Railroad Forums 

  • Remnants of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England

Moderators: MEC407, NHN503

 #384574  by StevieC48
 
The engine house still exists and thats is out side of Orient Hts and is now a casket co.It is on the right hand side as you head towards Suffolk Downs Sta brfore the overpass.There isalso remnants of a bridge tressel behind the Heights shop jetting out towards Winthrop.The ROW also extends eyond Wonderland.Utility poles run down it.It is swampy in places. There is also another tressel that is by the GE Bridge in Lynn.You can see remnatns next to the bridge on the side the C/R runs.

 #384649  by sery2831
 
The East Broad Top RR in PA has a coach from the line too!

 #386753  by bigbronco85
 
Yeah the piece in downtown Winthrop is interesting. There is also an old support from when the line was electrified on the side of a building next to it.

 #386893  by eriemike
 
In fact, the East Broad Top RR has two BRB&L RR coaches. I have riden in them while down there. In fact, if you look at the trucks they have BRB&L RR molded into them. Very cool!:wink:

 #387112  by Epsilon
 
How did the Winthrop Loop work, routing-wise? Did trains run directly from Winthrop to East Boston?

 #391297  by Xplorer2000
 
Actually, there's one BIG remnant of the BRB&L that no one realizes:Revere Beach Boulevard. Thats right, the ORIGINAL R.O.W. is under what is now the Boulevard along the waterfront. They were forced to move the railroad about one hundred yards further inland, to its present daly location, sometime just prior to electrification,IIRC. Also, some remnants of the BRB&L drawbridge across the Saugus River are visible. On the Lynn side, they apprently use it to support a pipeline.North of that point, virtually nothing remains.

 #391317  by CarterB
 
I assume there is nothing remaining of the East Boston ferry termnal or slips?

 #394663  by Leo Sullivan
 
Veterans Road in Winthrop is on the old R.O.W. and, if you continue across
Washington Ave. you will be on part of the embankment that carried the line parallel to the shore. The cement blocks along the now eroded embankment are catenery tower bases. There was a draw bridge and there is another section of embankment beyond. The place where the Highland bus waits on Veterans road is location of the platform of Winthrop Beach Station. There is a bit of railing at Crest & Revere Sts. on the north
parapet of the bridge over the track. I wonder if the rest of the bridge is removed or still there waiting to collapse? Much of the R.O.W. in West Lynn is there, part of it was an Eastern Mass. busway for a while so, it is paved.
In Airport Station, near the doors, there are two good aerial pictures of the Orient Heights area, showing quite a bit of the trackage and, orient heights yards.
 #819022  by BostonUrbEx
 
I found one of the southern portals at Jefferies Point on Google Maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll= ... 2&t=h&z=20

Following what is clearly the ROW, I find the granite stone across the top of the northern portal(s):
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll= ... 2&t=h&z=20




I found this thread while looking for a map of the routing in Winthrop (and the railroad in general, too). I can only follow the ROW only starting from what-I-assume-is-Winthrop-Center (near Ingleside Park), into the harbor, and all the way up Veterans Road until the area where there's some baseball fields, then I'm not sure where it goes after that.
 #819116  by 3rdrail
 
There's an open portal for what I believe is the northern entrance portal on the Harbor side in what's now the MassPort Boatyard. It's a very treacherous area with many obstacles, and I tried to get permission to access it for years to no avail. If anyone knows a MassPort official who might give a controlled group access, let me know. (Don't try it without official permission and unless you have underground rescue or spelunking experience. You may get trapped in there and never be seen again. :( )
 #824300  by 3rdrail
 
There are two @ 400 feet long tunnels which go underneath Jeffrey's Point, one inbound from Sumner St., one outbound from the ferry docks just after Marginal St. At least both of the Sumner St. portals have been filled and blocked. I was in one of them when it was still open many years ago. As they were in the middle of the Jeffrey's Point neighborhood, they presented a danger to the local kids who would go in them, so the portals were blocked off and buried in landfill. You can see the arched top stone work still at what is now ground level. Walk into the old ROW from Everett St. You can easily see the old ROW on Google Earth. Look for the alley through the neighborhood that hasn't been built on- that's the BRB&L. The reason that the tunnels were built is that the Jeffries Point neighborhood rises on a hill. It was easier to make a small tunnel system for the BRB&L cars to access than it was to bring them over the hill in a densely populated neighborhood, thus avoiding the necessity of grade crossings, protection, etc. The gauge is narrow gauge.
 #921088  by mbtambta
 
3rdrail wrote:There's an open portal for what I believe is the northern entrance portal on the Harbor side in what's now the MassPort Boatyard. It's a very treacherous area with many obstacles, and I tried to get permission to access it for years to no avail. If anyone knows a MassPort official who might give a controlled group access, let me know. (Don't try it without official permission and unless you have underground rescue or spelunking experience. You may get trapped in there and never be seen again. :( )
Do you have a map link of the portal location? It would be very interesting to see.