Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway

The Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway (Eastern Mass) was a streetcar and later bus company in the eastern part of the state of Massachusetts in the United States , which connected most of the suburbs of Boston .

history

The Eastern Mass was in 1892 with the start of operations of a route from Reading to Billerica founded. From 1895 a line was used that also drove through Wilmington on its route to and from Woburn . The trams were a very popular form of transportation for urban residents who worked or wanted to spend their leisure time in Woburn and Wilmington. Because of its branched network, the company had many connections to the Boston Elevated Railway .

In 1919, the Eastern Mass integrated the Bay State Street Railway , which in turn had been active in the Boston area since 1911 and had taken over the business of the Boston & Northern Street Railway .

In the 1930s and 1940s, however, the trams lost popularity in the wake of the growing automotive industry and improved road connections. The Eastern Mass then increasingly used buses and continued only a few of their tram lines, but these were finally shut down in 1952 and replaced by buses.

The Eastern Mass was sold in 1968 to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which took over the bus routes and mostly still operates them today. Routes outside of the MBTA catchment area have been transferred to the Brockton Area Transit Authority , Merrimac Valley Regional Transit Authority and Lowell Regional Transit Authority .

An Eastern Mass trolley with the number 4387 can be seen in the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Lisa Spinelli: Then and Now. Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway. March 25, 2011, accessed February 18, 2012 . 
2. ^ Massachusetts Interurbans and Streetcar Railroads. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 21, 2012 ; accessed on February 18, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ INTERURBAN RAILWAYS IN MASSACHUSETTS. Retrieved February 18, 2012 . 

literature

• George W. Hilton, John F. Due: The electric interurban railways in America . Stanford University Press, Stanford 1960, ISBN 978-0-8047-0553-0 .
• Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company (Ed.): Open and closed cars rebuilt or retained . Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company. National Railway Historical Society, Warehouse Point 1964, OCLC 12211087 .
• Roger Borrup, Carl L. Smith: Hyde Park Division, Bay State Street Railway, Dedham-Norwood-East Walpole Line, Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway . National Railway Historical Society, Warehouse Point 1976, ISBN 978-0-910506-18-2 .

Web links

• Jonelle DeFelice: Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Snow Remover P-601. October 17, 2011, accessed February 18, 2012 .