Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Pretty gorgeous resto of the old viaduct drawbridge:

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I am expecting that the streaks of discoloration on the concrete mean they'll finish with some kind of power wash that will restore a more uniform patina?
 
Arlington said:
I am expecting that the streaks of discoloration on the concrete mean they'll finish with some kind of power wash that will restore a more uniform patina?
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I hope so. A stain applied to the new concrete would help, but I usually prefer integral coloring in the concrete mix.
 
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It's probably been way longer than the 1970's since the machine room was operational enough to do a self-contained raising without excessive staging to help it along. Former Boston Street Railway Association member Paul Joyce did a lot of the photo documentation of the derelict machine room, and he said all river traffic that would've resulted in any regular raisings was defunct by no later than the Korean War. If it was raised at all in the ensuing decades, it was for extreme-special occasions and took time-consuming advance prep to happen.

Track level has been sealed since at least 1976 when the trolley pole -only overhead and its former bridge-opening breakaway section was replaced by new continuous pole + pantograph -compatible overhead in prep for the Boeing LRV's. From that point on it wouldn't have been possible to raise the span without staging a weekend outage to physically cut down the wire and un-bolt a length of rail. Allowances for moving it in any way/shape/form have been gone since the mid-1990's when a fixed drainpipe (easily visible here) was installed across the span.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's probably been way longer than the 1970's since the machine room was operational enough to do a self-contained raising without excessive staging to help it along. Former Boston Street Railway Association member Paul Joyce did a lot of the photo documentation of the derelict machine room, and he said all river traffic that would've resulted in any regular raisings was defunct by no later than the Korean War. If it was raised at all in the ensuing decades, it was for extreme-special occasions and took time-consuming advance prep to happen.

Track level has been sealed since at least 1976 when the trolley pole -only overhead and its former bridge-opening breakaway section was replaced by new continuous pole + pantograph -compatible overhead in prep for the Boeing LRV's. From that point on it wouldn't have been possible to raise the span without staging a weekend outage to physically cut down the wire and un-bolt a length of rail. Allowances for moving it in any way/shape/form have been gone since the mid-1990's when a fixed drainpipe (easily visible here) was installed across the span.
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Makes sense. When it was first built, there was river cargo traffic via schooners that still had functional masts. Clearly that use case has been gone for a very, very long time. In fairness, I don't think Tim Murphy is saying it was opened with any regularity in the '70s; I think he's just estimating that was the last time it was opened at all (and, to your point, probably a largely assisted & slow endeavor even then). Interesting to know that it was essentially rendered immovable 1976-onward.

All of this aside, it's nice to know that it's essentially aesthetically preserved, control tower, catenary arches, and all - even if not in exact as-built form. Its great when bits of infrastructure like this can be retained as part of the visible fabric of what Boston once was.
 
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The Fort Point Channel bridges would have been a nice display of engineering, if they had maintained their machinery.
 
RandomWalk said:
The Fort Point Channel bridges would have been a nice display of engineering, if they had maintained their machinery.
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All of the road bridges over Ft. Point were regularly opened into the early-2000's because of Big Dig construction barges. They still opened even after Moakley Bridge's construction as a fixed span sharply capped the navigable height of the channel. It's only been in the last 10 years that they have all accumulated enough skipped inspections of their machinery to be de facto retired. There's IMAX video from a Big Dig documentary of Northern, Congress, and Summer all opening in sequence not 20 years ago.
 
The Congress St bridge lacks its massive counterweight. I can’t believe it’s operable now.
 
RandomWalk said:
The Congress St bridge lacks its massive counterweight. I can’t believe it’s operable now.
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None of them are likely operable now. But all of them were very regularly operated for Big Dig barges through 2001, with widely infrequent final openings lingering through '02-03. Check Historic Aerials. The 2001 view shows several massive barges working on constructing the Pike tunnel south of Summer, and the '03 view shows a smaller barge working on the retaining wall next to Gilette.

Congress lost its counterweight in its 2005-06 rehabilitation to facilitate refinishing the steel and repainting the whole thing silver. It used to be rust-red color. Historic Aerials '05 view shows the deck completely stripped and a large construction barge (which would've induced one last opening upon exit) placed on the south side of the span.
 
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Summer St @ Ft Point was redone as a fixed span c. 1997~99 (I walked/drove/shuttled it nearly every day out to the Design Center) retaining only faux tracks but no longer having the bogies on which to slide open.
 
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If you look really closely at this blurry screengrabs I took from the board meeting you can see an estimated Oct 2021 date for the Union Sq branch and a December 2021 date for Medford. Which is somewhat dissapointing given all the documents about the Lechmere closure had suggested an 11 month closure ending in May for Lechmere/Science Park. Most of the website still references shuttles ending in Spring 21 which let's be real was always very optimistic.

(And yes they're proposing another month long e branch closure despite having done a full depth reconstruction in that section a mere 12 months ago. I can only dream that perhaps this one will involve actually improving how it runs in mixed traffic)
 
HelloBostonHi said:
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If you look really closely at this blurry screengrabs I took from the board meeting you can see an estimated Oct 2021 date for the Union Sq branch and a December 2021 date for Medford. Which is somewhat disappointing given all the documents about the Lechmere closure had suggested an 11 month closure ending in May for Lechmere/Science Park.
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Yeah, but after waiting since 1945 for GLX to happen, a few more months delay to completion doesn't seem bad.
 
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