Fairmount Line
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The Fairmount Line or Dorchester Branch is a line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Except for a short portion in Milton, it lies entirely within Boston, passing through the neighborhoods of Dorchester and Hyde Park. It sees service roughly every half hour during rush hours and every hour at other times, with no night or weekend service. Most trains reverse direction at the south end at Readville, but a few continue onto the Franklin Line or Providence/Stoughton Line.
The corridor serves mostly low-income communities, and it has been suggested that better service would be provided if it ran through a more affluent area. Beginning with the 1950s, the area served by the heart of this line -- Mattapan -- experienced an exodus of its settled Jewish community, in a suburbanization process which began normally and was then exacerbated by collusionary pressure from the real estate and banking industries. They used block-busting and redlining to create, enforce a prey upon a segregated community of African Americans. As crime went up and myths increased, Fairmount riders from the secluded neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Dedham would have had little incentive -- and many disincentives-- to reopen the closed stations. Nor would city government have intervened. But the result was that many working poor, originally native born and later also immigrant, found transportation difficulties added to the other obstacles they faced in balancing family, community and career development. Levine, Hillel Levine and Harmon, Lawrence Harmon (1992). The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions. The Free Press: New York.
Proponents of better service have proposed opening more stations (it has three plus the two ends) and running more frequent service, making it more rapid transit-like with diesel multiple unit (DMU) cars. The name Indigo Line has been used for this proposal. -- Proponents also urge that this line, which serves a high-density corridor with very high rates of asthma, be an early recipient as less polluting rail-based technologies become available.
The MBTA has adopted parts of this proposal and has allocated $37 million for the renovation and rehabilitation of stations, bridges, tracks, and signal systems on the line. In 2005, construction started on a completely redesigned station at Uphams Corner. The new station will feature high-level train platforms for easy boarding, canopies, access ramps, electronic message boards, and pedestrian-friendly walkways. Long-term plans call for the construction of new stations at Four Corners, Talbot Avenue, Blue Hill Avenue, and the Newmarket area. The addition of new stations and the upgrades to the existing infrastructure are projected to more than triple ridership on the railroad between South Station and Readville. Funding sources for the new stations have not yet been identified.
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[edit] History
The line was built as an entrance to Boston for the Norfolk County Railroad and its successors, which originally had to rely on a connection via the Boston and Providence Railroad from Dedham. The new line, built in 1855, split from the old one at Islington and ran northeast, crossing the Boston and Providence Railroad at Readville (the south junction with its Dedham Branch). It continued on through Hyde Park and Dorchester before crossing the Old Colony Railroad into South Boston and then making a sweeping curve along a trestle west to downtown Boston and a terminal at Dewey Square.
After several failed reorganizations, the line became part of the New York and New England Railroad in 1873 and the New England Railroad in 1895. The New England was leased to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1898 and became their Midland Division. The line was operationally split at Readville, the crossing of the Boston and Providence (also leased by the NYNH&H), with many trains using the Midland from the southwest switching to the B&P, and some on the B&P from the south switching to the Midland.
In 1899 the new South Station union station opened, and a new set of tracks was built for the Midland on the west side of the Old Colony Railroad mainline, also part of the NYNH&H. The old South Boston station was abandoned, being north of the junction with the new alignment, and the old terminal was no longer used, with the last bit of the old line (over Fort Point Channel) removed, and the rest used for freight only. South Boston was however served by the station that had been built for the Old Colony, now between the Old Colony and Midland tracks.
Passenger service last ran on the Midland in 1944 after a long period of declining ridership. The MBTA bought the line (since merged into Penn Central) in 1976 (the part south of Readville was bought in 1973 as part of the Franklin Line) and modernized it for use as a bypass while the old B&P was closed for sinking as part of the Southwest Corridor project. This happened on November 3, 1979, when all trains on the Franklin and Providence/Stoughton Lines were rerouted via the Midland. Three of the old stations - Fairmount, Morton Street and Uphams Corner - were reopened, and a special shuttle was run between South Station and Back Bay to get Franklin and Attleboro/Providence passengers to Back Bay.
On October 5, 1987, the new Southwest Corridor opened. The MBTA had planned to suspend all service on the Midland, but the community protested and a shuttle was kept between South Station and Fairmount. The shuttle was extended to Readville on November 30, 1987, re-establishing service between the south and the Fairmount Line. Since then, several Franklin and Providence/Stoughton Line trips have been rerouted via the Fairmount Line to reduce load on the three-track Southwest Corridor and supplement the shuttle service.
[edit] Accessibility
Only the two ends of the line (South Station and Readville) are handicapped accessible. See also MBTA accessibility.
[edit] Station listing
All stations are in Boston, Massachusetts, though a short portion of the line south of River Street is in Milton.
| Milepost | Station | Opening date | Connections and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.0 |  South Station |
||
| 0.8 | South Boston | closed | |
| 1.1 | South Bay Junction | never a station splits from Kingston/Plymouth Line and Middleborough/Lakeville Line before 1899, the line went northeast from here with a stop at South Boston and a terminal at the foot of Summer Street downtown |
|
| 2.4 | Uphams Corner | November 3, 1979 | formerly Dudley Street |
| 2.8 | Bird Street | closed | |
| 3.6 | Mount Bowdoin | closed | |
| 4.1 | Harvard Street | closed | |
| 4.7 | Dorchester | closed | |
| 5.3 | Morton Street | November 3, 1979 | formerly Forest Avenue |
| 5.9 | Mattapan | closed | |
| 6.5 | Rugby | closed | |
| 6.8 | River Street | closed | |
| 7.9 | Fairmount | November 3, 1979 | |
| 8.3 | Glenwood | closed | |
| 9.2 | Readville |
splits with connections to the Franklin Line and the Providence/Stoughton Line |
[edit] External links
- MBTA - The Fairmount Line
- The Indigo Line
- Noah S. Berger (Transit Policy Analyst, MBTA Advisory Board), The Indigo Line: Railroad Rapid Transit
