TPR37777 wrote:
I recently visited Readville and noticed that the old commuter rail maps did not show the Fairmount line running from Readville up to South Station via Dorchester as it does now. Was this line out of service for a time or was it frieght only?
How old are these commuter maps? The history of this line is that it was the New York & New England's mainline to Willimantic and beyond. It was also the route of the famous "White Train". Around the turn of the last century, the NY&NE was leased by the New Haven RR.
Passenger service stopped, IIRC, during the Great Depression, yet re-started during WWII. Passenger service again stopped after the war.
All during the NH era of control, the "Fairmount" line (A.K.A. the Midland Division, or the Dorchester Branch) was NH's primary freight route into the South Boston Freight Terminal (the largest single RR terminal in the USA at one time). Most freights would go off the Main (the Shore Line Route) at Readville and head up the line into Southie.
Then along came Penn Central, then Conrail. Both roads decided to move out of Southie a little at a time. Right now, the only freight traffic up the Dorchester is local traffic serving whatever freight is left on the line and in Southie (mainly a frozen food warehouse near Southampton St.). Readville freight yard serves right now as a local maintenance base for CSX, plus 4 locals call out of Readville, as well, last I heard.
During all this, Amtrak decided to rebuild the elevated Shore Line Route (the Boston & Providence RR) into a depressed RoW in the late 1970's-early 1980's. When they did so, they completely closed the Shore Line, and re-routed all trains up the Dorchester after major upgrades. To salve the residents, the MBTA promised to continue passenger service on the line after Amtrak moved back onto the Shore Line. IIRC, in 1987, the work was complete, and the Fairmount service was started.
Also I noticed a sizeable freight yard complete with balloon track abandoned next to the bus yard, was this an old NYNHH yard?
It's not a former freight yard. That was the primary railroad shops for the New Haven RR. Readville Shops, built in 1900, was a sprawling heavy maintenance facility, repairing steam engines, passenger and freight cars (and building more than a few cars, too). Later, diesels were repaired there. The shops were closed in 1957 in a cost-cutting measure, and all shops were concentrated in New Haven.
Most of the larger buildings are still there today. If you noticed a low lying building with a sawtooth roof profile, that's the former passenger car shop. There was a transfer table behind it (last I saw, the building was being used by the Boston School Dept. for bus storage and painted bright blue). There are a couple ex-NH buildings behind that, too, mostly in use by various other companies.
The freight car shops are long gone (this is what the balloon track went around).
The largest building, the Locomotive Erecting Shop, is on the other side of the Franklin line embankment. Not so long ago, it was a really in bad shape, but since, John Hancock has bought the whole structure and has turned it into office space. The ol' building hasn't looked this good in decades.
I also could not find a tower, was there one at one time?
There were a couple. S.S. 180 (Readville Transfer) and S.S. 181 (Readville). S.S. 180 was down towards Rt. 128, and S.S. 181 was down at the other end.
Next stop Palmer..........
The new restaurant in the station serves good food, and I recommend them highly.
