Was there ever a tunnel under the Charles in the vicinity of the Longfellow bridge?
Railroad Forums
OHanrahan wrote:In a book i was flipping through about the West End, there is a picture of a tunnel entrance on Cambridge St. The caption reads "...streetcars on their way to Cambridge." Did these streetcars resurface at the bottom of Camb. sT. and cross the Longfellow?The tunnel portal on Cambridge Street was the west end of the East Boston Tunnel (today's Blue Line), which was originally built as a streetcar operation like the Tremont Street subway. Streetcars did indeed operate through that portal and over the Longfellow Bridge to Cambridge and beyond (Orient Heights to Harvard Square via streetcar - how cool was that?).
ferroequinarchaeologist wrote:It's s little off the track (pun intended) but there was - and I think still is - a tunnel under the Charles near Longfellow Bridge. It carried steam to MIT buildings.I think MIT has always gotten steam from its cogeneration plant on Vassar Street. The only walkable steam tunnel at MIT goes from cogen south to just west of the great dome; no others are needed because most of the buildings are connected.