Expansion to double size of North Station by November(2006)

They could fill in tracks 11 and 12 and make a bigger waiting room if they wanted. Those tracks aren't connected to anything anyway.

If Spaulding Rehab is demolished after they move to Charlestown, those tracks could be connected. It would be a bad idea to remove them.

As far as I know the plans for Spaulding to move are long gone. Plus if they were to ever use them, they would put all new stuff in there anyways, that's the way the T does things!

Huh? Here's the official press release from Spaulding, from last year. And I don't understand your other statement.

MBTA3247 wrote:They could fill in tracks 11 and 12 and make a bigger waiting room if they wanted. Those tracks aren't connected to anything anyway.

I think that would be a bad idea. Leaving North Station open for expansion is the best thing; tracks 11 and 12 need to remain for that purpose.

sery2831 wrote:As far as I know the plans for Spaulding to move are long gone. Plus if they were to ever use them, they would put all new stuff in there anyways, that's the way the T does things!

At one point around the time the new Garden was being built the Spaulding was looking at moving locally . The T was then going to buy the land from the Spaulding, but I do not believe any papers were signed at that time. After that deal to move fell through Spaulding still wanted to T to buy the land. The Spaulding went as far as to either just threaten, or actuall sue to the T over it. In the end the Spaulding basically wanted to T to pay for them to move to Wellesley, I believe, and was hoping a lawsuit would get them to pay for it. In the end it basically came down to the fact that nothing was ever signed and the T basically won. My memory is a little foggy as this happened about 10 yeras ago.

Maybe that is what you are thinking of.

Spaulding will move. They are headed to a new facility about a 1/4 mile up the street from the Constitution, near where the Mystic and Charles River meet. It will be a few years before it gets built, however.

"New" benches have shown up in the expansion area. They sure look like the benches that were in the old North Station waiting room -- under the old Boston Garden. I wonder where they were being stored?

Diverging Route wrote:"New" benches have shown up in the expansion area. They sure look like the benches that were in the old North Station waiting room -- under the old Boston Garden. I wonder where they were being stored?

Updating... I just went through the concourse and there were master craftsman refinishing the benches. The decades-old graffiti will be gone!

Anyone have pictures of the old North Station waiting room they can link to? I never had occasion to use North Station until the Downeaster came to be so while the old Garden was familiar to me, the train station underneath it was not.

Diverging Route wrote:"New" benches have shown up in the expansion area. They sure look like the benches that were in the old North Station waiting room -- under the old Boston Garden. I wonder where they were being stored?

I was just by North Station yesterday and it's really starting to look good. When do we get our solari board? These benches look identical to the ones currently in South Station don't they?

The "new" benches are the same ones that used to be in the old North Station. They were brought out from storage.

I don't remember the old station having that many benches. Weren't the benches in N. Station a darker wood?

To go really far back (like 50 years), North Station used to consist of two large rooms, a boarding area roughly where the current boarding area is and a true waiting room located roughly between the present boarding area and the Orange Line / Green Line entrance. The waiting room was a large room about the size of the current boarding area. It was two stories high with a balcony running around it. The main floor had maybe ten long double-sided benches in dark wood, each labelled with a train name, such as "Red Wing." I remember that one especially, as our family agreement was that should we get separated, we would each return to the "Red Wing bench." I doubt very much that these benches still exist anywhere, but the mention of benches in this thread brought back memories of that waiting area.

I very much remember the wooden benches, back when the station was in Boston Garden, but I don't remember the balcony.