page_title: Boston Elevated Railway
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Boston Elevated Railway / History
caption_attribution_description: Red Line equipment at Eliot Shops in 1967, before it had been painted to match the line's name
context_page_description: The Boston Elevated Railway was a streetcar and rapid transit railroad operated on, above, and below, the streets of Boston, Massachusetts and surrounding communities. Founded in 1894, it eventually acquired the West End Street Railway via lease and merger to become the city's primary mass transit provider. Its modern successor is the state-run Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which continues to operate in part on infrastructure developed by BERy and its predecessors.
context_section_description: Originally intended to build a short electric trolley line to Brookline, the West End Street Railway was organized in 1887.  By the next year it had consolidated ownership of a number of horse-drawn streetcar lines, composing a fleet of 7816 horses and 1480 rail vehicles. As the system grew, a switch to underground pulled-cable propulsion (modeled after the San Francisco cable cars) was contemplated.  After visiting Frank Sprague and witnessing the Richmond, Virginia system in action, WESR President Henry Whitney chose to deploy electric propulsion systems. A section of track was used to test the Bentley-Knight underground power line, but this was abandoned because of failures and safety concerns (especially after the electrocution of a team of horses in 1889). After competing in operational tests with the Sprague streetcar system, the Thomson-Houston company was chosen for system-wide deployment of overhead wires. The electrified rapid transit system was named an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering in 2004.
  The first electric trolley line built by the West End Street Railway was between Union Square, Allston and Park Square, downtown, via Harvard Street, Beacon Street, Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street. Trolleys first ran in 1889. The Green Line A branch later served roughly the same purpose.
  The last horse car line was along Marlborough Street in the Back Bay, and was never electrified. It was closed around 1900.
  In the late 19th century, the electric power industry was in its infancy; the power grid as we know it today simply did not exist. The railway company constructed its own power stations; by 1897, these included distributed generation stations in downtown Boston, Allston, Cambridge (near Harvard), Dorchester, Charlestown, East Cambridge, and East Boston. By 1904, the system had 36 megawatts of generating capacity, 421 miles (678 km) of track for over 1550 street cars (mostly closed but some open), and 16 miles (26 km) of elevated track for 174 elevated cars.
  On 7 November 1916, Boston Elevated Railway Co. street car No. 393 smashed through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge in Boston, plunging into the frigid waters of Fort Point Channel, killing 46 people.
  The first bus route was in 1922, between Union Square, Allston and Faneuil Street. In 1933 this was merged with the Union Square–Central bus and later became the 64 bus.
caption: Retired BERy-era heavy rail subway cars at the MBTA Red Line's former Eliot Yard, 1967
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