page_title: West End Street Railway
section_title: Consolidation
hierarchical_section_title: West End Street Railway / History / Consolidation
caption_attribution_description: English: 1892 map of the West End Street Railway system in Boston, Massachusetts
context_page_description: The West End Street Railway was a streetcar company that operated in Boston, Massachusetts and several surrounding communities in the late nineteenth century.
  Originally an offshoot of a land development venture, the West End rose to prominence when it merged several independent streetcar companies into a single organization, and over the next decade it was the primary operator of public street transit within the Boston area. During this time, the company maintained one of the largest street railway systems in the world, the first unified streetcar system in the United States, and first electrified system in a major US city.
  The West End remained in independent operation until 1897, when it leased its entire line to the Boston Elevated Railway. It was formally consolidated into the Boston Elevated in 1922.
context_section_description: At the time of the West End's formation, horsecar service in the Boston area was divided between several independent railway companies, with the four principal ones being the Metropolitan, the Cambridge, the Consolidated, and the South Boston. Each of these principal railways enjoyed a virtual monopoly in a particular area of the metro (with the Metropolitan being dominant in lower, western & East Boston, the Cambridge in the area of Cambridge, the Consolidated in Charlestown and lower Middlesex County, and the South Boston in the South Boston peninsula), from which they would transport passengers to a series of several shared terminuses within the central city.
  Originally, the West End intended to coordinate operations with the principal companies in order to gain access to the Boston downtown; these efforts were however stymied by the directors of the Metropolitan and the Cambridge, who feared that the new organization represented a threat to their interests. Whitney and his associates therefore decided to carry out a much more ambitious strategy, in which they would acquire a majority of the stock of each of the established railways and unite them under common ownership. Within a short time they were able to achieve a controlling interest in all four of the principal companies, and in June 1887 the Massachusetts state legislature granted the West End a dispensation to unite with any other streetcar company operating in Boston. After some more months of negotiations, consolidation was completed in November 1887, in which shareholders of the four companies turned in their existing shares and in exchange received varying amounts of West End 8% preferred stock.
  As a result of the consolidation, the West End was transformed into one of the largest street railway companies in the world, bringing some two hundred miles of track under single ownership. The move also created the first unified public transit system in a major American city, with nearly all streetcar service in Boston (excepting that of the Lynn and Boston) being operated by the company as a result. In the first ten months following consolidation the company reported a rider count of 85 million, while in its first full year of operations (FY 1888-89) the system carried over 104 million passengers.
  Initial public reaction to consolidation was mixed, with detractors raising concerns that it would set the stage for the creation of a monopoly. For their part, proponents argued that the move would put an end to the inefficiencies of having competing railways (which had been held to blame for high levels of congestion and blockades on the streets of Boston), and a general improvement in service would be achieved as a result. In remarks made to stockholders shortly after the merger, Whitney himself defended consolidation on the grounds that "the blockades occurring on the principal thoroughfares" in Boston had reached the point of requiring a remedy, and that "if [the West End] had not taken hold of this matter the city would surely have done something [instead]."
caption: Map of the West End system (bolded) in 1892, a few years after consolidation
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