South Boston Railroad

The South Boston Railroad was a street railway company that operated in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid-nineteenth century. It provided horsecar service for passengers traveling between South Boston and the city downtown.[1]

Map of the lines of the South Boston (in yellow) and other horsecar companies operating in Boston in 1886

History

Drawing of a South Boston Railroad horsecar departing from the Broadway Carhouse while under police guard, during the 1887 strike

Originally formed as the Broadway Railroad, the company was incorporated on April 29, 1854 and commenced operations four years later. The original route granted to the railway ran from South Boston Point (now City Point), at the eastern extremity of Fourth Street, to a point near the intersection of Broadway and Turnpike Street (now Dorchester Avenue), where it merged with the tracks of the Dorchester Avenue Railroad. In 1868 the company changed its name to the South Boston Railroad.[2]

By the 1860s the South Boston was one of the four principal street railways of the Boston area, together with the Metropolitan, Union/Cambridge, and Middlesex.[3] Of the four, it was generally on the smaller size, with a passenger count of 4.3 million in 1869 and 6.1 million a decade later.[4]

In early 1887 the railroad experienced a worker's strike that lasted for over a month, causing significant disruptions in service.[5]

In 1887 the West End Street Railway gained a controlling interest in the South Boston, and the railroad was formally consolidated into the West End on November 12 of that year.[6]

Statistics

FY Track miles
operated
Miles run Passengers
carried
Passenger
receipts
Ref.
1862 1 4.29 251,022 1,412,034 $68,787 [7]
1867 6.85 468,857 3,358,867 $186,242 [8]
1872 7.68 696,422 5,509,457 $290,789 [9]
1877 10.36 905,039 5,548,609 $281,765 [10]
1882 14.33 1,332,348 9,072,394 $440,215 [11]
1887 19.66 1,606,057 11,085,052 $539,440 [12]

1. For eleven months only.

Notes

  1. Cheape 1980, p. 110.
  2. Hager 1892, p. 17; Massachusetts General Court 1854, pp. 349 ff.
  3. Pinanski 1908, pp. 10-11; Fifty Years 1938, p. 13.
  4. Warner 1870, p. 330; Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners 1880, p. 137.
  5. Toomey & Rankin 1901, pp. 204-06, refers to this incident as "probably the most stirring event in the last quarter of the nineteenth century [in South Boston]." See also Boston Daily Globe 1887a, p. 2; Boston Daily Globe 1887b, p. 2; Boston Daily Globe 1887c, p. 1; Boston Daily Globe 1887d, p. 1; Boston Sunday Globe 1887e, p. 3; Boston Daily Globe 1887f, p. 2.
  6. Pinanski 1908, pp. 17-18; Public Service Commission 1915, p. 939.
  7. Warner 1863, pp. 273-74.
  8. Warner 1868, pp. 251-52.
  9. Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners 1873, pp. 504-05.
  10. Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners 1878, pp. 261, 271.
  11. Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners 1883, pp. 370, 372.
  12. Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners 1888, pp. 427, 429.

References

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