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They really dug their work
By adamg on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:42am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure out exactly what these guys were doing, and when (hint: This was on a Saturday night) See it larger.
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Comments
Huntington Ave subway
Building the Huntington Avenue subway in 1941 where it splits off from the central subway past Copley? (It being a Saturday night wouldn't have anything to do with this answer.)
Blue Line
I'm pretty sure this is the conversion of the East Boston tunnel from light to heavy rail. That's the most notable "weekend job" that I can recall in T history. It was an incredible feat in the 20s.
That was taken...
....last weekend at Gov't Center!
Haymarket Station — November 28-29, 1908
Haymarket Station in 1898
from: Boston Transit Commission - Fifteenth Annual Report - June 30, 1909
36 Out, 39 In, In 7 hours?
That's hellishly impressive. What would the ETA for a job of that magnitude be today? It sure as hell wouldn't be between last train on Saturday and first train on Sunday.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
late-night T
This is why we can't have late-night T anymore. When else will T workers have a seven-hour block to swap out tunnel columns?
Thankfully Back Then...
There was still active trackage on many downtown streets. Diverting the final and first few trips scheduled to use the subway via Washington Street was easy. The Night Cars (which ran all night, every night by the way) were scheduled to use surface tracks anyways; so all the washer-women, stevedores, market-men, and even the theater-goers could still go about their usual routine.
Things like this can still be
Things like this can still be done.
About 20 years ago, I was working in Jersey City, NJ. The Port Authority needed to replace a bridge that carried two of their PATH rapid lines (part of my commute) between Journal Square at the top of the hill and the subway at the bottom of the hill. Here - this rail-over-rail bridge at 40.72483, -74.05534 http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?encType=1&where1=40.72483%2c%20-74...
They did all the prelim work in small doses and on the side - then took the trains out of service over the July 4th weekend and did the demo, setting the new bridge, and reconnecting the tracks and third rail.
Looking back through a perpetual calendar, I think it was 1996. July 4th on a Thursday. Regular service through Wednesday. I don't remember but I'll assume they had some sort of service on Thursday if there were fireworks over the Hudson River or harbor. Then they shut down service, did the whole job, and were back up and running for Monday morning rush.
Boylston Flyover?
It looks like that spot by Boylston that flies over the old proto-Orange Line tracks.
The Answer
Thanks for playing folks! This photo was taken on July 25, 1914, late on a Saturday night and shows work being done on the extension of the Tremont Street subway. The workers are finishing the work on the subway extension by "connecting the old and new subways."
Surplus Dirt Sent To Cambridge To Build The New MIT Campus!
from: Boston Transit Commission - Twenty-First Annual Report - June 30, 1915