Green Line A

GREEN LINE "A" Watertown Branch
A Roadmap (1967-1969) of the Green Line A .
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Type	Light rail
place	Boston and Watertown
Terminals	Park Street Depot in Watertown
opening	1856
closure	20th June 1969
operator	MBTA
Route system	Green Line
Legend Green Line B , C , D and E from Government Center , North Station and Lechmere Park Street Loop A Park Street Red Line Boylston formerly Pleasant Street Portal Arlington Copley Green Line E to Heath Street Hynes Convention Center Kenmore Green Line D to Riverside Green Line C to Cleveland Circle Blandford Street Boston University East Boston University Central Boston University West Saint Paul Street Pleasant Street Babcock Street Green Line B to Boston College Packards Corner further stops Union Square further stops Oak Square Oak Square Loop further stops Newton Corner further stops A Watertown Yard Watertown Yard

The Green Line "A" or Watertown Branch was a subway tram and a branch of the MBTA - Green Line in the area around Boston in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . In 1969 it was replaced by bus route no. 57. However, the track remained intact until March 1994.

history

Emergence

This 1916 map shows the turning loop at Braves Field

The Green Line A began as a horse tram as a branch of the Cambridge Horse Railroad . This split off in Central Square in Cambridge and crossed the Charles River on the River Street Bridge towards Allston . From there, the route continued through Union Square and was extended to Oak Square in central Brighton in 1858 . The section east of Union Square later became part of the route of bus route 64.

The first electric trams ran between the Allston depot, northeast of Union Square, and Park Street Station in the city center. The rails ran south on Harvard Street , Beacon Street , Massachusetts Avenue, and Boylston Street . The new cars were put into operation on January 1, 1889.

On June 13, 1896, the tracks were extended from Union Square along North Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue to Kenmore Square , where they merged with the existing tracks on Beacon Street . In the same year the western terminus was extended to Newton Corner and started operating on May 21, 1898. On December 9, 1912, the line was extended north to Watertown , with the necessary tracks having been in place since 1900 and being used by liner services from Cambridge to Newton Corner . In the early 20th century, the route was also used to transport goods.

From November 8, 1897, vehicles used the Tremont Street Subway to turn around at Park Street Station over the Boylston Street Incline at Boston Public Garden . On October 3, 1914, access to the Boylston Street Subway in Kenmore Square was opened and the descent on Massachusetts Avenue was closed. The Blandford Street Portal on the Commonwealth Avenue opened on 23 October 1932, thus marking the last change of the route of the Green Line A . In 1941, the new PCC cars , which replaced the old material, were first used on this line .

Before the Green Line was assigned its current letters in 1967 , Green Line A ran as 69 Watertown-Park Street . The letter "A" was assigned to the line because it has the northernmost route.

Closure of the route

Remnants of the Green Line A tracks at Packard's Corner

The opening of the Green Line D in 1959 meant that the trams in Cambridge from Harvard Square were replaced by trolleybuses . The existing PCC cars were assigned to Green Line D. However, these were from the 1940s and the fleet consisted of five different PCC types, so that the maintenance and repair work was very complex. In the late 1960s, age-related failures and a lack of spare parts caused a shortage of vehicles for the Green Line , so that the MBTA closed the Green Line A "on a trial basis". The closure affected the Green Line A mainly because it was on the way between Watertown and Packard's Corner for most of the time and there were already considerations at the time to end the line service at Packard's Corner . The last trams ran on the route on June 20, 1969 and were replaced the following day by the bus route 57 Watertown-Kenmore via Newton and Brighton .

However, the rails themselves remained in use for several decades after 1969 in order to be able to continue to reach the depot in Watertown. The overhead line was only dismantled in March 1994 . The tracks were last used in 1993 to overtake the Ashmont – Mattapan High Speed ​​Line PCC cars at the Watertown depot. The rest of the facilities were removed in 1996 as part of a resurfacing on North Beacon Street . Remnants of the tracks are still present at the Watertown Yard bus terminal and at the Packard's Corner stop , where Green Line A branched off from Green Line B. The stump there used to be much longer and was used as a siding for wagons that were no longer roadworthy.

There have also been efforts to reactivate Green Line A in order to create a continuous connection from the north to the city center - so far, a change at Kenmore station is required. But this solution was judged to be too costly and less safe compared to the bus route.

Map of the route

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Moore, Scott: The Watertown Line . NETransit. Archived from the original on February 3, 2002. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
2. ^ Moore, Scott: Boston's Green Line Crisis . NETransit. Archived from the original on February 22, 2007. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
3. ↑ ^{a b} St. Martin, Greg: Where did the 'A' Line go, anyway? . In: Boston Metro , June 21, 2009. Archived from the original on May 3, 2010. Retrieved September 10, 2011. 
4. ↑ Belcher, Jonathon: Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA District (PDF; 911 kB) July 20, 2011. Accessed September 10, 2011.

Web links

Commons : Green Line A branch  - collection of images