transit man wrote:I've been following the thread on Adams Square and have a few questions that Boston rail enthusiasts/historians hopefully can answer.
1. The written descriptions and old maps have been very helpful in identifying the old alignment. Using the current Government Center station as a reference point (including stairways, businesses etc.), was the original Scollay Square station located within the existing Government Center station? If not, where did northbound cars from Park Street turn onto the old alignment? Was the Scollay Square station designed as two parallel tracks with side/island platforms or similar to the "triangular" design of the current station. Was the southbound track realigned?
2. Leaving Haymarket going south, are there any distinguishing features identifying where the old and new alignments met?
3. What was the time frame for the subway realignment project?
4. Was service operated during this period?
Any responses to my questions is appreciated.
Boston Transit Commission records on Google books has lots of info on the old station's design:
Platform layout (2 pages):
http://books.google.com/books?id=j8QpAA ... &q&f=false. Note this is pre-Blue Line days so there isn't a lower level or stairs to it. And note that the tiny outbound-side platform was extended multiple times in the old station to fit more and longer cars, so it didn't stay that narrow.
Photo, Northbound thru-service platform (looking north in thru-service direction to Adams, to demolished tunnel), 1898:
http://books.google.com/books?id=j8QpAA ... &q&f=false.
Photo, Brattle Loop platform (looking back to Haymarket), 1898:
http://books.google.com/books?id=j8QpAA ... &q&f=false. The platform at the right is still there in original condition behind the cinderblock wall. If you're ever on an inbound train from Haymarket that has to turn at GC for some reason, you get off on the 1898 loop platform and then walk around the end of the wall to transfer cross-platform.
Photo, Brattle Loop platform (looking opposite direction), 1898:
http://books.google.com/books?id=j8QpAA ... &q&f=false
Ward Map of Scollay Square, 1938, showing track layout:
http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=4812. To orient yourself to a Google Map of today, Cambridge St., Court St., State St., and everything behind them is still here. Hanover ran straight as an arrow through to Cambridge St. That's where the current inbound tunnel runs...it was built cut-and-cover in 1898 under Hanover. Former Cornhill St. can be traced by the edges of all the buildings on the Court St. side of City Hall Plaza. Washington St. continued straight as an arrow until it intersected Friend St. (which iself continued in straight as an arrow) on an angle. Adams Square was on the intersection of Cornhill and Washington, and the two tunnels met again on-alignment to Haymarket at the intersection of Washington and Hanover. You can see why it needed to be demolished...it ran smack through the center of new City Hall.
The 1963 outbound tunnel is straighter and basically just cuts a gentle S-curve across the plaza, zig-zagging around the northwest corner of the City Hall foundation and then rejoining the inbound tunnel at the same spot...the old intersection of Washington and Hanover. It's about half as long a tunnel because it doesn't do the around-the-block detour anymore, and you can sort of trace in an oval where the new, tighter loop is underneath the part of the Plaza where outdoor rallies are held.
At the station the platforms were contained pretty much in their entirety underneath Cambridge St. in the old Square, and the Cambridge/Cornhill/Court intersection was maybe 50 feet further north than it is now. If you trace Ashburton Place straight through the State Supreme Court building on a line you re-trace a deleted street on the other side of the building that met Tremont, Court, and Cambridge at the intersection. That intersection would be at the top tip of the current triangle traffic island, and the outbound track made the turn down Cornhill right here through basically what's now the U-turn lane on Cambridge St. Main headhouse entrance is right across the U-turn lane where the brick median on Cambridge St. starts, secondary headhouse is halfway to the old Cambridge/Hanover intersection...i.e. about where the FedEx Kinkos is today. The emergency exit on the new 6-car extension of the Blue Line platform used to feed this 2nd headhouse, and whenever GC gets renovated they're going to poke it back up to the surface as a small Blue-only unstaffed entrance on the plaza.
The platforms themselves are a mix of old and new alignment, but it is still the same station it was before and it stayed open the whole time during construction.
The outbound side of the triangle platform didn't need to change much because the turn down Cornhill happened in the tunnel. At most there might've been some platform extending and minor realignment at the far Lechmere end of the platform. The near (Park St.) end is same as it ever was. Going through there on a train to Haymarket in '63 the new and old tunnels split a few dozen feet past the station and would've looked something like the Orange Line new/old tunnel split at Chinatown (if you went the wrong way on the inbound side). One tunnel (the new one) going straightish to Haymarket, and one tunnel (the old one) peeling right to Adams. Once the Adams tunnel was demolished they just sealed the wall with the same finish as the rest of the tunnel. It wasn't a false-wall cover-up like the Red Line at Harvard where the old-alignment tunnel was abandoned intact; this connection was demolished and filled in completely, and there's no trace of it in the tunnel wall.
The inbound side is the same 1898 alignment as before. Main platform changes on that side were the 2nd exit being demolished, and the false cinderblock wall was thrown up along the loop track. More overall space on that platform because of those moves.
Biggest changes overall were to the loop track side. The "additional platform" in the BTC diagrams is of course still there and nominally active behind the false wall, but the curve into the main station had to be torn up and replaced because the new alignment had a much tighter loop that split off right after the station. They could also expand that side of the triangle for more breathing room because Cornhill St. was gone and that side of the station was no longer constrained by that side of the intersection. A few feet of wall was torn down at the end of the loop platform, the exits from that platform were closed (now used as a staff break room and other station facilities), and the outbound side of the triangle was substantially widened on that whole side with a new stretch of loop platform (the one the empty pretzel carts are stored on) extending along the wall to the edge of the station.
The new tunnel looks a lot different and more modern than the rest of the vintage Green Line. It's got wide heavy-rail spec clearances in case the Green Line were ever converted, and is a pretty bland looking rebar-enforced concrete box. The 1898 tunnels are tighter-clearance, have sloping walls, have the little duck-in safety depressions in the walls every few feet, and have arch-support ceilings. You can see the difference easily if riding inbound in the old tunnel passing by the the return loop. because old construction meets new construction for a few feet on the left wall where they cut to make the new junction.
They kept the new inbound tunnel 2 tracks so the whole subway stayed 4-track from GC-to-Haymarket like before (minus the extra Adams loop tracks that went disused after 1900). "Old" Haymarket, the station that existed pre-1971, was set up for 4 running tracks to serve the branches that used to peel off from North Station at Canal St., so the new alignment replicated that even though the inner tracks were rarely, if ever used when Canal St. became just a stub turnback in the mid-50's. "New" Haymarket, which has more standing room than the dangerously narrow platforms at the old station, was built immediately adjacent with the island platform on top of the old inner tracks. That's why the 4-track segment ends so abruptly before the station. When exiting Haymarket, look for the telltale cinderblock false wall separating the concourse from tracks at the end, the way the tracks peel out in a curve around the concourse, and that no man's land area of concrete, electrical boxes, and steel beams that the train cuts across to get into the new 2004 North Station tunnel...that's the old 4-track station.
The changeover happened start of service, Monday 10/28/1963. If there was any service disruption whatsoever then it was over that weekend when they disconnected one track and connected the other. It took until '64 to finish constructing the new loop, so they had to make do with turning then-5 full lines' worth of trains at Park, NS, and Lechmere in the interim. The station itself was a construction warzone much longer than that because of all the heavy surgery, but it stayed open throughout. Adams and all but that small chunk of old tunnel were demolished almost immediately since they had to wipe clean everything on or bordering the footprint of City Hall to dig the building foundation.
