Another month brings another rich stock of streetcar, interurban, and rapid transit history to sink your teeth into. I want to thank all of the people and museum organizations who frequent, share, and find our series both entertaining and educational, whether it's insulting streetcar executives' facial hair or lamenting the loss of another legendary system. From Nakkune and I, you are all loved.
Today's month of October concerns the City of Boston (or to quote one of its own beloved mayors, "da cittabossun") and its rich electric railway history. The City of Champions is home to many firsts: the first shots fired in the American Revolution, the first American Dynasty through the Kennedys, and where we're concerned: the first subway in America. Despite being well over 120 years old, the combined system continues to serve as the main backbone of the Green and Red lines for the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (better known as the MTBA). Today, let's ship up to Boston and uncover the deep, congestive history of the Subway Tunnels!
Streetcars Begin in Boston
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A horsecar of the Cambridge Railroad in Newton, Massachusetts, 1850s.
(MountAuburn.org) |
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Tremont Street, lined with horsecars, circa 1890.
(Frank Pfuhler) |
Railways were always ever-endemic in Boston, with the first steam railway opening in 1830 under the Boston & Lowell Railway. The American industrial revolution further accelerated Boston's need for the railroad, connecting fishing villages in Cape Ann to the textiles factories in Lowell, and even out to the South Bay. The first streetcars to even run in the city limits was the
Cambridge Railroad in 1853, connecting Boston's West End with Central Square and Harvard Square. Horsecars formed the backbone of early rapid transit (despite the city's incredible aversion to traditional street grids), and after the
Dorchester Railroad opened in 1854, mass proliferation of street railways began. By the mid 1880s, four companies rose to create a transit monopoly across the city: The
Metropolitan Railroad to Roxbury, the aforementioned
Cambridge Railroad, the
Boston Consolidated Railroad (formerly the Middlesex Railroad) to Charlestown, and the
South Boston Railroad (formerly the Broadway Railroad) to South Boston.
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Henry Melville Whitney in 1907,
using his moustache to flirt
with the photographer.
(New England Magazine) |
As the city moved to venture westward, investors filed a charter in 1887 for a new street railroad: The
West End Railroad (WER). The goal was not only to build new streetcar lines to develop what would become the suburb of Brookline, but also to coordinate with the four railroad companies above to ensure smooth and trouble-free transfer and direct services to Boston. The Metropolitan and Cambridge companies rebuffed these plans, seeing the WER as a threat, so lead investor Henry Melville Whitney decided to just simply buy majority shares in the Metropolitan and Cambridge and combine them. This insane plan worked so well (because it's the Gilded Age) that the Massachusetts state legislature allowed them to buy out the Boston Consolidated and South Boston Railroads as well. In one fell swoop of a pen, the West End Railroad went from a small line to Brookline to over 200 miles of horsecar track under one owner. This also gave Boston the distinction of the "first unified public transit system in America".
Severe Congestion Prompts Change
Understandably, not a lot of Boston citizens approved of the giant merger. Some thought that combining four monopolies into one enormous monopoly would bring down quality of service and shaft the city, but most proponents (and Whitney himself) stated, "if [the West End] had not taken hold of this matter the city would surely have done something [instead]." Nobody really had time to complain, however, as the 1890s brought with it amazing revolutions in street railway technology.
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One of the first purpose-built electric streetcars
in Boston, serving the South Boston area and built
by the Brill Company, circa 1897.
(State Transportation Library of Massachusetts) |
After Frank J. Sprague refined his invention of the trolley pole and the practical axle motor, he was touring up and down the Eastern seaboard looking for investors into his new technology. Whitney met with Sprague and immediately contracted him to build an electric line between Boston and Brookline and another out to Cambridge. Two types of systems were tested: an overhead wire and a conduit system. Overhead wire was considered more practical, and so the new Brookline and Cambridge electric lines opened on January 1 and February 16, 1888, respectively. As electric conversion grew across the city, noted Boston poet, physician and polymath Oliver Wendell Holmes waxed lyrical on the "The Broomstick Train", comparing it to Boston's history with witches:
Since then on many a car you 'll see
A broomstick plain as plain can be;
On every stick there 's a witch astride,--
The string you see to her leg is tied.
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Boston streetcars, several of them
converted horsecars, clog Washington
Street around the turn of the century.
(Boston Streetcars) |
By 1891, there was now a new problem striking the WER. With the city growing at a rapid rate and more streetcars filling the streets, traffic congestion was at an all-time high. Many citizens wryly noted that it was much faster to walk along the streetcar roofs or the sidewalk than to sit in traffic. The Governor of Massachusetts at the time, William E. Russell, immediately collaborated with the WSR to create the "Rapid Transit Commission" in 1891, with the goal of service streamlining and improvement at the forefront.
The First Subway - Tremont Street
The biggest source of congestion was Tremont Street, a Northeast-Southwest thoroughfare connecting the South End with Bay Village via Shawmut. After a study was conducted, the Rapid Transit Commission decided that a streetcar tunnel should be able to cure the city's woes. Construction on the Tremont Street subway swiftly commenced in 1891 and ran through five closely-packed stations: Boylston, Park Street, Scollay Square, Adams Square, and Haymarket. At Boylston Station, a flying junction was constructed to serve the "Pleasant Street Incline", which rose above the Tremont Street line to serve Egleston via South End and opened a month after the main tunnel. Portals were constructed in the Boston Public Garden, North Station/Canal Street (connecting with heavy rail service), and Pleasant Street. The tunnels themselves were 10-foot long trenches, 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep, in what we now know as the "Cut-and-Cover" technique (again, another Boston first in America). The deepest tunnels were only 50 feet from the surface.
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The blueprint for the station at Tremont (horizontal) and Boylston (vertical) Streets,
with the Boylston Line connecting north and Tremont Street continuing west.
(History of Massachusetts) |
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The aftermath of the Boylston/Tremont gas explosion
of March 4, 1897, with a surface streetcar seen destroyed.
(History of Massachusetts) |
One disturbing fact about the Tremont Street's construction was the discovery of at least 910 human remains along the edge of Boston Common, where the former Central Burying Ground was literally paved over as Boylston Street was widened in 1836. Many considered this a work of the devil, or even a curse, as construction workers simply moved the bones from the site and piled them up for later sorting. Another was that during construction, Boylston and Tremont Streets literally exploded when an old gas main broke into the tunnel and was lit by a passing test train's wheel sparks on March 4, 1897. 10 people were killed, 60 people injured, and serious damage to buildings and surface streetcars were reported.
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A train operates along the new subway bound
for Ashmont and Milton. The men hanging off
the sides is to test the lateral clearances of the tunnel.
Note the wire attached to wooden channels.
(Boston Streetcars) |
Nevertheless, the impressive four-track subway line opened for service on September 1, 1897, freeing Tremont Street from the woes of streetcar congestion above. Interestingly, only two other subways are older around the world: London's City & South London Railway which opened in 1890, and the Budapest Metro in 1896. Special trains ran through the tunnels packed with people, celebrating the new line, but its aesthetic choices were sharply criticized. The tunnel portals on Boylston and Park Street did not blend in with the Common, being constructed of plain rectangular stone, while Scollay Square and Adams Square had beautiful Baroque-inspired headhouses (buildings covering the tunnel portal) that looked... like mausoleums. Aesthetic gripes aside, the Tremont Street subway paved the way for more subway tunnels to open like the East Boston and the Washington Street tunnel.
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Scollay Square Station's first headhouse in 1897. Considering the brick nightmare that
would replace it in the mid-20th century, this is honestly better.
(David J. Russo) |
Scollay Street - Why Under?
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The "Scollay Under" sign on the Blue Line platform
beneath the Green Line platform at Government Center.
(Flash the Gap, Boston.com) |
Veering off a little bit, but if you've ever visited Boston and gotten off at "Government Center" Station (the former Scollay Square), you may have seen mosaic signs decorating the walls that read "Scollay Under". You may even ask yourself, "How did I get here? What does this mean?" In 1912,
the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) began extending their East Boston tunnel through Court Street Station (which was eventually abandoned in November 1914) to connect to Scollay Square. This got it designated "Scollay Under", and the original station's platforms were expanded to allow for more transfers. These handsome mosaics were later covered over forgotten about through the years until in 2014, when renovation work for the Government Center's Blue Line station uncovered these mosaics and gave the transit authority an idea to incorporate them into the new design. So if you're getting off at Government Center and see a giant "Scollay" sign, don't fret: you're at the right station.
Streetcar Tunnel Versus Subway
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Park Street Station on the Green and Red lines, showing the difference between
a streetcar subway and a rapid transit subway.
(Ben Schumin, Pi.1415926535) |
There is one thing to keep in mind when looking at Boston's subways, and that's the essential difference between the Tremont Street and Cambridge Street tunnels. The Tremont Street Subway was meant to simply direct streetcars off the street and, as such, power was always from overhead wires and platform heights were at ground level, necessitating the need to climb up into the cars. To the rivet counters, this makes the Tremont Street not a "true" rapid transit line. The Cambridge Street Subway, on the other hand, was meant to be a subway station from the start, with a ground-level third rail and elevated platforms ubiquitous to all other subway systems.
Cambridge Street Subway
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Cross-section of the Cambridge Street Subway in 1912.
This is the section that follows Main Street.
(Engineering News) |
The Cambridge Street Subway was yet another Boston Elevated Railway project and was the last subway tunnel opened in Boston in 1912. Intending to provide commuters with immediate access to those brainy boffins at Harvard, the Cambridge Tunnel was hampered by station requests and construction concerns from the start. Local mayor Walter C. Wardwell wanted five intermediate stations, while residents only wanted one station at Central Square. By 1909, this was remedied by having one station at Central and one station at Kendall Square. The other issue was whether to make it an elevated railway or a subway, with most of the issues stemming from the limitations of having an elevated railway creep and zig-zag through buildings above the road, rather than just a straight line underground. The opening of the Washington Street Tunnel in 1908 further cemented the BERy's resolve and so the Cambridge Street Tunnel began construction in 1909.
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Subway Car No. 0609 stops at Harvard Square in 1912, days before opening.
The MBTA's "Red" designation later on was chosen for Harvard University's crimson color.
(Bradley H. Clarke, Boston Globe) |
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1927 Osgood-Bradley Car No. 0719 was a later
workhorse of the Cambridge-Dorchester Subway.
Their 69-foot long (nice) length and three sets of doors
made them essential for heavy commuter service.
(Seashore Trolley Museum) |
No longer hampered by the novelty of subways (as New York had already caught up with the Boston Elevated at this point), the BERy's goal was to make this line completely on-its-own and incompatible with existing elevated railroads, an entirely insular system. The line opened in segments, with the first opening on March 23, 1912. This first section ran underground from Harvard to Kendall Square, then rose to use the Longfellow Bridge into Boston until Charles Circle, ducking into Beacon Hill to its former terminus at Park Street Under. By having two stations on either side of the River Charles meant the line could easily be expanded, and the popularity of having rapid transit access to Harvard University meant student commuters now had an easier time getting across the river. Even the rolling stock used on the new subway was bespoke to the system, and later informed the designs of Philadelphia's Broad Street Subway and the BMT Standards of New York. After all, these were the longest subway cars in the world at the time.
Relative Changes Since Opening
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A subway car emerges from the portal near Charles
Station in Beacon Hill, shortly after the Cambridge
Tunnel opened in 1912.
(Boston City Archives) |
Over time, both subways have been extended several times over as the 1910s and 1920s raged on in Boston. The Cambridge Street Subway received significant extensions into Boston by the 1920s, connecting through to South Station in 1916, then to Fields's Corner and Ashmont in 1928 under the Dorchester Tunnel Extension. Utilizing an old right of way of the Shawmut Branch Railroad (going back to 1870 and formerly operated by the Old Colony, then the New Haven), the line featured new "prepayment stations" that allowed fare-holding passengers to immediately transfer from subway to street railway without paying again. Granted, the MBTA would later try to mess with this system by introducing an exit fare later in its history, but that's another story...
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Lechmere Station when it first opened in 1922,
served by a "Type Eight" Center Entrance Car.
(Boston City Archives) |
As for the Tremont Street Subway, it began receiving extensions starting in 1898 with the Canal Street Portal (also known as Haymarket or North Station). This impressive four-track portal opened as a transition from "subway" to "elevated" as the line rose to meet the Charlestown Elevated at North Station (originally Boston and Maine's Haymarket Square). By 1912, the Canal Street portal served the new Lechmere Bridge via the Causeway Street elevated, carrying Tremont Street cars over the Charles River. The BERy subway cars met the WER streetcars at Lechmere Station, with long platforms to allow multiple-united streetcars and long subway trains to meet efficiently.
Public Response
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A cleaner, emptier, and not-at-all-congested
Tremont Street in 1923, with the subway entrance
off to the left.
(Shorpy) |
To say that the two subways (and the others mentioned later this month) saved Boston is an absolute understatement. Not only did the West End Railway and the Boston Elevated Railway open up the city to further development, if anything it helped the metropolis grow into the beacon of Northeast Business and industry you see today. Students commute to Harvard on the Red Line (former BERy Cambridge Subway); tourists and travelers alike use the Green Line to access the whole city (former WSR Tremont Subway), and all of them travel on the same century-plus old subways that once carried Boston. Some people, like BERy president Major-General William A. Bancroft, believed the subway's effect on the city only had a "moderate effect" on freeing up street congestion, and looking at the city now that's probably true. But then again, without it, America's rapid transit might have looked radically different than it does now.
If you could take a subway from the suburbs in Boston, where I live, to downtown in 10 minutes, that improves your life over sitting in a traffic jam. People should see that.
- Noam Chomsky
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