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East Boston used to have trolleys, too
By adamg on Mon, 11/17/2014 - 7:30am
Allen Morrison posted a copy of 16-mm footage of trolleys running from Maverick to Suffolk Downs in 1949.
H/t A.P. Blake.
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Comments
Very cool
I'm about to get on one of those bustituted trolleys.. the 116/117!
Also confirms that there were center tracks at Maverick Station.
Maybe someone can answer this for me.. if the trolleys were served by low platforms, how can this be? I was under the impression that the east boston tunnel along with State, Court (defunct), Atlantic (Aquarium) stations were all converted to heavy rail in the 1920s.. So did maverick have a high platform or a lower one or both?
Track elevation
The rapid transit tracks were lower. This way, the platform was flat and level, but served both.
Maverick
And if I'm reading the history correctly, Maverick (the underground station) didn't exist until the rapid transit conversion. Trolleys simply exited and stopped on the surface during the 20 years when they ran under the harbor.
Indeed
The set up was similar to today's Blandford Street, but with more men in bowlers and fewer bros.
Track Remnant
If you go to the Suffolk Downs station now, just outside the exit there remains a remnant of that track seen starting at around 7:20. It is entirely unconnected to anything, of course, and runs from the top of the hill down to the gate to the Suffolk property only.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Plug
The Seashore Trolley Museum, in Kennebunkport, Maine, is home to a couple of the type of streetcars seen here. Members get an opportunity, once each year, to receive lessons and drive a trolley. When I was a member a few years back, I got the opportunity to actually drive one of these on the museum's private tracks. Very cool.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Seashore Trolley Museum
A great place.
There's another museum of this sort in Connecticut: http://www.ct-trolley.org/collection/overview.php
Have you ever checked this out? (We haven't yet).
Connecticut
No, we've never been to that one (although I have heard good things about it.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Next summer....
.... maybe. ;~}
Acrtually more on the way to New Haven. And I would note we haven't been to Mystic Seaport since 1980 or so..... Beed to visit our neighboring state more.
All those kerchiefs!
And the plaid jackets! This video is beautiful for the fashions alone.
And fedoras on the men !
And fedoras on the men !
The soundtrack doesn't fit
The images are great, with the sound muted. The music sounds like a cross between the Cheers theme and some piano bar. Why not find some 1940s music to go along with the images?
There's one in every crowd.
There's one in every crowd.
I Enjoyed The Music
To each his (or her) own, I suppose.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Central Square
2:42-2:50 appears to be Meridian St. into Central. The "unique" traffic patterns there make sense to me now when envisioning trolley cars rolling through and having to split off.
Why it's still one of the dumbest traffic patterns in the city today, however, is beyond me.
I still
I still think the worst in the metro area is Wellington Circle in Medford or Bell Circle in Revere.. half rotary, half five way intersection... like someone else has said.. I swear road designers in MA in the 1960s all were on LSD with some of the crazy roadways we have.
Maverick Station...
I used to walk from Orient Avenue down to Orient Heights Station then take the train to Maverick Station and then take the bus to St. Rose Elementary School in Chelsea from first grade to sixth grade almost every weekday in the early 80s. Without adult supervision. That would never happen today.
Why couldn't that happen today?
Has the bus line or the school closed since then?
I'm amazed at how fast the
I'm amazed at how fast the small crowds of people board these trolleys. I don't know if they're dropping nickels into the farebox, or if they'll pay later on exit or something. But whatever it was, by 1949 the MTA or its predecessors had figured this stuff out.
It's too bad we've come so far backwards today.
Until the late 1970s
on express bus routes from Haymarket to Lynn and Salem, passengers on outbound buses paid when they got off in Lynn or Salem. Passengers on inbound buses to Boston paid as they got on.
Can't speak for other express buses out of Boston, but I presume they were similar.
Lacey's Dept. Store on
Lacey's Dept. Store on Bennington street 1949 , all the Italian americans some Irish boarding trolleys going to and from their blue collar jobs, wearing their humphry bogart hats and driving their Humphry bogart era cars, classic!
Free Transfers
The right of free bodily transfer was still in effect. Folks who had already paid to ride the subway just walked across the platform and jumped on the trolley. Likewise, people destined for downtown - having paid on the car - just walked onto the train. Folks coming from the street and Rapid Transit Inc. buses paid at turnstiles upstairs.
Free transfers and transfer points were abolished in October 1961. They wouldn't return until 2003.
Bus-to-bus transfers, with
Bus-to-bus transfers, with paper slips, began in December 2000.
Subway-bus transfers began in January 2007, when the Charlie system was completed.
Before that, there were a few stations with special free transfer arrangements to replace discontinued rail services, including the 39 at Copley, and certain buses to the Orange Line.