A Boston Sunset

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Yesterday I walked across Boston from some classes at MIT to South Station to catch a train home. It was sunset and Boston was bathed in a beautiful golden light, so of course I was shooting as I walked. One of the photos I captured was this one, of a Red Line train crossing the Longfellow Bridge.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=346153

Thanks for looking!

2

Nice shot…

3

Ty, somehow it reminded me of a 1941 color slide by Charles W. Cushman.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman/full/P02493.jpg

Mike

4

Thanks, Mike and Tyler. Outstanding photos, Caused me to go back and look fors something to remind me of my family’s two years of living in Beantown in 1954 and 1956.

Lots a water under that bridge since then.[O]

5

TMT,

The Longfellow is one of those bridges that really says BRIDGE, with the proper arcing over the water. An Ur bridge that a child might draw!! The machine perforated block building in the center? Fort Knox in Boston? But I do like the way the twin towers on the right, a bad idea at first thought, have been personalised by the tenants in color and whatever they’re doing in there. They remind me of my LeCorbusier and Paolo Soleri period in architecture school. How are the Aalto’s and Harvard’s Carpenter and Sevier faring?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Boston on our honeymoon, but the T’s apple stand at Park Street and the Mattewan and Riverside trolleys last in memory…

Rick

Matttewan? Or Matawan or pon? Whatever, there was a wonderful Red Line terminal or connecting station there…

6

Thanks for the kind words all. Mike, thanks for sharing that photo. The Boston skyline certainly has changed over the years!

The building in the center is Mass Eye & Ear. Most if not all of the buildings to the left of it are part of Mass General Hospital. Park Street no longer has an apple stand that I’m aware of, but the Mattapan trolleys are still running with PCC cars. I’m not sure if you visited when the Green Line was still running real trolleys, but the equipment nowadays is all articulated Light Rail Cars. This is the oldest type of car still running on the Green Line.

7

…A dramatic shot Tyler…Very nice.

8

Thanks for a beautiful photo, nostalgic for me. Deserving a place on a wall of my apartment or office, with the vphotographer’s name on the right-bottom corner of the frame. Thsanks, Meanwhilke:

Two on the Longfellow Bridge, near the Cambridge end, looking east toward Boston. In 1951, rapid-transit work equipment still used trolley poles, and all three third-rail lines had trolley-wire in addition within tunnels. The ex-streetcar tracks in the roadways continued on the Boston side to the portal west of Bowdoin Station and its loop, and would continue to be used for movement of East Boston Tunnel cars to and from the maintenance shops that were part of the Harvard Square complex, until the extension to Orient Heights opened, with an Orient Heights yard and shop. The sliding door-gate in the fence and part of connecting switch for the westbound roadway track are visible.

The lead car tof the westbound, Harvard Square – bound four-car train is orange, not brown as the rest of the fleet. It was one of four cars Having its longitudinal wood seats replace by upholstered seats in a combination of front, back, and side seating to sell the idea of a branch to replace commuter rail to Braintree and Quince. This extension did get built, eventually, but equipment today hyas longitudinal plastic seats.