Harvard Square Station and Tunnel Discussion

[crash575]

Does anyone know how the elevator project is impacting the yard leads? I would assume the elevator will be taking up some space in this area.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Does anyone know how the elevator project is impacting the yard leads? I would assume the elevator will be taking up some space in this area.

Extremely doubtful. The tunnel glances the station on a tangent with the thinnest point of separation being at a single point somewhere in the concourse (wall at the bottom of the main stairs?). Station's whole design had to swerve around it because the leads were active for full revenue service to Harvard-Brattle for all 4 years of construction right till start of service at the new station on 9/6/83. Anywhere they plop an elevator has to be somewhere the tunnel isn't for it to vertically reach the station at all.

[WickedPissah]

I was able to get a tour of the old Harvard platforms today. Here are some new photos to share. Enjoy!

[WickedPissah]

And here is a video of a train going through the abandoned station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlCYBrZiqyE

[danib62]

Great shots! Thanks for sharing!

[BigUglyCat]

And here is a video of a train going through the abandoned station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlCYBrZiqyE

Many thanks, WP! Most interesting!

[BostonUrbEx]

Wow! Very cool! Was this little tour planned out ahead of time?

[diburning]

I'd be terrified standing so close to the third rail.

[GP40MC 1116]

I'd be terrified standing so close to the third rail.

He isn't really... Try walking down the ROW with the power on.

[DavidBOC]

An interesting thread for someone like me who is a Cambridge native and took the MTA to school at Harvard Square when i was a kid. A couple of points:

One station on the line that has not been mentioned is Stadium Station. This station was the two easternmost tracks in the Elliot Yards. It only opened when there was either a Harvard home game at Harvard Stadium and on Thanksgiving Day when the stadium hosted the annual Boston Latin - Boston English game. Parts of the apparently solid concrete wall along Boylston Street (Now JFK St) would swing open. The Stadium Station had a token booth and fare collection boxes. My dad would take me to a lot of Harvard games and always to the Latin-English game (dad was Boston Latin '19)

When I was in grad school at Kennedy School ('84-'86) the old portal for the trains was still visible and if I recall correctly has a stone above the top reading "Boston Elevated R'y". That stone is, I believe, still in the courtyard behind the Taubman building at K School, which stands on the portal location.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

An interesting thread for someone like me who is a Cambridge native and took the MTA to school at Harvard Square when i was a kid. A couple of points:

One station on the line that has not been mentioned is Stadium Station. This station was the two easternmost tracks in the Elliot Yards. It only opened when there was either a Harvard home game at Harvard Stadium and on Thanksgiving Day when the stadium hosted the annual Boston Latin - Boston English game. Parts of the apparently solid concrete wall along Boylston Street (Now JFK St) would swing open. The Stadium Station had a token booth and fare collection boxes. My dad would take me to a lot of Harvard games and always to the Latin-English game (dad was Boston Latin '19)

When I was in grad school at Kennedy School ('84-'86) the old portal for the trains was still visible and if I recall correctly has a stone above the top reading "Boston Elevated R'y". That stone is, I believe, still in the courtyard behind the Taubman building at K School, which stands on the portal location.

There's still a BERy manhole cover or two around there, as well as a retaining wall of vintage construction next to the pathway splitting between buildings at the JFK school. Can't figure out what the wall was for since I don't know relative position of the edge of the old yard and shop buildings vs. today's layout.

[The EGE]

F-line, I'm actually currently working on such a diagram now that school's winding down for the semester. Trying to figure it all out based on old maps and the same few fuzzy photographs.

I can confirm the portal stone is definitely there, as well as a subway hatch on Eliot Street across from the IHOP. I've seen two BERy hatches; one's on the north side of Mass Ave somewhere around Bow Street, and the other is, oddly enough, at the corner of JFK and Soldiers Field Road - across the river from the yard - in the northeast corner of the intersection.

[Adams_Umass_Boston]

EDG Private message me or email me, and I can look to see what maps or plans I might have available at the Library I work for. You may have the same info, but maybe I can help. Just let me know the addresses, or roughly known addresses, and I can look.

R-

[DavidBOC]

An interesting thread for someone like me who is a Cambridge native and took the MTA to school at Harvard Square when i was a kid. A couple of points:

One station on the line that has not been mentioned is Stadium Station. This station was the two easternmost tracks in the Elliot Yards. It only opened when there was either a Harvard home game at Harvard Stadium and on Thanksgiving Day when the stadium hosted the annual Boston Latin - Boston English game. Parts of the apparently solid concrete wall along Boylston Street (Now JFK St) would swing open. The Stadium Station had a token booth and fare collection boxes. My dad would take me to a lot of Harvard games and always to the Latin-English game (dad was Boston Latin '19)

When I was in grad school at Kennedy School ('84-'86) the old portal for the trains was still visible and if I recall correctly has a stone above the top reading "Boston Elevated R'y". That stone is, I believe, still in the courtyard behind the Taubman building at K School, which stands on the portal location.

There's still a BERy manhole cover or two around there, as well as a retaining wall of vintage construction next to the pathway splitting between buildings at the JFK school. Can't figure out what the wall was for since I don't know relative position of the edge of the old yard and shop buildings vs. today's layout.

I cannot say with a surveyors certainty but based on my recollections from when I was a kid and also from when the construction was going on that that wall you refer to is probably the boundary between the subway yards, Elliot Yards and the trolley yard/barn, Bennett St Car Barns. Back when Stadium Station was operating i recall that the trains coming out or the portal made a fairly sharp turn to get to the tracks used for Stadium Station, i.e. the easternmost two tracks at Eliot Street. those tracks were parallel. to Boylston St (now JFK St).

The trolleys in the Bennett St yard would go down a narrow street from Bennett St to Mt Auburn Street between Brattle St and Mifflin Place. One side of this street is a long narrow MBTA buillding. I believe that the street is still MBTA property and not a public road. When they got to the corner of Mt Auburn they would go across down into the tunnel to Harvard Square. I seem to recall they could also turn left on Mt Auburn towards Watertown/Belmont but cannot swear to that.

[CRail]

Bennett Alley is T property and trackless trolleys to this day make that left turn you speak of, although pictures that I have of the alley show no tracks turning left there.

BERy man hole covers are all over the place. I've even seen a West End St. Rwy. one somewhere but I can't remember where that was.