USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Fifty years of Boston; a memorial volume issued in commemoration of the tercentenary of 1930; 1880-1930, Pt. 1 > Part 34
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
The Commission published its tentative plan in 1921 and made it the subject of extensive hearings and study. The final plan was not published until December, 1929, and in November, 1930, the whole subject was still in the stage of debate.
In New England there has been wide divergence of view on consolidation. In its tentative program of 1921 the Commission suggested two plans. One, known as the regional plan, would have put together the New Haven, Boston and Maine, Maine Central and Bangor and Aroostook as a New England system, allowing the Boston and Albany and Rutland to remain within the New York Central system and the Central Vermont and Grand Trunk in Maine to continue as parts of the Canadian National system. The second, known as the trunk line plan, would have allotted the New Haven to the Pennsylvania or Baltimore and Ohio, and the Boston and Maine, Maine Central and Bangor and Aroostook to another of the trunk lines. Each of the two plans had support, but the regional plan was favored by the majority of the public.
Space will not perinit discussion of the two plans. All we need say here is that the regional plan, when then discussed, was favored principally because
i
264
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
the New England publie wanted to run its own railroads and did not care to take the risks of absentee control. The strongest points in favor of the trunk line plan were the greater degree of competition that inight follow if two or more rival trunk lines reached into the central points of the region, and the greater financial capacity of the trunk lines to meet the financial needs, then aeute, of the New Haven and Boston and Maine. The subject was thoroughly studied by a committee appointed by the several New England governors and the report of 1923, an extremely valuable document prepared by James J. Storrow, general chairman, threw much light on the inany-sided problem. The committee, while not unanimous, recommended the regional plan.
Since the tentative report was published and considered by the Storrow Committee the situation has changed materially. That committee suggested for the New England railroads a program of "rehabilitation by co-operation" as something to go before consolidation of any kind. Since then the rehabilita- tion has been accomplished and the principal argument in favor of the trunk line plan - financial support from the trunk lines - is now without foree.
In its final plan of 1929 the Interstate Commerce Commission abandoned the tentative suggestion of trunk line control of New England roads and pro- vided instead for two regional systems, one, to be based on the New Haven, embracing all the lines in Southern New England, the New York, Ontario and Western, and two bridge lines into the anthracite region; the second, to be based on the Boston and Maine, embracing all the lines in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, except the Central Vermont, Grand Trunk and the main stem of the Rutland. To the Boston and Maine were to be added the Delaware and Hudson and the branch of the Rutland from Lake Champlain to Ogdens- burg, N. Y. The present status of the Boston and Albany and the Canadian- controlled lines would not be changed.
This plan has had little support. Public sentiment appears to favor the maintenance of present relationships and is adverse, or at least lukewarm, to any form of consolidation on a comprehensive seale. The principle of eon- solidation, when written into the 1920 law, was accepted as a desirable expedient because railroads at that time and until 1923 were failing to give fully adequate service and there was general acceptance of the suggestion that consolidation would improve the situation. Since 1923 the railroads as a whole, especially the railroads of New England, have made a remarkable recovery and the universal testimony of shippers is that rail service has never been better. There is, then, a disposition to let well enough alone and to shy away from experiments, the wisdom of which is debatable. So far as consolidation is concerned, New England, in 1930, is just where it was when the law was enacted in 1920, and there is little likelihood of immediate change. While this is being written (April, 1931) another committee, like the Storrow Committee of 1922, appointed early in 1930 by the New England governors, is studying the problem but has not yet made its recommendations.
THE TERMINAL SITUATION IN BOSTON
Since 1880 there have been many changes in railroad terminals in Boston. At that time there were separate passenger stations for eight railroads - the
265
THE RAILROADS
New Haven used the Park Square Station, the Boston and Albany and Old Colony stations were on Kneeland street, the New York and New England occupied a site at the foot of Summer street, the Boston and Maine used a pretentious building in Haymarket square, and the Fitchburg, Eastern and Boston and Lowell had their passenger terminals on Causeway street.
A Union Station on Causeway street was considered as early as 1887, after the Boston and Maine had leased the Eastern and the Boston and Lowell, but the Northi Station was not completed until 1894, with the Fitchburg Railroad as a tenant. That station served its purpose satisfactorily for a generation and has but recently disappeared. Its demolition began in December, 1927, and on November 14, 1928, the new structure on the same site was formally dedi- eated. The site of the old Fitchburg Station is now occupied by a modern, thirteen-story office building which on three floors houses the general offices of the Boston and Maine. On the location of the old Lowell Depot now stands a modern hotel. Over the waiting rooms and coneourse of the train shed of the new station there is a large arena, known as the Boston Garden. The station handles more passengers than any other railroad station in the United States used by but one railroad.
The project for the South Union Station, on the site of the old station of the New England Railroad, first took shape when the Boston Terminal Con- pany was incorporated in 1896. Three companies were party to the first agreement - the New Haven (operating the Boston and Providenee and the Old Colony), the Boston and Albany and the New England Railroad. Before the terminal was well under way the New England was merged into the New Haven. The South Station was used first in 1899 by the New England and Old Colony trains, then by the Boston and Albany and then by the Boston and Providenee in 1900. When built, it was the largest passenger station in the United States and for a long time it handled more passengers than any other station in the country. Its interior has recently been largely reconstructed, the train shed being separated from the station proper.
Coineidently with the construction of the South Station the Boston and Albany built new passenger stations at Trinity place and Huntington avenue, and the New Haven provided one in the Baek Bay. The latter was destroyed by fire in 1928 and was replaced by a smaller but better designed building.
The nucleus of the present extensive freight terminal of the New Haven road in South Boston was the real estate sold by the Boston and Albany to the New York and New England Railroad in 1881. The construction of the South Station interfered with the facilities of the Old Colony and the Boston and Provi- denee and the properties of the New Haven in South Boston were gradually expanded to take care of the freight business of the three separate lines. The New Haven now has extensive yards, freight houses and piers in that location and serves the Commonwealth Pier, the Army Base and the dry doek.
With the opening of the South Station the Boston and Albany developed its yards at Exeter street for passenger service and at Huntington avenue and Beacon Park (Allston) for freight service. In 1907-08 the Beacon Park terminal was completely revised and an additional engine house eonstrueted. Within the past two years the engine terminal has been completely rebuilt.
i
266
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
The revision of the Somerville yard has already been mentioned. To design a elassifieation yard in the limited area available so as to serve all of the Boston and Maine lines radiating froin Boston was a difficult problem. The solution refleets great eredit upon the late George Hannauer. It involved the reloeation of the main passenger line of the Southern Division and the removal of the greater part of what was known as Asylum Hill. The material was used to fill in the approaches to the North Station, formerly over water and supported by piling. The new elassification yard has had more to do with the improvement in service and reduction in operating expenses than any other single faetor. In 1930 a new engine house, with everything of the latest type of development, was put in service for Fitchburg division locomotives.
From time to time there has been publie agitation to eompel the railroads to electrify their lines within the metropolitan distriet. Indeed, the South Station, when construeted in 1896-99, provided a subway and loop for eleetrie serviee. The social advantages of eleetrification are obvious - elimination of sinoke, less noise, possibilities of using "air rights," enhancement of real estate values - and there would be eeonomies in operation. Besides, eleetrie operation would inerease traffie handling eapacity. Sinee the agitation was at its height the suburban passenger traffie by rail has not grown and the operating economies under the existing traffic are not now sufficient to justify the heavy additions to fixed charges ineident to eleetrifieation. For that reason the railroads entering Boston are not voluntarily planning for eleetrifieation and the Legislature and Publie Serviee Commission are not inelined to foree expendi- tures which would be uneeonomie and plaee a burden upon other traffie.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Professor Cunningham's thorough and comprehensive article was prepared before the report of the New England Governors' Railroad Committee, published in May, 1931, revived the old question of railroad consolidations, which at one time, as he observes, seemed likely to fade out of public notice through a general acquiescence in the status quo. The financial straits of the railroads, which have forced them to petition for an increase in rates and to consider a general reduction of wages, and the general needs of the New England section have brought the subject once more into the arena of public discussion. The disclosure that the Pennsylvania Railroad through extensive purchases of stock had obtained a large hold on the New Haven and the Boston and Maine Railroads also excited alarm, since it seemed to many to threaten the transfer of control over all three of the principal New England systems to outside interests.
The report of the Governors' Committee, from which Rhode Island dissented, favored a consolidation of the New Haven and Boston and Maine Railroads. In the discussion that followed, however, considerable sympathy was expressed for the policy of permitting the acquisition of these roads by competing trunk lines, the excellent service of the Boston and Albany furnishing a favorable precedent. The controversy still continues, with federal, state and municipal officials and the railroads themselves putting forth a variety of opinions, but none of the plans proposed has yet received such a preponderance of support asto promise a definite course of action.
A decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission, published July 22, 1932, provides that the Pennsylvania Railroad, under certain conditions, shall dispose of its New Haven and Boston and Maine holdings, but the order is not compulsory and it is not yet known whether the railroad will accept it.
1
RAPID TRANSIT PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
By HENRY I. HARRIMAN
"Fifty years of Boston." The phrase itself stirs the imagination. What changes have taken place in the world at large and in that relatively small segment of it called Greater Boston in the span of fifty years since 1880! The way of living has gone through changes almost revolutionary in so far as they are reflected in the day-by-day habits of the people.
That particular sphere of activity which I have been asked to write about relates to the developments which have taken place in the means of transpor- tation, particularly in the direction of rapid transit improvements.
Nothing is more important in the growth of a community, industrially, commercially and socially, than an adequate system of transit facilities. The prosperity of the inhabitants of any district depends largely on the ease with which they can move about. Their degree of health and happiness, too, depends in large measure on a good transportation system which permits them to live in the suburbs at some distance from their work.
THE BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY
At the outset, it is perhaps well to describe the present organization and extent of the Boston Elevated Railway. Since July 1, 1918, in accordance with the provisions of the so-called Public Control Act passed that year, the Boston Elevated Railway has been managed by a board of five public trustees appointed by the Governor of the Commonwealth. The primary reason for the change from private to public management arose from the financial difficul- ties in which the railway found itself in the few years prior to 1918, due to various causes, perhaps chief of which was the requirement, willingly accepted by the old company in 1897, that for a period of twenty-five years the fare be limited to five cents. In the face of mounting costs of labor and material during the war, this fare was inadequate. Other causes, which need not be entered into here, were undoubtedly contributory to the difficulties of the private management.
The 1918 Act called for a ten-year term of public control, but provided that it should continue indefinitely unless terminated by a two-year notice to the stockholders or unless the railway were bought by the Commonwealth, or some political subdivision, under the terms of the option to buy contained in the Act. Since the expiration of this ten-year period the Legislature has sought to find a solution to the problem of what should be done with respect to the basic organization of the railway. With the view of ascertaining public sen- timent on the subject, the Legislature this year (1930) passed a bill providing for a referendum on the ballot in the cities and towns served by the railway, plus the city of Revere, on the questions as to whether the operation of the railway should be returned to private management, or public control should
-
(267)
1
268
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
be continued, or the railway bought outright by the district and managed by it. The result of the vote on November 4 this year (1930) is as follows: For return to private management, 60,601; for continuance of public control, 109,166; for public ownership, 91,933. It will thus be seen that the voters in the district served showed a decided preference for continuance of the present method. The vote on the referendum is not binding on the Legislature but is simply indicative of the opinion of the voters living within the Metropolitan Transit District .*
Under the 1918 Public Control Act the trustees were required to operate the system on a service-at-cost basis, the fare being raised or reduced as the revenues were insufficient or more than necessary to meet the cost of service, in which are included all operating expenses, the carrying charges on publicly owned extensions, dividends on the various classes of stock, etc. For the first year of public control ending June 30, 1919, there was a deficit of $5,415,500.13, of which $1,000,000 was paid from the reserve fund, $3,980,151.67 from an assessment by the Commonwealth upon the cities and towns served, as pro- vided in the act, and $435,348.46, a retroactive wage award made in July, 1919, from receipts of that fiscal year. From the first year of public operation to 1930 there has been no deficit. Of the original $3,980,151.67, which was . assessed upon the cities and towns in the district served, $2,630,818.32, or about two-thirds, has been repaid out of revenues.
The Boston Elevated Railway is a comprehensive and interlinking system of rapid transit, surface and bus lines serving the following cities and towns: Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Malden, Everett, Chelsea, Newton, Brookline, Arlington, Watertown, Belmont and Milton. The district served is estimated to have a population of 1,338,000 and an area of about 104 square miles. The total private investment of the railway as of December 31, 1929, was $113,500,000. The investment in leased lines was $1,147,000. The investment in publicly owned subways and tunnels was $60,550,000, on which the railway pays annual carrying charges of approximately four and one half per cent. The total mileage of track as of December 31, 1929, was about 473 miles, of which 57 miles was third rail rapid transit track. The total bus route mileage as of that same date was about 290. The railway owned as of December 31, 1929, about 1,450 surface cars and 528 rapid transit cars. At present it owns about 360 buses. Its standard fare is ten cents, with a reduced local rate now of five cents. About twenty-two per cent of the riders are now being carried at the reduced rate. The system offers transfers and interchange so that people of the metropolitan district can travel from one part of the district to the other. This interchange for a single fare from one line to another and from one class of service to another has been of advantage to the people of the district, and differentiates the service in Boston from the service in many other large cities. The total railway revenues for the year ending December 31, 1929, were slightly over $34,000,000. The railway carried 354,214,990 revenue passengers in the year ending December 31, 1929, or an average of approximately 1,000,000 a day, and operated 56,684,985
* EDITORIAL NOTE .- The disposition of this question by the Legislature of 1931 is recorded in a note at the end of this article, which includes a summary of the main provisions of the Act by Mr. Harriman.
METROPOL " TAFTERLAVINYLETTO
DERCHEST
2
AVENTE
AN OLD-FASHIONED HORSE CAR
i
MODERN ELEVATED RAILWAY TRAIN CHANGES IN METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION
270
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
revenue miles. The average fare per revenue passenger that year was 9.626 cents. The total number of employees at present is about 7,950. The total pay roll for the year ending December 31, 1929, was $16,090,000.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES IN 1880
An account of the changes which have taken place during the last fifty years in the transportation facilities of Greater Boston will need to be some- what sketchy, touching only the high lights over a period which has been rich in accomplishments. Picture the transportation facilities of 1880. Numerous companies were transporting people from the nearby suburbs into Boston and back again by means of the single truck horse car, sixteen feet in length and seating twenty-two passengers, undoubtedly a picturesque vehicle, but with its slow and halting movement hardly an efficient means of transportation. In 1887 practically all the transportation lines serving Boston and vicinity were consolidated into the system known as the West End Street Railway Company. In its second annual report the West End Street Railway stated that it owned 7,728 horses, 1,841 cars, and that over the 253 miles of track which it either owned or leased, 104,243,000 passengers had been carried during the year ending September 30, 1889, for a total of 16,573,000 miles operated. The total assets of the railway amounted to $13,929,000. A good way to estimate the changes that have taken place since 1890 is to compare these figures with those shown above for the Boston Elevated Railway.
On January 1, 1889, the first electric car line in the district was operated between Boston and Brookline. Electrification proved so practical that in a few years the entire system, excepting a few minor lines, was equipped for electricity. With the march of progress the horse car was forced from the picture, the last line in Boston disappearing on December 24, 1900.
TREMONT STREET SUBWAY
That the traffic problem is not a new thing to Boston is attested by the fact that street congestion led to the construction of the first subway in Boston. A careful study was made by a commission of what had been done abroad in the direction of subway construction and the possibilities at home. The Legis- lature, acting upon the commission's report, passed acts in 1892 and the next two years authorizing Boston to construct a subway immediately under parts of Tremont and Boylston streets. All the cars operated on these streets were to be operated underground and the tracks were to be removed from the sur- face. The Boston Transit Commission was created by the Legislature in 1894 for the purpose of building this subway, which is owned by the City of Boston and was leased to the West End Street Railway Company and subse- quently to the Boston Elevated Railway.
The Tremont Street Subway was opened to the public from the Public Garden to Park street on September 1, 1897, and the balance on September 3, 1898. This was the first subway to be constructed for trolley car operation in America. It is not quite two miles in length. It has four tracks throughout its length except between Scollay square and Park street. The two tracks
271
RAPID TRANSIT
from North Station to Pleasant street were used for elevated trains from June 10, 1901, to November 30, 1908, when the Washington Street Tunnel was made the connecting link between the two ends of the Elevated. This first subway not only meant quicker transportation for those using the trolleys but aided materially in clearing Tremont and Boylston streets in the heart of the city for other traffic, thus helping to relieve for some years what had become a serious condition. It met with immediate and great success, although a peti- tion circulated in April of 1894 and signed by many merchants and citizens declared that the petitioners were "unalterably opposed to the construction of any subway in any portion of the City of Boston, whether for the alleged pur- pose of accommodating surface or elevated roads, or both, being convinced that such construction would seriously interfere with travel and traffic, proving ruinous to hundred of merchants and in the end failing to relieve congestion or promote rapid transit." So complete, however, was the public favor won by this project that never again was it necessary to argue the general desirability of a subway or tunnel as a means of transportation.
THE "ELEVATED"
About this time the Boston Elevated Railway Company first appeared. Chartered in 1894, this company was ostensibly organized for the operation of a system of elevated railways on single posts, a system then known as the "Meigs" system. The original purpose was never carried out because sufficient capital could not be raised for the project. In 1897 the Act of three years earlier was amended, permitting the company to construct an elevated railway in accordance with such plans as should be approved by the Board of Railroad Commissioners. It was under the Act of 1897 that the present Boston Elevated Railway was organized. The new company was authorized to lease, and did lease, the West End Street Railway under terms approved by the Board of Railroad Commissioners.
Bear in mind that at this time the only rapid transit route was the Tremont Street Subway. The new company undertook to construct additional rapid transit facilities and to provide a unified system of surface, elevated and sub- way lines with a five-cent fare and free transfer privileges for a single journey of any length in the same direction. Under the 1897 Act, the five-cent limita- tion on the rate of fare was for a period of twenty-five years.
I shall now attempt to describe in some detail the rapid transit facilities which have been provided since 1900 either by the City of Boston or by the Elevated Company and to show how these facilities have contributed to the growth of Boston in shortening the time needed to reach the center of the city from the suburbs and adjacent communities.
The first sections of elevated railway built by the company were those between Sullivan square and Guild street (just beyond Dudley strect) and the Atlantic Avenue Elevated between the North Station and Castle street, a length in both of about seven miles. This construction was completed during the summer of 1901. Trains were operated through the Tremont Street Sub- way and on the elevated structures between Dudley street, Roxbury, and Sullivan square, Charlestown. Between Dudley street and Sullivan square
1
272
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
the running time on the surface had been forty-five minutes and the substitu- tion of elevated train service reduced it to twenty-one minutes. The Atlantic Avenue Elevated joined the North and South Stations, a convenience of great value to travelers who were passing through Boston. The elevated train service helped develop the residential sections of Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Dorchester at the southerly side of Boston, and the northerly communities of Somerville, Medford, Malden and Everett.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.