Trolley Thursday 10/8/20 - The Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad

Public beaches are such a fact of life in America, today, that any normal person would be up in arms at some rich person encroaching upon a public recreational land. However, prior to 1896, no city-owned beaches existed in the United States and, as such, it was a free for all. Even after receiving rail connection in 1875, "Chelsea Beach" was just another ownerless public common until the Metropolitan Park Commission (now the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation) assumed control and opened the renamed "Revere Beach" to the public on July 12, 1896. Since then, the beach has continued on with tens of thousands of people visiting its temperate waters every single year, and almost always on an MBTA Blue Line train. As autumn draws the curtains on one of the hottest summers on record, return with us now to the thrilling trains of yesteryear as we recount the history of the Boston, Revere Beach, and Lynn Railroad.

Pleasure Seeking

A woodcut of the Eastern Railroad's Revere station,
shortly after an enormous train wreck between the 
Portland Express and a local Revere-bound train, 1871.
(Public Domain)

Like its contemporaries in Coney Island and Salt Lake City, Boston's own boardwalk boomtown was always intended to be a pleasure destination. As such, it was important for transit companies to find a way to take passengers from the city center to the beach in as profitable a way as possible. Chelsea Beach rail service was originally provided by the Eastern Railroad, an old rival of the Boston & Maine providing service between Boston and Portland, Maine. After the Eastern was leased by the B&M in 1884, the Chelsea Beach branch serving the town of Revere (originally North Chelsea until 1871) was abandoned.

On May 23, 1874, the chartering of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad (BRBL) promised a pleasure-and-commuter line running from its southern terminus in East Boston, through Chelsea Beach, and onto Lynn in the north. At Orient Heights, a new branch served a loop in the peninsular town of Winthrop, three miles south of Chelsea Beach. The shareholders eagerly awaited the huge crowds of people that was to eventually popular both Revere and Winthrop Beach, and the rise of boardwalk attractions and hotels further heightened their speculations. However, if there was one thing that wasn't huge at all, it was most certainly the railroad itself.

Revere Beach in 1935, with the old Wonderland front edifice at right.
(Bill O'Connor, Boston Globe)

Big Investment, Narrow Views

An 1878 directory advertising trains between
Boston & Lynn.
(Peter M, And This is Good Old Boston)

From the start, the BRBL was not going to be an incredibly large railroad. Running huge standard-gauge trains that close to the beach could undo the area's beauty, so a narrow three-foot gauge was planned from the start. Rails were an incredibly light 30lb-per-yard. Construction was exceptionally brief, with the main line between Lynn and the East Boston Ferry Terminal spanning only 8.5 miles. The biggest infrastructural project was the double-track Jeffries Point tunnel in East Boston, which also guarded the southern terminal yard. A ferry took passengers to and from Boston's city center, across the Main Channel. Rolling stock was sourced nearby, with local builders Mason, Hinkley, and Manchester (later ALCO Manchester) constructing several "Mason Bogie" steam locomotives and coaches constructed by the Laconia Car Company of New Hampshire. 

Two trains meet at the south end of Jeffries Point
Tunnel in East Boston, 1910.
(Rich J.)

On July 12, 1875, the first trains to Revere Beach started running with three locomotives on the roster: Orion, Pegasus, and Jupiter. Three more, Mercury, Leo, & Draco, arrived the following year in 1876. From the start, the line was an enthusiastic success and crowds packed the "Narrow Gauge" and its connecting ferry boats to enjoy the sunshine. Competitors and connecting railroads began to pop up as well, all three-foot gauge, including the Boston, Winthrop & Point Shirley (BW&PS) and the Eastern Junction, Broad Sound Pier & Shirley, but a freak storm in 1885 forced the BRB&L to take control of both, with the Winthrop loop remaining the only extant section of the BW&PS. This wasn't the only freak occurrence to happen on the railroad, as on the evening of August 8, 1895, a fire at the BRB&L engine house at Winthrop Junction (Orient Heights) destroyed Pegasus, Mercury, and another locomotive. 

Rowes Wharf Station on the
Atlantic Avenue Elevated, 1940s.
(Digital Commonwealth)

However, a catastrophic fire couldn't keep a successful railroad down. By the turn of the century, business on the BRB&L had picked up so much the line was reconstructed in 1904. Gone was the single track 30-lb rail, replaced with 60-lb double track mainline that could handle more train than ever.. A connection with the Atlantic Avenue Elevated, with trains running direct to the ferry ports at Rowes Wharf, kept a steady stream of passengers coming in during the busy summer months. Revere also became a rowdy beachside town as well, with some of the biggest occurrences including a staged collision between two outdated Boston & Maine locomotives and the local Pines Hotel losing its liquor license due to the rowdy crowds on July 4, 1904. However, the party could only grow from here.

Finding Wonderland

By far, the biggest attraction to the BRB&L was the tragically short-lived Wonderland Amusement Park. Following the realignment of the BRB&L's main line closer to the old Eastern Railroad station of Bath House, the developers of the new "Revere Beach Boulevard" (now Ocean Avenue) decided they would take about 26 acres of land a little west of the tracks and the beach and create a huge amusement park.

Wonderland's "Derby Racer" wooden coaster 
nestled next to Revere Beach Boulevard, early 1910s.
(L.H. Abdalian)

No expenses were spared to create a literal "Land of Wonder", as the park sported an enormous "Shoot the Chutes" ride, a grand ballroom, a Ferris wheel, and an enormous wooden racing roller coaster dubbed the "Derby Racer". When it opened in 1906, the park was themed after then-popular world's fairs, with the rides similarly portable enough to move and shift when necessary. Unfortunately, such fancy rides were very expensive to maintain and this put Wonderland's management in a tricky spot. After only five years, Wonderland shut its doors and was converted into a bicycle track. It was later the site of a greyhound track in 1935, but this later closed on August 19, 2010.

A 1908 postcard showing off the glory of Wonderland, with Revere Beach trains seen arriving and
departing almost nonstop.
(Public Domain)

The Electric Peak

A newly-electrified train ducks into Jeffries Point
Tunnel in the 1920s, outbound for the beach.
(The Boston Globe)

The loss of Wonderland in 1911 did not stop the BRB&L from seeing continued success into the 1910s. By 1914, the railway was carrying over seven million people annually, which put it in competition with some of the bigger commuter routes around the country at the time. With the Mason bogie steam locomotives showing their age, management decided that such high traffic density made electrification cheap and easy to recoup. Most of the steam fleet was retired by this time, as the wooden coaches were outfitted with new end windows, control stands, and streetcar poles. This created the only three-foot narrow gauge interurban line in America. (Because most of it was on private right-of-way rather than on the street, which is usually the rule of thumb for interurbans versus streetcars.)

A map of the BRB&L in 1939. Confusingly, Lynn is actually
north of Boston rather than South. Best tilt your head for this one.
(Public Domain)

A near-fatal accident in 1925 as one of the
steam locomotives almost fell off the pier.
(Boston Public Library)

However, modernization was also the downfall of the BRB&L. After a disastrous 1914 lawsuit involving an eighteen-year-old falling off a footbridge over the railroad on Short Street, East Boston, and a near-fatal wreck in 1925 when one of the steam locomotives slid off the pier and nearly took the whole 600-person train with it, the railroad was starting to suffer financially. The Great Depression certainly didn't help as ridership dropped heavily and the new Sumner Tunnel below Boston Harbor circumvented the ferries starting in 1934. By 1937, the BRB&L filed for bankruptcy. After a hurricane damaged the wire and station at East Boston in 1938, the management petitioned for abandonment and that was summarily granted on October 15, 1939. The railroad was abandoned on January 27, 1940. 

A Renewed Sense of Wonder

A Boston Elevated Railway streetcar trundles
90 feet below Boston Harbor in the new tunnel.
(1904)

However, the story doesn't end here. Immediately after abandonment, the right-of-way between Revere Beach and Day Square, East Boston, was purchased by the Boston Elevated Railway for consideration of another standard-gauge high-speed trolley line, similar to the one between Mattapan and Ashmont. After WWII curtailed these plans, the new Metropolitan Transit Authority (better known as the MTA) revived the idea in 1947 as a rapid transit extension of the East Boston Tunnel. This tunnel, which opened in 1904, was built as a streetcar tunnel like the Tremont Street Subway, but unlike its predecessor, East Boston's tunnel was the first in America to actually go underwater.

A Blue Line "Number 1" train lays over in Wonderland
in 1967, demonstrating the use of catenary on the line
north of the Harbor.
(David Wilson)

After the tunnel was converted to rapid transit subway use in 1924 through the addition of high platforms, the MTA began extending the line to Lynn as the new "Revere Extension" of 1952 to 1954. Due to the proximity to the ocean and the risk of ice buildup, everything north of Maverick station (the first station past East Boston Tunnel) to the new terminal at "Wonderland" used 600V DC overhead catenary instead of the subway third rail. The second station north of the East Boston Tunnel, Airport, also holds the distinction of being the first urban transit connection to a commercial airfield in the nation, which made it one of the most convenient mass transit systems in America in 1954.

Orient Heights, the former Winthrop Junction
now serving as an entry/exit point for the yard.
(Old Trails)

In 1965, the line was renamed from "Route 3 - East Boston Tunnel & Revere Extension" to the more familiar "Blue Line" under the reorganized Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. The color blue was chosen due to the line's proximity to the ocean and the fact it goes underneath Boston Harbor. It currently only travels a small portion of the original BRB&L between Orient Heights Yard and Wonderland. There are plans and infrastructure in place to extend the line to Lynn, but budgetary concerns and other lines have put this plan on the backburner. Another ambitious plan is to connect the Red and Blue Lines together, but several factors maintain these two as the only MBTA rapid transit lines without any physical connection. At least we still have Wonderland.

Notable Rolling Stock

Now you and I both know I've packed so much information into the past episodes that it made it impossible to talk about the rolling stock that made up Boston's street, elevated, and underground railroads. Finally, I get to talk about them here! So sit back, relax, and enjoy a nice, easy tall through some of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn's, and the Blue Line's, notable rolling stock.

BRB&L No. 2, "Pegasus", poses for its delivery photo.
The enormous vertical lever controls the reversing gear.
(Source Unknown/Broken)

For the BRB&L, their prominent pieces of rolling stock were "Mason Bogie" tank engines. Designed to be both compact and powerful, what set these locomotives apart was the lack of smokebox support. The lower frames were designed to bend the wheels and cylinders away from the engine, allowing it to negotiate tighter curves without sacrificing power. These were popular in narrow gauge railroads like the Rio Grande, but also along the New York City and Chicago elevateds. When these fell out of fashion, the electrified passenger cars of the BRB&L took over. Not much else is known about what electric motors or control stands they received, but what is known is the voltage used: 600V DC.

A postcard shot of a newly-electrified Revere Beach interurban. 
The MU cables attach on the roof ends and the higher window on the left
is for the motorman. The trolley catcher is attached to the front.
(Public Domain)

"Number 1s" 502 pose at Eliot Shops in December, 1951.
(Boston Public Works Department) 

The cars that replaced these when the MTA took over were the East Boston Rapid Transit Cars, dubbed the "Number 1 and 2" fleet. These were built in near-New York fashion by Pullman-Standard between 1923 and 1924, with sideways bench seating and sprung-return grabs atop. A later series, "Number 3", were among some of the last cars built by St. Louis Car Company in 1951 and were built for the new Revere Extension. These workhorses lasted until the 1980s, when they were all displaced by the more-familiar Hawker-Siddeley "Number 4" that still serve the Blue Line today. Despite sharing the same hexagonal profile with the Orange Line's cars, the Blue Line's Number 4s are much shorter as they follow a more streetcar-influenced profile. 

Ex-BRB&L/EBT Coach No. 8, showing off its ribbed wood sides in 2000.
(Christopher D. Coleman)

Blue Line pair 0622 and 0623 (rear) pose in preservation
in Kennebunkport, ME. 
(GreenPylons)

Eight of the original BRB&L wood passenger cars can be found today at the East Broad Top Railroad in Orbisonia, PA. These were never converted to electricity as they were sold prior to the mass conversion in 1916, and of the eight, three (8, 14, 15) operate today. The Seashore Trolley Museum of Kennebunkport, ME, holds the most ex-Blue Line cars in the region, starting with original Number 1's 0512, 0513, 0546 and 0547 (which opened the new East Boston subway in 1924) and up to a pair of the Hawker-Siddeley cars as ex-MBTA 0622 and 0623 (both built in 1978). 

The North portals of Jeffries Point Tunnel, 2015.
(Pi.1415926535)

Of the infrastructure, the Jeffries Point Tunnel can still be seen today but the southbound bore is closed off. Along Webster Street, however, the north portals are still open but fenced off. Many former stations became residential houses, such as the stations in Thornton and Harbor View. The old car shop in Oriental Heights also still exists as a casket factory, but nevertheless, they stand as testament to one of Boston's most famous, and most certainly unique, mass transit railways.

Thank you for reading another Trolley Thursday piece, and watch your step as you alight on the platform! My resources included CelebrateBoston's article on the BRB&L, a Casemine Archive of the BRB&L's personal injury lawsuit, the South End Historical Society's article on Wonderland, and the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette's article on Mr. Todd Geig's representation of Lynn, MA in HOn3 gauge. I'd also like to thank the Seashore Trolley Museum of Kennebunkport, ME, for keeping the Blue Line cars preserved. On Tuesday, we finally get out of Boston to look at one of the cutest and most underrepresented electric railroads in Massachusetts: the Shelburne Falls & Colrain Street Railway! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) The MBTA Blue Line gifs were created by Alex Stroshane and are used with permission from his website. Until next time, ride safe!