Originally intended to build a short electric trolley line to Brookline, the West End Street Railway was organized in 1887. By the next year it had consolidated ownership of a number of horse-drawn streetcar lines, composing a fleet of 7816 horses and 1480 rail vehicles. As the system grew, a switch to underground pulled-cable propulsion was contemplated. After visiting Frank Sprague and witnessing the Richmond, Virginia system in action, WESR President Henry Whitney chose to deploy electric propulsion systems. A section of track was used to test the Bentley-Knight underground power line, but this was abandoned because of failures and safety concerns. After competing in operational tests with the Sprague streetcar system, the Thomson-Houston company was chosen for system-wide deployment of overhead wires. The electrified rapid transit system was named an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering in 2004. The first electric trolley line built by the West End Street Railway was between Union Square, Allston and Park Square, downtown, via Harvard Street, Beacon Street, Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street. Trolleys first ran in 1889. The Green Line A branch later served roughly the same purpose. The last horse car line was along Marlborough Street in the Back Bay, and was never electrified. It was closed around 1900. In the late 19th century, the electric power industry was in its infancy; the power grid as we know it today simply did not exist. The railway company constructed its own power stations; by 1897, these included distributed generation stations in downtown Boston, Allston, Cambridge, Dorchester, Charlestown, East Cambridge, and East Boston. By 1904, the system had 36 megawatts of generating capacity, of track for over 1550 street cars, and of elevated track for 174 elevated cars. On 7 November 1916, Boston Elevated Railway Co. street car No. 393 smashed through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge in Boston, plunging into the frigid waters of Fort Point Channel, killing 46 people. The first bus route was in 1922, between Union Square, Allston and Faneuil Street. In 1933 this was merged with the Union Square–Central bus and later became the bus.
Elevated railway
In 1890, the West End Railway was authorized by the state to construct elevated railways, but did not pursue this possibility. The state consequently authorized a new franchise for such an endeavor, which resulted in the founding in 1894 in the establishment of the Boston Elevated Railway. The first stretch of elevated track was put in service in 1901, between Sullivan Square in Charlestown and Dudley Square in Roxbury. In 1897, BERy acquired a long-term lease on the West End's lines, and the two companies were formally merged in 1922. The elevated network was expanded to include six end-points, with vehicles run on the tracks in routes designed to allow passengers to reach any destination without changing trains.
Power generation
The difficulty of transporting coal over land from the Port of Boston and the short range of the direct current system prevented significant expansion inland. In 1911, a large generating station was built in South Boston which produced 25 Hertz alternating current, which could be transmitted long distances at high voltage, to substations which would drop the voltage and convert it to direct current for use by trains. The system was gradually converted until completion in 1931, when 14 substations were in place. This station would operate until 1981, when the MBTA had completed converting all of the active substations to be able to use 60 Hertz alternating current, and could switch to purchasing energy from local utility companies instead of running its own generators.
The first route of the Boston trackless trolley system was opened by BERy, on April 11, 1936. It was route 77, Harvard – Lechmere via Cambridge Street. Trackless trolleys still run from Harvard station, but only to the west and north, not east to Lechmere since 1963.
Operations
The company's rapid transit lines have evolved into the Red, Blue, and Orange Lines. The only streetcars that remain are the various branches of the Green Line and the Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line; the rest have been converted to buses. The Boston Elevated Railway operated in the following cities and towns:
Arlington
Belmont
Boston and the municipalities that have been merged into it
Brookline
Cambridge
Chelsea
Everett
Malden
Medford
Newton
Revere
Somerville
Stoneham
Watertown
Additionally, streetcars from adjoining towns, run by other companies, operated over Boston Elevated Railway trackage. Operations of the companies were taken over by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, now the MBTA, in 1947.
