Looking for Watertown (A line) info

F-Line, if you can't answer this question, no one can:
When BERy planned for the extension and conversion of the Green Line out to Brighton, they planned a large transfer facility somewhere near Warren St, IIRC. I remember seeing a fuzzy map once that outlined what it would look like and I would like to know if you know any of the details of this expansion?

I'm not sure where the tunnel would've let out, but it was supposed to be a multi-phase expansion with the first leg just involving burying the Comm. Ave. tracks at least up to Packards with the portal onto the A, not the B. Maybe the portal was as far as Warren, but I thought at least the first phase of construction put it at Packard's. The B would've been abandoned from Packard's to Chestnut Hill Ave. (it's 1500 ft. or less away from the A up to Warren St. so only the residents up the hill would be S.O.L.), and the C would've taken over the BC terminus via Chestnut Hill Ave. and the remainder of the B trackage.

Phase II would've then extended the tunnel along the A (whether 100% underneath that ROW I don't know) and ultimately meet up with the Framingham line at some point and using that ROW for suburban service out to 128 and a park-and-ride station/CR transfer. The exact ROW was still speculative, and BERy didn't live to see it planned out. I'm sure there were many proposals floated in the 40's when they were dreaming up all those extensions.

This would've all been done in conjunction with an extension of the Huntington Ave. tunnel to Brookline Village, then taking over the then-still-CR Highland Branch ROW out to 128. And you'd also have some sort of conversion of the Tremont Lines, probably with a tunnel extension to the SW Corridor, and the Lechmere terminus fanning out (as is the current plan) along the Lowell and Fitchburg ROW's to 128. The remaining surface trolleys--Arborway, BC/Cleveland Circle, Sullivan via North Station, and the Tremont lines--would loop and transfer at Brookline Village, Kenmore, North Station Under, and TBD (present-day NE Medical Center?)...plus maybe some sort of "71" trolley transfer from the A/Framingham line extension that would take over any remaining remaining surface A trackage that the tunnel ROW didn't serve. And THEN you'd get heavy-rail cars on the Green Line once all the branches were moved onto protected ROW's.

Part of the reason for doing this, other than to scale-up the whole rapid-transit system for the fanning-out metro area population and the need for park-and-ride commutes in the dawning auto era, was to save the inner CR routes that were being jeopardized by the failing financial health of all the private railroads (because this was decades before MBCR). As those went belly-up one by one all kinds of commuter routes as we know were being abandoned. The city could ill-afford to lose any service inside 128, so the rapid-transit conversion had a protectionism angle to it for the inner-suburb and outer-neighborhood stops. CR trains on the new rapid-transit ROW's would transfer at the 128 stops for local service, and any locos running thru to N/S Stations past that point would run express and skip the local stops. That way if any railroads were lost to bankruptcy only the far suburban commuters would be inconvenienced, and they could just drive on the new highways being dreamt up to one of the 128 terminals instead.

One thing I find interesting is that the Arborway line, which is pretty much going thru the same fate that the A line went thru, was still shown on the MBTA system maps long after it was "temporarily suspended." Where as the Watertown line was removed from most green line and system maps almost immediately after it was suspended in 1969.

I'm continually amazed at how train-hostile some business owners are.

You would think they would welcome the foot traffic they would likely bring.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote: The A would've turned at Oak Square loop, with the 71 TT being extended from Watertown to Oak Square as a trade-in for the 57 bus that preserved Newton's one-transfer ride to the subway (only Red Line instead of Green this time). Newton shot it down anyway, saying they wanted all wires gone (even though they'd just have to string up the 2nd wire in each direction to make it a full go). And that was the end of that.

If Newton was so against having the wires there, then there should've been a proposal to extend the 65 bus (which goes from Kenmore to Brighton Ctr) out to Watertown. Rather than extending the 71 TT out to Oak Square. Who knows, maybe there could've been a better chance of restoring service to Oak Square.

rhodiecub2 wrote:One thing I find interesting is that the Arborway line, which is pretty much going thru the same fate that the A line went thru, was still shown on the MBTA system maps long after it was "temporarily suspended." Where as the Watertown line was removed from most green line and system maps almost immediately after it was suspended in 1969.

Probably because system maps and the MBTA graphics as we know them today only debuted in on the system in '67 barely 2 years before the shutdown. Before that the lousy spaghetti signage of inconsistent route numbers and named destinations that predated the line colors were still in effect across the system. Stations weren't even close to converted to new signage by then, including a bunch of Green Line stops that had yet to be upgraded. The Orange Line Charlestown El was never converted to the new signage. And barely any surface stops had signage...you still had the striped trolley poles indicating nameless stops like the ancient days. So the system maps also didn't list individual stops like the white-dot Green Line-only maps do for all the branches today. In those days only the termini and possible short-turn destinations were marked on the map, like this one where the surface branches were depicted as just tiny little stubs: http://members.aol.com/ssejce/maps/67mbta.gif


So it was a trivial matter to remove the line. It was covered up in the few stations the '67 map was installed in (like Copley, where at least one map originally showing it remained until last year), and the updated maps installed in the rest of the converted stations just omitted it leaving a space to stick on a decal if it were ever restored (much like they stuck decals on the '71 spider map to account for the addition of the Braintree line). It wasn't until the T went to the current spider map style in the 1980's that there was no longer any provision for adding it back. Conversely they had been naming street stops on maps by the time Arborway was suspended, so those signs did get changed over to reflect the temporary suspension. Arborway's also a little different in that it had the Orange Line transfer whereas Watertown was a branch that forked off another surface branch and had no transfers en route (maybe not even at Newton Corner for CR).

Where is the Watertown Yard located? Is it on Galen St or Arsenal St?

rhodiecub2 wrote:Where is the Watertown Yard located? Is it on Galen St or Arsenal St?

Galen St. If you are in Watertown Sq, where the 70/70A and 71 and 59 drop off/pick up just go over the bridge and you will see the Yard, has a huge carhouse with a T on the side

Can't miss it

The only they did to prepare for subday entension was to widen the road and thats why the road was so wide in front of that catholic school before St. E's. on Cambridge street.

If the line was underground till there, the Oak sq loop might be the end of the line atleast.

The T has a new video out about the A Line - Be warned lol...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2272yhp9bhs

Finally acknowledging history.