Vintage rapid transit maps

Pardon me -- Park Plaza.

Don't count on loops to indicate trolley. Every rapid transit line ended in loops at one time.
Dudley-Sullivan, Bowdoin-Maverick, Codman Yd.-Eliot Sq. They had loops when there was
land for them. The High Speed Line was looped from the beginning though, I don't think there were
any single ended cars on the system when it was built. Convenience with trailer trains was
a main motive for early surface loops. After the trailers were gone, the loops survived because they were
useful of themselves.
LS

Here's the next batch, covering the early years of the Boston Elevated Railway. This includes maps for:

1898
1904 (Central Area)
1907 (Central Area)
1907 (Track chart of the entire system)
1910
additions 1898-1910

BERy was still building out the system at this point, with one exception (that I've found, anyway). Bonus points to anyone who can find it. Hint: it was outside of downtown, and abandoned by 1904.

Thank You for shareing more maps!

These are great!


I can open all of the maps except for the "1910 System Map". Do you know what might be the problem?


Thanks.

MBTA3247 wrote:BERy was still building out the system at this point, with one exception (that I've found, anyway). Bonus points to anyone who can find it. Hint: it was outside of downtown, and abandoned by 1904.

Nothing? No one? Well, you guys are no fun. The answer is that a short stretch of track on Longwood Ave was abandoned around the turn of the century, presumably due to a block-long spur up Brookline Ave from Longwood Ave being extended in both directions to Brookline Village and Massachusetts Ave (via Boylston St).

Here's the next batch:

1914 ownership map (showing the various lines BERy connected with and trackage rights among them)
1915
1916
1916 power map (showing where the power stations and substations were)

Leo Sullivan wrote:Don't count on loops to indicate trolley. Every rapid transit line ended in loops at one time.
Dudley-Sullivan, Bowdoin-Maverick, Codman Yd.-Eliot Sq. They had loops when there was
land for them. The High Speed Line was looped from the beginning though, I don't think there were
any single ended cars on the system when it was built. Convenience with trailer trains was
a main motive for early surface loops. After the trailers were gone, the loops survived because they were
useful of themselves.
LS

True, but in this case, the East Watertown station clearly appears to be a rapid transit-to-streetcar transfer facility similar to Ashmont.

I have a couple of xerox copies of some 1950's MTA system maps. You know, the ones that showed the rapid transit lines with a bunch of bus and trolley symbols (circles and triangles) at each station, plus all of the bus, trackless trolley and trolley routes shown as well.

I'll try to get them scanned and post them on here. Anyone else have copies of these MTA system maps? They used to be posted in all the subway stations prior to the MBTA forming.

MBTA3247 wrote:I've uploaded a pair of 1865 maps showing the Metropolitan, Cambridge, Middlesex, Broadway, and Lynn & Boston street railways, along with 1892 and 1895 West End Street Railway maps. You can download the ZIP file here.

I've compressed most of the files by varying amounts to make it easier to post them online (while keeping the pixel count the same). At least to my eyes, though, they appear virtually identical to the original uncompressed images. I'll upload more maps in small batches every few days, so as to give the rest of you time to comment on them and whatnot.

Enjoy!

Can you reupload this one? It seems to have died. (Thanks, by the way, for the other three zips, which are still up.)
http://www.wardmaps.com/browse.php?page ... ty=1&s=&o= has a 1937 map (as well as poorer-quality scans of the 1910, 1914, and 1915 maps in your zips). There's also a 1925 map here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 25_map.jpg. It's interesting how many abandonments there were between 1915 and 1925, usually of somewhat redundant trackage.

Done.

Thank you; got an updated link?

Huh, I figured it would translate to the same link as before. Here's the new copy.

Awesome; thanks a lot. I especially like the 1907 track map. Any idea what the line east of Fields Corner is, shown as being built between 1907 and 1922? This doesn't appear on any other maps, and includes a significant crossing of the Neponset River.

This thread is about that line.

I noticed an old map of rapid transit routes is currently visible at Copely Square, due to the renovations that are underway.

What caught my eye most was a routing of the Green Line shown as "A" to Watertown.

When was this in service, and when/why was this dropped ??

The map must be pretty old, as it shows the Red Line as running only from Harvard to Ashmont.

Thanks

Ken

PS We enjoyed a great pre-Christmas long weekend in Boston, that became even longer thanks to the storm (we extended it on our own, to avoid travel issues on Sunday).

Merry Christmas All !

Service on the A line was discontinued in 1969 due to a self-induced car shortage (the T was in the habit of scrapping cars that needed major repairs back then). An act of the state legislature (sponsored by whoever represented Newton) forced the T to finally abandon the line in 1994, with track removal occurring in the late '90s. In between, the T kept the line maintained enough so that cars could access Watertown Carhouse, which was still used for some maintenance. At various times, several of the Boeing LRVs were equipped with trolley poles so they could drag other LRVs to Watertown.