a ridiculous amount of money to get in there and do it if we wait. OK, so while the ground is torn up let's build it, seal it and forget about it until the 80s!"
"Now you get it! But wait, check this out. You know how the old abandoned Tremont St. subway tracks pass by that site, right?"
"Yeah"
"We're going to put this station right up alongside them. So if The Powers That Be decide to run a train down that way and out to Dudley the passengers can transfer to the Orange Line. We'll make sure the place is REALLY big just in case this ever happens."
"Awesome!"
I don't think they intended to wait until 1987
to use the new NEMC station (which was to be called 'South Cove' originally). If the Southwest Expressway had been built as planned, it would have included a new Orange Line alignment.
Trackside, 1957 and 1960
1957.
1960.