Yawkey – Brookline railway
| Yawkey MA-Brookline MA | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brookline Village Station
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 2.2 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dual track : | entire route | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Society: | MBTA (tram) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The railway line Yawkey-Brookline is a former railway - and today's light rail route in Massachusetts ( United States ). It is 2.2 kilometers long and connects the city of Brookline to the Boston – Worcester railway . The standard-gauge line belongs to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority , which operates the Green Line D , a double-track light rail line, on it. Rail traffic on the route has been shut down.
history
The line was built as a branch line ("Brookline Branch") by the Boston and Worcester Railroad and opened in 1848. The trains always drove through to the terminus in Boston. In 1867 the Boston & Worcester merged with other companies to form the Boston and Albany Railroad , which also took over the branch line to Brookline and operated from then on. With the takeover of Boston & Albany in 1900 by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad (later New York Central Railroad) initially only the owner changed, the management remained with Boston & Albany.
Passenger traffic on the route ceased on June 1, 1958. Immediately afterwards, the Metropolitan Transit Authority built the light rail line from the Kenmore Tunnel Station to Brookline and on to Riverside. A tunnel ramp was built south of Yawkey next to the railway line. Longwood and Brookline Village stations were converted into light rail stations, and an additional Chapel (later Fenway ) station was built near the tunnel ramp. The light rail went into operation on July 4, 1959. Freight traffic was carried out on the route until the beginning of the 1970s, from 1968 by Penn Central . The closure of the track between the tunnel ramp and Yawkey station (then Brookline Junction ) took place in 1976. The southern part of Yawkey station was later used as a parking lot.
Route description
The line branched off at the wedge station Brookline Junction , today's suburban station Yawkey, from the Boston – Worcester railway in a south-westerly direction. The tunnel ramp is between Miner Street and Fenway Station. The railway line continues in the cut or at ground level through Longwood to Brookline, where the terminus was. As early as the 1850s, a track connection to the line in the direction of Harrisville was built and from the 1880s the Boston & Albany suburban trains continued to run via Brookline over this route to Riverside.
passenger traffic
In 1869 there were 13 daily trains on the route from Boston and three more trains on Sundays via Yawkey to Brookline. In 1901, after being taken over by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and after the opening of the Boston South Station, 28 trains left this station to Yawkey and on to Brookline and Riverside on weekdays and seven on Sundays. After the First World War, rail passenger traffic collapsed more and more as the volume of traffic shifted more and more to the road. 1945 went to Yawkey and on via Brookline to Riverside Monday through Friday 16, Saturday 14 and Sunday five trains. In 2012, the Green Line D trams run every 6 minutes during rush hour, every 11 minutes on weekdays and every 10 minutes on weekends and every 8 minutes on Saturday afternoons.
Sources and further reading
- Individual evidence
- ↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.
- ↑ MBTA timetable for the underground and light rail lines (PDF; 68 kB)
- literature
- Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1995. ISBN 0-942147-02-2
- Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010. ISBN 1-874745-12-9