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History The oldest right-of-way on the Red Line is south of South Boston, where the Ashmont Branch was built on the path of the former Shawmut Branch Railroad. That railroad was incorporated in 1870, taken over by the Old Colony Railroad, and opened in 1872 as an alternate route between the Old Colony's main line at Harrison Square and the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad, which branched from the Old Colony at Neponset and ran west to Mattapan. The Red Line was the last of the four lines to begin construction, with the Cambridge Tunnel opening from Eliot Yard and Harvard to Park Street on the Tremont Street Subway on March 23, 1912. At Harvard, a prepayment station was provided for easy transfer to streetcar routes operating in a separate tunnel (now the Harvard Bus Tunnel). The tunnel ran from Harvard under Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street to the Longfellow Bridge, where it ran along the middle of the bridge (opened in 1906). On the Boston side of the bridge, the line became elevated, rising to go over Charles Circle and into a tunnel through Beacon Hill to Park Street. Extensions (built as the Dorchester Tunnel) to Washington Street and South Station opened on April 4, 1915 and December 3, 1916, with transfers to the Washington Street Tunnel and Atlantic Avenue Elevated respectively. Further extensions opened to Broadway on December 15, 1917 and Andrew on June 29, 1918, both prepayment stations for streetcar transfer. The Broadway station included an upper level with its own tunnel for streetcars, which was abandoned in 1919 due to most lines being truncated to Andrew. The upper level has since been incorporated into the mezzanine. Old Colony and later New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad passenger service operated on the Shawmut Branch until September 4, 1926. * The MBTA bought the branch and opened the first phase of the Dorchester Extension to Fields Corner on November 5, 1927. This extension ran south from Andrew and turned southeast to surface and run along the west side of the Old Colony Railroad mainline in a depressed right-of-way. Surface stations were built at Columbia and Savin Hill, at the site of Old Colony stations. No station was built at the former junction of the Old Colony main line with the Shawmut Branch, where the Old Colony's Harrison Square station had been operated, because it was very close to Fields Corner. The rest of the extension opened to Ashmont and Codman Yard on September 1, 1928, and included a station - Shawmut - where there had been no Old Colony station. The first phase of the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line opened on August 26, 1929, using the rest of the Shawmut Branch right-of-way, including the Cedar Grove station, and part of the old Dorchester and Milton Branch. The color red was assigned on August 26, 1965 to what had been called the Cambridge-Dorchester Tunnel and marked on maps as route . The color was chosen because the line ended at Harvard University, whose school color is crimson, a shade of red. The first section of the South Shore Line opened on September 1, 1971. This line branched from the original line at a flying junction north of Columbia and ran along the west side of the Old Colony right-of-way (since reduced to one track), crossing to the east side north of Savin Hill. Its northernmost station was North Quincy, with two others at Wollaston and Quincy Center. The rest of the line, the Braintree Extension (first planned by the BTPR) to Braintree, opened March 22, 1980, and the intermediate station at Quincy Adams opened on September 10, 1983. The first part of the Northwest Extension, the relocation of Harvard station, was finished on September 6, 1983. During construction, several temporary stations were built at Harvard Square. The old Eliot Yard was demolished; Harvard's Kennedy School of Government now sits inside the retaining walls built for the railyard. Subsequent extensions to Davis on December 8, 1984 and Alewife on March 30, 1985 brought the Red Line to its current extent. There were possible plans to extend the Northwest Extension from Alewife to Lexington via an abandoned rail right-of-way, but these plans never materialized. A platform on the South Shore Line opened at JFK/UMass (formerly Columbia) on December 14, 1988. Platforms on older stations were lengthened in the late 1980s to allow six-car trains, which first ran January 21, 1988. During the expansion, the MBTA invested in an Arts on the line public art program. In 1968, letters were assigned to the south branches - "A" for Quincy (planned to extend to South Braintree) and "C" for Ashmont. "B" was probably reserved for a planned branch from Braintree to Brockton. As new rollsigns were made, this lettering was phased out. In 1994, new electronic signs included a different labeling - "A" for Ashmont, "B" for Braintree and "C" for Alewife. * Accessibility Most, but not all, Red Line stations are wheelchair accessible. See also MBTA accessibility. Rolling stock
Culture and trivia Main line
Ashmont Branch Diverging from JFK/UMass: Braintree Branch (originally South Shore Line) Diverging from JFK/UMass: | ||||||||||||||
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