Check Google’s most recent imagery (i.e. Accessible from the Haverhill Line by turning out onto the Medford Branch, then backing up at the switch. One yard track (with a small length of third rail) continues north of the Route 16 overpass along the tunnel wall and hooks into the Pan Am Medford Branch freight track at a hand-throw switch. €” Marking the Orange Line’s connection to the national RR network the north tip of Wellington Yard. Any/all trajectories into the Transitway from Downtown (official, fantasy, or otherwise) would insert themselves into the existing tunnel here, since the Big Dig cleaned up the utilities underneath this block of Essex east of I-93. ![]() There’s a subtle wall notch (but no outright turnout like the unused Green Line portals Arlington) right before the South Station turning loop, on the corner of Essex & Atlantic right underneath the front steps of One Financial Center. €” Placemarking the point on the Silver Line Transitway tunnel wall where the “Phase III†extension to downtown would fork off. I also added many of the abandoned steam railroad rights of way. I went back and decided that just showing the subways didn’t paint a true enough picture of transit in Boston so I have released version 2 which adds both Commuter Rail and the Trackless Trolleys that run from Harvard Sq. The reaction to the first version of this map was mixed, to say the least, and many people asked about the commuter rail. Boston can boast greater transit coverage for a city of its size than almost any other American city. Commuter rail, too, has had a remarkable comeback after private railroads started to collapse with the rise of the car. As the T expanded in the latter half of the 20th century many of the old steam railroads became cheaper alternatives than digging new tunnels and many of the subway extensions built after World War 2 utilized these paths. Once the Orange Line was elevated from Forest Hills to Everett with a branch running along Atlantic Ave but over the last century the elevated sections were replaced by modern subways. ![]() Some streetcars were converted to electric buses, known as trackless trolleys, and a small network still remains in Cambridge. Once a vast multitude of streetcars ran through the Tremont St subway but as buses replaced them the lines were cut back to the four we know today. The Green Line was part of the first subway in the United States and over the years has seen the most change. Transit in Boston is more nuanced than in other cities as it has a large variety of options: heavy rail, light rail (including streetcars), trackless trolleys, BRT, and commuter rail (there are also ferries but these aren’t included in the map). So you could say this map is a bit of a home coming going full circle. It was my time growing up in Boston hearing about the abandoned tunnels and unbuilt lines which gave rise to my love of urban planning, transit, and ultimately the creation of this website. The purpose of my map is to do away with simplification and see the system for what it is with all tracks, revenue and non-revenue alike, along with train yards and, of course, abandoned sections. A cartoonish MTA system map showing tracks and stations from the 1950s. As part of that modernization system maps became more striped down and cartoonish as we know them today. When the MBTA was created in 1964 it chose to modernize wayfinding (much as the MTA did in New York in the 1970s) by creating a color coded line system which gave rise to the Red, Blue, Orange, and Green Lines we know today. As a far less complex system I feel like the Boston Elevated Railroad (the company which ran the subway from 1989 until 1947) used the track map as a marketing tool so riders would have a clearer sense of where they were going. ![]() Unlike New York the Boston subway system (oldest in the US!) has a long history of detailed track maps throughout the ages. Like the NYC Map the Boston Map shows the tracks (and in some cases non-tracked tunnels) of every line in the MBTA system. So with that in mind I am happy to announce the next map in what will certainly be a popular series, the Complete and Geographically Accurate Boston MBTA Subway Track Map. The feedback was overwhelming and I want to thank all the railfans and transit nerds out there who contacted me with corrections. I was more than a little surprised by the response from the NYC Subway Track Map. Large format prints are available at my store.
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