The Daniel Nason, and a Cool Carriage

This locomotive is the Daniel Nason , built in 1858 for the Boston & Providence railroad line, and now on display at the St Louis Museum of Transportation. She's a wood-fired locomotive designed by George S. Griggs and built at the Roxbury shop just north of Ruggles street, on land now home to Northeastern University. Daniel Nason himself was the Superintendent of Transportation at the Boston depot of the Boston & Providence line. If you lived in Jamaica Plain in the following years, you would have seen the Daniel Nason chugging through the community, and perhaps it would have taken you to Boston to work or shop.



This carriage was found at the back end of the Boston & Providence Roxbury repair shop in the 1890s and refurbished for display. It was reportedly imported from England, and is now in the hands of the St Louis Museum of Transportation. Is this one of the earliest railroad passenger carriages in existence? It looks like a horse carriage dropped on to rail wheels. Which would make sense, given that a horse carriage was the only model they had, and early locomotives were small, slow-moving vehicles.

I was puzzled at first by the presence of what appears to be footrests on the top front and back of the car. Would a railroad car have footrests for a driver? Then, I found this image:



Here we have a photograph of a very early locomotive and two passenger cars that are very similar to the one shown above. And this explains the footrests - people sitting on the roof!


And finally, this 1849 map fragment shows the Boston & Providence and Boston & Worcester lines crossing in the Back bay. Notice the cars - short, with three windows each. While the drawing was only intended to indicate a railroad line on the map, the artist/cartographer would have modeled his drawing on real trains, and the carriages here bear a close resemblance to the one shown above.


For more on the Roxbury locomotive works and George Griggs, master mechnic of the shop, check out this co-post on my Boston blog here.

The End of a Commuting Era

I've often wondered when the local passenger train service to Boylston, Jamaica Plain (Green street), and Forest Hills ended. I've read somewhere that ridership had fallen off significantly by the end of World War I. I was under the assumption that my father used the Forest Hills station in my early childhood (vague memories of watching for the train from our back porch on Spalding street), but I suspected that the former two stations had been mothballed quite a bit earlier. Now I know - and I mis-remembered my father's 1960-era commute.

Daily Boston Globe July 30, 1940

Three Suburban B.& P. Stations to Close Sept. 30

Request to Abandon Boylston-St., Forest Hills, Jamaica Plain Approved

Abandonment of the Boylston st., Jamaica Plain and Forest Hills stations on the Boston and Providence stations of the Boston & Providence Railroad, effective Sept. 30, was approved yesterday by the State Department of Public Utilities at the request of the New Haven Railroad trustees, who operate the road.

The action follows a recent hearing conducted by the department, which found that the stations were not sufficiently patronized to justify operation. The three stations were among those closed July 17, 1938, by order of the United States District Court, and subsequently re-opened under order of the State Department last February.

"We are aware of the destructive possibilities of enforced continuation of passenger train stops where passengers have made little use of them or are adequately served by other means of transportation," said the commissioners, "and are strongly of the opinion that in the problem of determining the question of abandonment of passenger stations which are not well patronized consideration must be given to those stations made use of by the very substantial number of passengers to the end that the large pubic convenience may be served and requirements met."

The commissioners pointed out that other means of transportation were "reasonably available."

Jamaica Plain Station - In Color

Photo courtesy of eBay.


This postcard is a colorized version - and a nice one - of a black and white postcard that I've seen somewhere online. Based on the windows of the Woolsey block to the far right, this picture must have been taken from the third floow window of the building across Green street. Based on the shadows, it appears to be late afternoon, early evening. It might be just me, but I find uninhabited pictures like this kind of spooky. Where are all the people?

The layout of this postcard tells us that it was printed between 1907 and 1914.

Jamaica Plain Station

Photo courtesy of Ebay


This post card comes from the Divided Back period (1907-1914) of postcard history, and this particular one was postmarked Feb. 20, 1908. We're looking south on the inbound side. You can see the layout of the stations and adjacent buildings here (upper right corner). At the far left, you see the mansard roof of a building owned by the Old Colony Railroad Co. To the far right, the houses you see are on either Everett or Call street.

Child Killed By Train - And A Memory

Here's a terribly sad story, and one that relates to the previous entry. Wherever there are train tracks, eventually there are train deaths. At the time, there were four tracks to the New York, New Haven and Hartford line - the two express lines in the middle, and the two local lines on the outside. At each station, fences were put up between the local and express linesto prevent riders from crossing the tracks and coming to grief with the passing express trains. Outside of the stations, there was no such fence, and the embankment would have been a magnet for boys.

So it was when I lived on Spalding street. There, on the north side of Forest Hills, was a widening of the embankment, and spur lines forked off to take parked boxcars. I was 5-6 years old when I wandered the embankment, walking the spur rails and climbing the boxcars. The trains would rush by with a roar and a palpable sense of danger, but I don't recall any deaths during my time in Jamaica Plain, but I did have to be rushed to the hospital. One day, while a group of us climbed the ladder on the end of a boxcar, the lovely little girl in front of me looked back down at me and quite deliberately stepped on my hand. Off I went, falling backwards to the ground. Apparently, my head landed inches from a rail. My father heard my bawling across the Hood's milk lot, and came and got me. Being covered in the black coal dust of the embankment, I was put in the bathtub, cleaned up, and then, presentable to the doctors and nurses, brought to the hospital. With a spleen not quite ruptured, and none the worse for wear and tear, I was sent home to deal with the DO NOT PLAY ON THE TRAINS! speech that would finally sink in. In later years, this became a family joke, along the lines of "Always wear clean underwear in case you have to go to the hospital."

Thus do I relate to the boy killed by the speeding train. A parent's warning never sinks in until after the advice is needed.

The connection to the previous entry? The little swimming hole would have been very close to the storm drain inlet shown in the second pair of pictures. No map of the time shows the pond, but neither do they show Bussey brook. Perhaps they filled it in to prevent boys from crossing the railroad tracks to reach it.



Boston Daily Globe July 23, 1910






Express Hurls Boy To Death

Thomas J. Kevill Hit at Forest Hills.

On Way to Swimming Pool He Tried to Cross Tracks.

Third Fatal Accident in Last Two Days.


The third death by accident in the West Roxbury district in the last two days, was that of Thomas John Kevill, the 9-year-old son of Mr and Mrs Patrick J. Kevill of 3512 Washington st, Jamaica Plain, who was killed by a locomotive on the NY, NH & H RR, near the Forest Hills station.

The little fellow, with three companions, Thomas Shea, 9 years old, of 412 Amory st, Andrew Fraser, 11 years old of Lotus pl, and William Bentley of Rosmore road, Jamaica Plain, started yesterday afternoon to go to the meadow land on the west side of the Dedham branch tracks of the railroad, near Forest Hills, known as "Muddy pond," to have a swim.

The four youths were walking on the railroad tracks just south of Forest Hills station, where the Dedham branch tracks form a junction with the main line tracks of the railroad. The New York express was approaching the junction and Kevill's companions ran across the tracks.

One of them shouted to Kevill, "Look out for the train!" He answered: "I'll get across all right." He evidently misjudged the distance and speed of the express train and was struck by the locomotive and thrown 40 feet.

The train was stopped and employes(sic) of the railroad who were near ran to the child to find him dead. His head was terribly crushed.

Mrs Kevill, when seen by a reporter of the Globe, after the accident said that she had cautioned her son not to go to the pond. He was a pupil in the third grade of the Margaret Fuller school on Glen road.

Noise Pollution

I copied out this article as a comment on the times. We tend to think of the railroad as bringing growth to communities, but it also brought noise and soot and accidents. The complaint in the article resonates with me because I live a few miles south along the very same railroad line, and the passing trains can shake me right through my mattress at night.


Boston Daily Globe July 23, 1874


The American Devil.


A long time ago, some English newspaper christened the steam whistle "The American Devil," and the epithet is by no means misapplied. Of all the inventions of Yankee ingenuity it is the most demoniac, and the efforts which are now being made to exorcise this fiend from the locomotive ought to be aided by the prayers of all sensitive and nervous people. It has been testified to before the Railroad Commissioners that there are people who still survive at a place in Jamaica Plain where the screech of this instrument of torture is heard more than 300 times every day. It makes some portions of the beautiful suburbs of Boston the abode of misery by its horrible notes, shaking the state of man, especially if he happens to be ill, with pangs scarcely less than would be engendered by the trump of doom.

[article continues - no JP content]

The Bridge At Forest Hills

Picture: Boston Daily Globe May 10, 1897



The railroad bridge at Forest Hills must have been handsome when it was first built. The fresh-cut granite would have sparkled in the sun. The contemporary articles in the Boston Globe certainly painted a glowing picture of the project. Of course, anywhere you see those old granite walls now, the dingy black-brown of the surface hardly inspires poetry. For years, the old steam locomotives spit coal dust into the air, and rain washed it down over the edges of the granite walls and producing the permanent dark stain that marked the bridge and the entire embankment as it passed through Jamaica Plain. Soot from the diesel locomotives that followed would have contributed to the grime of the walls as well.


I remember the bridge over the Arborway as anything but beautiful. Utilitarian, massive and dark come to mind. The Casey overpass overhead didn't help; it put the railroad bridge in a permanent shadow. The Forest Hills elevated station, built shortly later, took attention away from the bridge as well. The effect was one of crowding, with multiple generations of transportation roadway tacked one on top of the other.

Today, the Orange Line park that runs from near Forest Hills north to Centre street is lined in many places with granite blocks that were taken from the walls of the embankment and reused. They must have cleaned them before they put them in place - they don't look anything like the walls I remember. They should have left them dirty for that "vintage" look.



Picture: Jamaica Plain Historical Society web site.


This picture, taken in the 1960s, looks down from South street towards Washington street and the Arborway car yards. The bridge recedes to the left, where it ended on a sloping dirt and gravel embankment. See the trees on the left? I believe the biggest was a willow. In the early 1960s, there was a rope swing hanging from a branch high above the slope at the end of the bridge. You could stand on the projecting column - just visible here - and swing out over the weedy lot below. Thousands of people rode by on the streetcar every weekday, not knowing that the boys of Anson, Spalding and Rosemary streets had a secret place to stretch their wings and challenge their manhood.

The Raising of the Railroad Tracks - Part V

Boston Globe. August 20, 1896

On Elevated Tracks Sunday Enormous Engineering Work on Providence Railroad

More Than Half Completed in a Year


Sunday morning the Providence division trains of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad will begin to run on the elevated tracks. This means the the costly engineering job of removing the grade crossing between Chickering station and Forest Hills has been more than half completed, inasmuch as two of the proposed four tracks are up in the air. This much has been done in just about a year, the greater part having been accomplished i the fall, spring and summer.

The roadbed for about four miles on the main line and for 2500 feet on the West Roxbury branch has been raised to a height of from 18 to 20 feet above the old location and new bridges have been built over 15 streets, all but one of which throughfares had been grade crossings. New stations, one on either side of the tracks, are either under construction or will be built at Roxbury, Heath, Boylston, Jamaica Plain, and Forest hills, all of handsome desing, of granite and buff brick.

In addition to this, subways have been constructed under the tracks at every station for the use of passengers, and when the trains are in operation on the elevated line, no only will there be no excuse for crossing the rails, bu no one will be allowed to do so.

The grade begins at the repair shops, just south of Chickering station, reaches a height of 18 feet above the old level at Roxbury Crossing, 20 feet at Centre st.the old Hogg's bridge location, 18 feet at Green st. Jamaica Plain, and 19 feet at Morton st. Forest Hills, gradually dropping from washington st, near Forest Hills station to the grade of the old roadbed at Stony brook culvert, half way to Mt Hope station.

Two features of the work are most prominent, the enormous amount of gravel filling required and even yet to be done, and the costly and handsome granite retaining wall, which practically extends along the westerly line of the road from the point where the grade begins to the end of the Washington st bridge abutment. This wall, beside being a necessity becomes an object of no little ornamentatin, especially at the approaches to the station.

The plans do not provide for a similar wall along the easterly line of the road-bed, excepting in the cut from Prentiss st to Centre st. From Centre st the east side will be an embankment, a gravel slope, excepting for a short distance on either side of the stations, where a granite retaining wall will be built similar to that on the west side.

The anxiety of the railroad company to complete the work accounts for the plan to operate trains over the two elevated tracks at once, and passengers will have to put up with a few inconveniences until the stations are completed. Only two tracks can be elevated at one time, and even then the job is a difficult one between Centre and Ruggles sts, as there is only room for four tracks, and no extra space on which to work.

While granite stairways have been built from the street to the elevation at stations, the buildings are nowhere near completed. The road has constructed small wooden shelters, with a ticket office at every station, and these will have to do duty until the more commodious and pretentious structures are finished.

Ruggles is the first way crossed by the elevated tracks, and here the street had to be depressed a little to lessen the grade of the railroad tracks. The construction of the bridge at this point has cost the engineers more work and worry than at any other point, all because of Stony brook.

That apparently inconsequential waterway has in its history cost more money to control and provide for than probably anything of its size in this part of the country. In the first place, before making any move, the railroad company had to build a new culvert for Stony brook some 20 feet east of the old course, from Boylston station to Centre st. in order to get room for the track raising.

Then further along, when the engineers came to place the abutments for the Ruggles st. bridge, they found that troublesome Stony brook placidly flowing along under the railroad at the spot where some of the masonry for the bridge would have to be sunk. So they had to dicker with Stony brook again. A new culvert was built, and the brook was diverged so that it comes through and under Ruggles st instead of the Railroad.

Ruggles st. is crossed by a double span, steel-plate girder bridge, with a granite pier in the center. Like all of the bridges along the line this one is not an open-work structure, for the sleepers are imbedded in gravel, a compact construction of angel plates between the griders making this possible, and preventing any drippings or siftings from the bridge to the street below.

From Ruggles st. to Prentiss st. there was room for making an embankment for the two tracks, but from there to the Centre st. bridge the trains on Sunday will be run upon a stout wooden double-track trestle, filled in at the base of the supports. The steel-plate girder bridges for Prentiss and Station sts. are all in place, and the tracks are laid over them.

At what is known as Roxbury crossing, Tremont st., the work has been delayed. Here there is to be a 40-foot span plate grider bridge for carriages and pedestrians to cross from Columbus ave. and Tremont st. under the tracks, to the station on the west side of the tracks. This passageway takes the place of th esubway which has been used at other stations.

Then there is the 67-foot span of Tremont st. The tracks are to go over Tremont st. on a steel-arch bridge, but neither this structure nor the passage-way just below it, separated by granite masonry, is yet in place. Two wooden bridges will be used until the tow iron ones are done. Some idea of what the Roxbury crossing bridge is to be can be obtained from the cut showing WalkHill st and Forest Hills station. It will be a steel arch of similar design, only of a much broader span than that on Walk Hill st.

At Roxbury a new station will be built on the west side of the tracks, and the present brick and stone structure will be raised and utilized as a waiting room on the east side. From Roxbury crossing through the deep cut made by the buildings on either side, the trains will continue on the trestle, crossing Old Heath and New Heath sts. on steel plate girder bridges. Between the two streets will stand two handsome brick and stone buildings, and Heath st. station will look much more inviting with the old freight yard removed.

Considerable objection was made by the brewers, whose grain was received and output loaded at this convenient point to the abandonment of this yard, but the railroad company has to make some other arrangment. So it satisfied its patrons by laying out a new freight yard along Lamartine st., beyond Hogg's bridge.



This brings out another striking change in street levels as a part of the tracks. Formerly Centre st. crossed over the tracks by a dilapidated bridge, with a slight ascent of either side. Now Centre st. is depressed some 19 feet by a somewhat steep incling from the east and the railroad is carried over on a steel plate grider bridge with granite abutments and steel posts supporting it. Beyond the railroad the level of grade of Amory st. has been lowered to correspond with the new Centre st. lines as this is the junction of these streets.

The electric rails on Centre st. are only partly laid, and it will probably bemore than a week before the West End cars will run to Jamaica Plain without change. During the changes in Centre st. passangers have been transferred over a temporary wooden footbridge, and this will have to be continued until the car tracks are ready on the new Centre st.

Beyond Centre st. the tracks leave the trestle and take the gravel roadbed. Between here and Boylston station the railroad engineers have built a steel plate girder bridge for a new way which will be laid out as an extention of Mozart st. This structure is designed for five tracks, being the only one on the line wide enough for more than four. The extra track is a line to the new freight yard, which occupies the land between the main line and Lamartine st. and extends to Centre st. bridge. A granite retaining wall marks the limit of the freight yeard, and the entrance from the street to the freight tracks is by an easy grade.



At Boylston station the old brick building has been raised to the level of the new tracks, and the lower story has been constructed to correspond to the appearance of the retaining wall. On the other side a new station will be built.



Girder bridges of identical design carry the railroad over Boylston and Green sts. to Jamaica Plain station. Here two new stations will be built, and the subway under the tracks will enter the lower stories of each station. The railroad line of old Depot sq. is now a length of Pittsburg granite with a smooth coping surmounted by a low iron fence, and a long flight of granite steps near the Green st. bridge built against the wall furnishing the means of ascent to the tracks above. A new street will be laid out between Green st. and Keyes st., and the bridge is already built and waiting for the street.

When Morton st at Forest Hills is reached, the most substantial as well as ornamental construction of any along the line is seen. Here the Arborway from Jamaica pond to Franklin park crosses the tracks, and the railroad engineers have added to the picturesqueness of the park drive by the character of the bridges they have chosen.
A seccession of five stone arches breaks the retaining wall for Morton st. and the parkway. Above every arch rises the granite parapet, between them being heavy stone buttresses, which add to the formidable appearances as wll as the carefully balanced consistency of the line of the wall.

This will be repeated in the construction for the two easterly tracks, yet to be elevated.

Forest Hills station will stand just beyond the parkway and Morton st. arches, and the west side of the station is well along in construction. It is practically what all the other will be. From the street level to the height of the tracks, the walls correspond with the granite construction of the roadbed wall, and the story above the tracks will be light brick.

The buildings have long, rambling roofs, which give them a squaty appearance when viewed from the railroad, but from the street level the aspect is much more pleasing. The lower story is intended to be used for baggage rooms and for the heating plant, and the hall and stairway to the upper story take up considerable room.

The second story is a large waiting room with a ticket and telegraph office. These offices will be in the stations on either side of the track. At every station, exterior stairways will be built.
After leaving Forest Hills station, the tracks cross Walk Hill st. by the steel arch bridge as shown in the cut, and just beyond here the West Roxbury branch leaves the main line. A temporary switch tower has been built, supported on a pile of ties on the embankment, and the interlocking system will be in working order by Sunday, so that the switchman will simply walk from the old tower from which he now operates the switches and take up his routine at the new levers, some 18 feet higher.

It was not possible to fill in enough for two tracks on the branch at the junction with the old branch tracks running under an old trestle a few feet beyond so a single track will be used on the branch for some 50 feet until the lower tracks are entirely abandoned.

From the junction to the new Washington st. steel girder bridge, a short distance, the main-line rails have been elevated on a wooden trestle, in order that during construction and filling along the line there would be no interference with the West Roxbury branch line, which crosses beneath.

When the elevated tracks are used then all the trestle work along the line will be filled in with gravel.

According to the plans the two outside tracks will be used entirely for suburban traffic, and the double track in the center for express trains. At all of the stations on the line of the elevated, an iron fence will enclose the express tracks, thus making it impossible for passengers to cross on the tracks. They must take the subways provided for that purpose.

As has already been published, the tracks to be devoted to suburban serivce will be fitted with a third rail, similar to that now used on the South Shore branch, and electricity will be utilized as the motive power.

The Raising of the Railroad Tracks - Park IV

If I am guessing correctly, the building being moved above is one at the Sturtevant factory. The horses appear to be harnessed to capstans to apply the pulling force.

Edit: You can see how buildings were moved by horses here.


Boston Daily Globe July 10, 1895


Away With Grade Crossings

Details of the Work Commenced by NY NH & H Railroad Company.


Starting at West Chester pk, the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad have commenced the abolition of every grade crossing, eight in all, from this point to Forest Hills. The lowering of Center st at Hoggs bridge, below the track of the road and the widening of other thoroughfares, is also planned.

A conservative estimate of the cost of this great undertaking is $3,000,000. Of this amount the railroad pays 65 percent, the state 25 percent and the city 10 percent.

It is going to take about two years to do the work, and during this time the railroad company expects to so arrange matters that their traffic will be uninterrupted.

Since May there has been great activity all along the main line of the road, on the points named, and officials of the road have been busy adjusting claims of abbutters whose property has been taken. The railroad officials say that they have dealt with all property owners liberally, in most cases paying two and one half times the assessed value.

More than 100 houses and business buildings have been taken for the purpose of widening the roadbed, and along Boylston av, in Jamaica Plain, it has been found necessary to acquire the entire westerly side of the street.

The railroad is doing it own filling and grading, as this has got to be done between trains and it is not considered advisable to allow contractors to have a hand is such a delicate matter. The rest of the work will be done by contract, however, and already two contracts aggregating $1,250,000 have been awarded New York firms.

Engineer Ingersoll, who has charge of the job, has established headquarters in Jamaica Plain, where he has located his efficient force of engineers.

Starting at West Chester pk, there will be an easy rise in the grade of the road. As the tracks approach the present roundhouse, it will be about five feet higher than now, but there will be no difficulty running into the roundhouse on this account. Workmen by the score are now getting ready for the elevation at this point.

The roundhouse on the baseball ground side of the road will be discontinued.

Continuing along to Ruggles st, the tracks of the roadway will pass over the street by means of a steel girder-plate bridge, which will have 13 feet head room. At Prentiss st the tracks will pass over a bridge of similar design, (?) feet wide. All along here small strips of property have been taken to widen the roadbed.

At Roxbury there will be a wonderful geographical and architectural change. Here will be an inward and outward station, and Tremont st at this point will be about 100 feet wide. Forty-foot driveways will approach the station on either side independent of Tremont st, and one may cross from one station to the other by an underground passageway. When these improvements are carried out trains will run to the right, instead of to the left, as is now the case.

Between Roxbury crossing and Heath st a lot of property has been taken in order to carry out the improvements.

Old Heath st will be crossed by a 50-foot steel bridge, and the present dingy station will give way to two new brick structures.

Just above Heath st is Hoggs bridge. Center st now runs over the railroad, but under the new plan the railroad will run over the new Center st, which is to be widened to 80 feet. This is considered a great improvement to property in this section.

The old freight yard at Heath station is to be transferred to Lamartine st, just beyond Hoggs bridge, and work of filing in at this point is now going on. Land on both sides of the railroad has been taken at these points.

At Boylston station there will be a great change. Buildings have been removed and another station will be built, and a bridge across boylston st is planned.

Old landmarks like D.A. Brown's store at Green st, Jamaica Plain, have been torn down, and the great wooden building, Bartlett's block, across the street, is to be removed. Two elevated stations are to be built at Jamaica Plain also.

Between Boylston station and Forest Hills there is more building moving going on just now that in any part of Boston. It is a veritable harvest for the building movers, who can command their own price for the work. The biggest job that is going on in this line is the moving of a big brick factoryy at Jamaica Plain. It is 150 feet long and 50 feet wide, and requires 10 horses to furnish the motive power. Generally one or two horses suffice to move ordinary buildings.

Beyond this point Keyes st will be crossed by one of the steel girder bridges, similar in design to the others mentioned. At Morton st there will be a beautiful masonry five-arch bridge under which will pass the parkway, connecting Franklin Park with the Arboretum, and just beyond this will be another steel span bridge over Washington st, Forest Hills.

The branch will be three-tracked to a distance of 2000 feet toward Roslindale with a gradual elevation of the tracks until Forest Hills is reached. Hundreds of workmen are now employed at this point pushing the work along. The old Forest Hills station has been moved back, and two stations, one on either side, will be built.

The Raising Of The Railroad Tracks - Part III

Boston Daily Globe September 25, 1894



The work of raising the railroad tracks of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad tracks began in September of 1894 with the diversion of the Stony brook channel at Forest Hills. As the brook ran too closely to the existing rail bed at Forest Hills and Boylston station to allow the raising of the tracks, a new channel was required 30 feet out from the existing one. The channel in its new location at Forest Hills would be 1400 feet long and 15 feet deeper than before, and between Boylston and Centre streets 2600 feet of new channel would be necessary.

In order to move the brook channel and rearrange the Heath street freight yards as necessary, the commission planning the work announced that land would be taken, including property between Heath street and the end of Lamartine street. Also, Albert street in Roxbury would be moved to the west, and a change would be needed in the location of Bromley Park.

Source: Boston Daily Globe September 25, 1894

The Raising of the Railroad Tracks - Part II

In the summer of 1893, preparations had been made and work was soon to begin. The railroad tracks would be raised, and the old wooden depot building at Heath st, Boylston station, Jamaica Plain and Forest Hills would be replaced by modern stone station houses. Starting at West Chester park, the tracks would rise to 20 feet above grade at Tremont street, continue its elevated path to Forest Hills, and thence return to grade to the south. Along the way, the handsome Bartlett Building in Jamaica Plain would be taken and be demolished to make room for a new station.

The new embankment was to be of dirt and gravel, with stone walls. At each road crossing, a steel bridge would support the railroad tracks overhead. At the crossing of Centre street, where Hogg's bridge had carried road traffic over the rail line, a steel bridge would span the street, which would now be at grade.

At each station, the single depot would be replaced by two, one for each direction of travel. Each new depot would be of brick with brownstone trimmings, with slate roof and copper finials. Depot doors were to be of oak, and windows mostly stained glass.

At the same time as the tracks were being raised, a fourth track would be added. The two outer tracks would be used for local traffic, and the two inner tracks would serve suburban express routes. Fences would seperate the inner and outer lines, preventing passangers from coming to harm from the speeding express trains.

(Source: Boston Daily Globe July 7, 1893)

The Raising of the Railroad Tracks - Part I

By 1890, people had been complaining about the Roxbury grade crossings of the Boston and Providence railroad for years. Ruggles, Prentis, Station, Tremont, New Heath, and Heath streets were all heavily used by pedestrians and horse teams, and accidents were inevitable. Similar situations existed throughout the state. After years of agitation, the governor appointed a board of engineers to examine the possibility of eliminating add grade crossings in the state. With the engineers report providing the impetus, the Roxbury Local Improvement Society petitioned the Boston Board of Aldermen requesting that the grade crossings be eliminated and the railroad tracks elevated above street level.

There were eleven grade crossings between Ruggles street and Forest Hills. The presence of Stony brook prevented the railroad from being depressed through much of the length. Therefore, it was proposed to elevate the line, starting from West Chester Park and rising to 13 feet above existing grade at Tremont street. South of Forest Hills, the tracks would slope down until returning to grade some 3500 feet to the south. The estimate for the entire project was $1,350,000, and resistance was expected from the railroad company.




(Source: Boston Daily Globe, March 10, 1890)

Forest Hills Bridge

I love this postcard picture of the Forest Hills railroad bridge. It's a piece of old Jamaica Plain that I actually remember. The picture is looking from the Washington street side over towards South street receding up the hill. The Bussey Institute was just to the right, and Asticou road to the left and out of sight. The in- and outbound train stations are on either side of the tracks to the left. And I'm pretty sure that the Elevated station was yet to be built.

There are five arched passages under the bridge - three wide and two narrow. A drawing in the Boston Globe in 1897 labels the passageways (from left to right in the above picture) as follows:

Morton street - Footpath - Carriage way - Bridle Path - For General Travel

The greenery shown in the postcard was lost when the Casey Overpass was built in the 1950s to alleviate traffic at the intersection of Washington street and the Arborway/Morton street.