Boston Massachusetts

Boston South Station

Boston, in the late 1800’s had as many as 8 different passenger depots. The city officials, recognizing that this was too much of a “good thing” convinced the railroads to consolidate down to two stations. The first to be constructed was Boston North Station, opening in 1894. It was the station designed to serve the “New England Trains,” that is to say, the Boston and Maine. It was soon eclipsed by the structures surrounding it, and today “Boston North Station” is completely engulfed by Boston’s Fleet Center, home of the Basketball Celtics and the Hockey Bruins teams.

Boston’s South Station followed 4 years later, seeing its first revenue passengers pass through its headhouse in September 1898. The Boston South Station was designed to serve the “Northeast Trains,” that is to say the Boston and Albany (later part of the New York Central System), and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.

As with most passengers stations in America, Boston South Station was at its busiest during World War II. However, 20 years later, the New Haven Railroad, which owned the station through its subsidiary line The Boston Terminal Company, entered bankruptcy and sold the structure to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).

The initial ideas of BRA included demolishing the old structure and erecting a new complex of office development projects. However, in 1972, at the 11th hour, with demolition already started, BRA changed its mind and retained those parts of the station not already gone, mainly its signature headhouse, and decided to re-think its development ideas. The reason, in part, was the fact that America finally had a passenger rail system, Amtrak, and thus the revival of intercity rail became a possibility.

The station was sold by the BRA to the local Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in 1978. Shortly after this transaction, between 1984 and 1990, $195 million was spent to refurbish South Station and make it an “Intermodal” facility including not only intercity passenger trains, and commuter trains, but also inter-city buses, local buses, and a stop on the city’s historic subway system.

The late 1990’s saw Amtrak bring electrification into Boston, thus enabling the fast Acela trains to travel between Boston and Washington DC on a schedule which at this posting calls for a run of 6 ½ hours. Add to these speedy electrics, a complement of “Regional” runs, some through Springfield MA and others through Rhode Island, a daily train to Albany that connects with the New York-Chicago Lake Shore Limited, and commuter trains, to say nothing of all the busses and subway trains, and South Station is once more a busy place. Perhaps not as busy as 1945, but still busy enough to make many realize how close the BRA was to making a fatal city-killing mistake in the late 1960’s.

When Boston South Station was originally built, a coffer dam was constructed to keep the tidal waters of Fort Channel out of the station. Maybe there was a lesson here. Since that time, Boston, in true fashion, continued to “creep in” on Fort Channel with development, culminating with the construction of the infamous Central Artery which carried I-95 though downtown Boston.

In the 1990’s Boston realized that the Central Artery was out-of-date and started a new project intended to replace the Artery, the so-called “Big Dig.” During the planning phase, Rail Passenger advocates lobbied to have a rail connection between Boston’s North Station and Boston’s South Station become part of the project (the tunnel runs right by both stations). They were unsuccessful in their efforts and so even today, travelers coming in from the “Northeast” who desire to travel to “New England” must detrain and either catch a bus at South Station, or take the MTA to North Station where The Downeaster stops (Amtrak recommends if you do this, don’t get off your NE Corridor train at South Station, get off at the Back Bay station and catch the Orange MTA which runs from the 128th station up past Fleet Center and Boston’s North Station).

But remember the coffer dam of 1898? In a final fitting tribute to the shortsightedness of the planners of the Big Dig, it has been reported from time to time, that the new I-95 tunnel project has an awful lot of water being pumped out of it, far more, so it is rumored, than was originally projected. As the actress on the old Margarine commercial used to say: “It’s not NICE to fool with Mother Nature!”

Wheeling West Virginia

The Baltimore and Ohio Terminal

This 1908 structure was noteworthy among West Virginia Passenger Train stations both then and now. At one time it functioned as the largest "Terminal" in the state and the busiest one as well. But maybe the term "Terminal" needs a little explanation.

As I understand it, a Passenger Station (or Depot) has passenger trains that may start or end at the structure. But it also will have trains, indeed the majority, that start or stop elsewhere but pause at this particular structure as part of their regular schedule. A "Terminal" on the other hand is noted primarily for being a place where most of the trains either begin or end their routes. There may be through trains pausing in route, but they do not comprise the majority of the traffic seen at the station.

One of the peculiarities of West Virginia Railroads, is that most of them are in the process of going from someplace and going to a different place. Thus in the far south you have the old Norfolk and Western line (now Norfolk Southern). It runs from Cincinnati Ohio to Norfolk Virginia. Passenger trains using the main line stopped at several places, but except for the occassional branch local up some hollow in the southern coal fields, there were few trains that stopped and/or ended at any of these stations.

In the south central area you have a collection of lines which were operated by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (now CSX). The main line goes from Cincinnati Ohio in the west, to Tidewater Virginia in the east. However, it had numerous branches serving various mines up various hollows in the area that became known as the Kanawha Coal Fields. Again, as with the Norfolk and Western, there were a few local trains, many of them mixed" (combinations of passengers and freight), but most C&O passenger trains at any one station, were through trains.

Just north of that line, you did have the only lines that "ended" in West Virginia. These lines, which actually connected and thus made through service for freight possible, were the Kanawha and Michigan (later New York Central, later Penn Central, later Conrail, and now Norfolk Southern), and the Virginian (later Norfolk and Western, now Norfolk Southern). They did have a "Terminal" in Charleston WV that served the Kanawha and Michigan (later New York Central), the Virginian, and the Elk River line of the Baltimore and Ohio (originally built as the Coal and Coke Railroad). However, on none of these lines was passenger traffic ever a major concern.

Still further north you had the two B&O lines, the "Old Main" (the original line completed in 1852) that ran up to Benwood and Wheeling WV, and the early "branch line" constructed as the "Northwestern Virginia Railroad" (later known by the B&O as the "National Limited Line). The eastern part of this route (through Clarksburg and Fairmont WV) still exists. The western part has been abandoned. The Clarksburg-Parkersburg section has become The North Bend Rail Trail. Again, as with the Norfolk and Western and the C&O, these lines had some branches, and these branches had some "local" passenger service which started and ended at various points. But again, as with the previous roads mentioned, trains serving these branches were not as numerous or as prominent at any particular station as the through passenger service.

Finally, in the "northern panhandle" section of West Virginia there was one more East West route. This was the Pennsylvania Railroad line that went from Pittsburgh to Columbus. It made only one station stop, Weirton WV.

With all these east-west lines, there were only 2 lines that went north-south, and one of them went only part way. There was a line in the east that consisted of the Western Maryland, down through Elkins and Durbin, where it met up with the Greenbrier Branch of the C & O. This line ended at Ronceverte WV. However, passenger traffic on this line was minimal though for a time a north-south passenger connection did exist between the 2 roads. The other north-south line was the B&O line which hugged the eastern bank of the Ohio River, all the way from above Weirton, down to Huntington WV. And this is where the above "Terminal" comes into place. For this line did see a lot of local traffic between points on the river.

The Wheeling Terminal was the busiest train "terminal" in West Virginia when measured in terms of the number of trains that either started, ended, or stopped en route. Further, it had more trains starting or ending than an other Passenger Train facility in West Virginia. At one point in the operational history of the B&O there were 19 trains that started, ended, or paused at this station. Historically, this made perfect sense. Because the originally projected western terminous for the B&O in 1828 was to be "Wheeling." Now once Wheeling was reached, the B&O started trying to cross the Ohio. In these efforts they met some resistance from the government of the state of Virginia, and . . . as they like to say, the rest is history.

Today, the B&O tracks through Wheeling, both the east-west line which went from Pittsburgh across the Ohio River and on to Zanesville and points beyond, and the north-south Ohio River line, have been adandoned and the tracks pulled (in the case of the Ohio River line, they are in place south of Moundsville WV). And obviously, this station no longer functions as a railroad terminal. Instead, it is part of the campus of the Northern West Virginia Community College. (Incidentally, I took this shot from the 2nd floor of West Virginia's Independence Hall, where the state was formed in 1863).

On a more personal note: I notice I have a follower, Ed. Welcome, I hope you enjoy this site as much as I enjoy posting to it.