Old Allignments

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mass88

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As a lot of you know, the current orange line track is not the one that was in place years ago. Was the old orange line above ground? Or was it underground? I am sure this has been mentioned/discussed before.

At the copley station stop, there is an old map that has been uncovered during the renovations and I took a look around the corner at it.
 
The only underground portion of the "old" Orange Line was between North Station and present day Chinatown (formerly Essex). The New England Medical Center stop was constructed in the early 70s and sat dormant until the Orange Line was relocated in the mid-80s to the Southwest Corridor. The Northern EL was dismantled in the mid-70s; the Southern end in the late-80s.
 
South of downtown, the Orange Line came out of the subway around Oak Street in Chinatown, and ran as an elevated straight down Washington Street to Forest Hills. This ended in 1987.

On the other side, the Orange Line came out of the subway just past Haymarket, and ran as an elevated parallel to Canal Street. It then turned sharply right to run down the middle of Causeway Street, left over the North Washington Street bridge to Charlestown, then up Main Street to Sullivan Square, and a short distance up Route 99 into Everett. This ended in 1975.

For a couple of decades, until the late 1930s, there was also an Atlantic Avenue elevated, connecting these other two els along the waterfront.

Until June 2004, the Green Line came out of the subway just north of Haymarket, running as an elevated parallel to Canal Street. It then turned sharply left on Causeway Street, right onto Lowell Street and alongside Martha Road to Science Park station.
 
Thanks for the map and responses.


Would any of your consider the current Silver Line service to be as good or better than the old elevated Orange Line?
 
It's slower but it makes more stops. Hard to directly compare them.
 
Absolutely not.

If you want to see some video of the Orange Line Elevated check out the beginning of the movie "Fuzz" on www.hulu.com. It's a terrible Burt Reynolds film but shows several parts of the city in 1972-3.

Also check out this book, at the BPL, State Transportation Library, and probably most university libraries, which has the original drawings for the elevated, historical photos, and photo documentation both prior and during demolition:

Zaitzevsky, Cynthia.

Boston Elevated Railway Company Washington Street elevated mainline structure (MBTA Orange Line) : Historical documentation / prepared by Cynthia R. Zaitzevsky in association with Kaiser Engineers, Inc./Fay, Spofford & Thorndike, Inc.

Washington, D.C. : Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, Dept. of the Interior, 1987

319, 11 p., 85 leaves of plates : ill. ; 28 cm.

Prepared for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Historic American Engineering Record.
 
Well, the Silver Line may not be better than the El, but Washington Street is (finally) better than what it was, in my opinion.
 
mass88 said:
Would any of your consider the current Silver Line service to be as good or better than the old elevated Orange Line?
Click to expand...

I think most people would say the Silver Line is worse, especially when the MBTA promised equal or better service to replace the old El.

Honestly the only thing that would be an improvement would be a full subway but that isn't going to happen any time soon (this would be a great stimulus project but the powers that be are all incompetent political appointments).
 
Having taken both the old orange line and the new silver line I'd say the silver line is much worse. The bus lane is also a failure.

***RANT****

A few minutes ago I crossed Washington St at Worcester st.**The school bus heading south buzzed us even thought it is suppose to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk and we wre already in the crosswalk. On the other side the traffic did stopped, a silver line bus then flew pass us even though we were well past half way across the street an the third car back didn't want to wait so it zipped into the bus lane at I would legitimately guess 45 to 50 miles an hour and almost hit us. This type of thing happens frequently. I have called the police, school department, the city and the MBTA in the past but I doubt it does any good. I intend to raise this at my neighborhood meeting tonight. Others have brought it up before

I agree Washington St looks a lot better but John what's up with your area. I just walked down Tremont and it's one of the worst streets I've ever seen in my life(been to China, Thailand and Malaysia). Don't the business care? Many are long established and have no excuse for allowing this to happen - Hamersley's, Metropolis, Aquitaine? What about that mortgage place it's a disgrace in front - see what a s***hole you can live in if you get a mortgage from us.
 
PaulC said:
Having taken both the old orange line and the new silver line I'd say the silver line is much worse. The bus lane is also a failure.

***RANT****

A few minutes ago I crossed Washington St at Worcester st.**The school bus heading south buzzed us even thought it is suppose to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk and we wre already in the crosswalk. On the other side the traffic did stopped, a silver line bus then flew pass us even though we were well past half way across the street an the third car back didn't want to wait so it zipped into the bus lane at I would legitimately guess 45 to 50 miles an hour and almost hit us. This type of thing happens frequently. I have called the police, school department, the city and the MBTA in the past but I doubt it does any good. I intend to raise this at my neighborhood meeting tonight. Others have brought it up before
Click to expand...

Ive had the same problem on Park Drive / Buswell.

Ive had a slow moving MBTA bus honk at me even though the crosswalk is clearly marked, I was already past the half point, and the bus was accelerating from a stop.

Ive requested one of those "state law stop for pedestrians" signs or some other improvement but nothing has been done.

Red sox season is the worst. The suburban assholes think theyre entitled to speed home after a game. I deliberately walk in front of them and stop walking if they honk.
 
PaulC, do you mean the trash? It is terrible, I agree.

Part of it is the time of season, but it's always bad on trash day, on that block.

On the GOE / Aquitaine side, it's absolutely terrible. It has to be the fault of the owners / renters, because very few other blocks have similar problems. One of the other bad blocks is Clarendon at Columbus - it must be the fault of the owners in 75 Clarendon.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Well, the Silver Line may not be better than the El, but Washington Street is (finally) better than what it was, in my opinion.
Click to expand...
That's a matter of opinion. It was run-down and grubby, but vital, crowded and complete. It looked like a painting by Reginald Marsh. A big-city kind of place.
 
If the EL had undergone a massive restoration/rehabilitation program which repaired, replaced, cleaned, painted in historic colors, adjusted joints and footings for resonance, it would could have been quite elegant. If one has the chance to look at the original engineering drawings and station competitions (from Peabody & Sterns, SRC, McKim no less!), the EL down to the rather ornate patterns of rivets was meant to be as aesthetically pleasing as technology allowed in its day.

The state should have kept it in operation as a branch when the Southwest Corridor was built. The SWC itself should have included extending the Orange Line along the commuter rail past Forest Hills.
 
I believe the Orange Line was originally supposed to extend to Roslindale or even West Roxbury or Dedham. Either community opposition or budgets killed it, not sure which.
 
czsz said:
I believe the Orange Line was originally supposed to extend to Roslindale or even West Roxbury or Dedham. Either community opposition or budgets killed it, not sure which.
Click to expand...

The latter. There was a lot of opposition from people who didn't want the nature of the community to change. I believe the money was actually allocated but never used.
 
Also the Red Line was supposed to be extended along the Minuteman Path but was axed do to the same, a combination of community opposition and no money.
 
I believe the Orange Line was originally supposed to extend all the way into Needham but was axed in favor of Commuter Rail because Needham residents where worried that the Orange Line would make it easy for "those people" to get to their town.
 
The last expansion plans BERy had, circa 1945, before the MTA gobbled them up. From all those lovely people at railroad.net's MBTA forums.



Click on the thumbnail and then on the image a few times once it connects to imageshack to see the full size.
 
Great find. Those are some awesome proposals, many of which are the ones we're looking at today. I like the idea of a Red Line extension to Arlington .. that makes a lot of sense. I'm amazed that they were thinking of extending the Green Line to Woburn ... It's an interesting terminus considering all of the office parks up there.

This is the way light rail should be in Boston and the Metro ... have all spokes extend to the 128/95 belt and beyond that make it commuter rail.
 
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