Mount Hope station explained

Style:MBTA
Mount Hope
Address:Blakemore Street
Coordinates:42.2855°N -71.1195°W
Line:Attleboro Line (Northeast Corridor)
Platform:2 side platforms
Closed:November 3, 1979
Former:Monterey
Tracks:4
Other Services Header:Former services
Mapframe:yes
Mapframe-Custom:
Shape:none
Line:none
Marker:rail
Marker-Color:
  1. 888
Zoom:12

Mount Hope station was a railroad station on the Northeast Corridor in Roslindale, Boston, Massachusetts. The station consisted of two separate depots on opposite sides of the tracks. The brick outbound depot was located just north of the Blakemore Street bridge, while the wooden inbound depot was located south of the overpass.

History

Operation

The Boston and Providence Railroad opened through West Roxbury (now part of Boston) in 1834. Monterey station was open by 1849.[1] It was renamed Mount Hope around 1857.[2] [3] A small station building was built on the west side of the tracks just south of Blakemore Street in 1869.[4] [5] [6]

Construction of a third track between Mount Hope and Hyde Park took place in 1881–82, completing triple-tracking of the line between Boston and Readville. A bridge was built at that time to carry Blakemore Street over the tracks to eliminate a grade crossing.[7] A stone station building on the west side of the tracks north of Blakemore Street was built in 1884. It was designed by the firm of Sturgis and Brigham.[8] [9] The station was at railroad level below grade; street access was via sets of stairs. The Boston and Providence Railroad was acquired in 1888 by the Old Colony Railroad, which in turn became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1893. A wooden station on the east side of the tracks was built around 1898.

The station buildings were closed in 1941 or 1942 after World War II started, but trains still served the station. The inbound building was demolished after a fire and replaced with a small shelter. Ridership declined due to the competing #32 trolley line as well as the general disuse of railroads, but the station was never completely abandoned. The NYNH&H folded into Penn Central in 1969, who sold the line and station to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in 1973. Conrail took over Penn Central in 1976 and the Boston & Maine Railroad was contracted to operate the southside commuter lines starting in March 1977, thus marking the sixth operator to run trains to Mount Hope.

Closure

On November 3, 1979, the MBTA closed the tracks from Readville to Back Bay for construction of the Southwest Corridor. Providence and Franklin trains were rerouted via the Fairmount Line, while Mount Hope and Hyde Park were closed. When the corridor reopened to commuter trains in October 1987, only Hyde Park was returned to service. Mount Hope was considered too close to Forest Hills and the Orange Line to be useful. The MBTA offered instead a limited-service stop several hundred yards south at Cummins Highway, but local opinion was against the plan.

Housing units have been erected on the sites of both the inbound and outbound station buildings. The foundation of the outbound building was discovered during construction of a condominium complex. Today, no visible remnants of the station exist.

Proposed Orange Line extension

Mount Hope is located in a densely populated neighborhood just six miles from downtown Boston, making it a strong candidate for rapid transit service rather than conventional low-frequency commuter rail service. The 1945 Coolidge Commission Report recommended that an extension of the Orange Line south from Forest Hills be built to Dedham via West Roxbury rather than Mount Hope.[10] The 1966 Program for Mass Transportation recommended a bifurcated Orange Line, with one branch to West Roxbury or Hersey and another to Readville or Route 128 via Mount Hope.[11] Various reports over the next two decades continued to recommend various combinations of the extensions; however, due to cost, the 1987 relocation of the Orange Line to the Southwest Corridor was terminated at Forest Hills.[12] Hyde Park, Readville, and the Needham Line instead received limited upgrades, like handicapped accessible platforms.

The extension is still periodically discussed. The 2004 Program for Mass Transportation listed an extension to Route 128 with intermediate stops, including—possibly—Mount Hope, at a cost of $342.8 million. The extension was listed as low priority, due to environmental issues with crossing the wetlands south of Readville, and because the corridor already has commuter rail service.[13]

Notes and References

  1. 10.2307/3111453 . Commuter Services in the Boston Area, 1835-1860 . The Business History Review . 36 . 2 . Summer 1962 . 153–170 . Charles J. . Kennedy. 3111453 . 154294514 .
  2. Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=nYIqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA480 . 480 . Boston and Providence Railroad . The Boston Directory . 1857 . George Adams.
  3. News: Real Estate Sales . Boston Evening Transcript . June 13, 1857 . 2 . Newspapers.com.
  4. News: Boston & Providence Railroad . Boston Evening Transcript . December 29, 1869 . 2 . Newspapers.com.
  5. Atlas of the county of Suffolk, Massachusetts : vol. 5th, West Roxbury, now ward 17, Boston . 1874 . G.M. Hopkins & Co. . 38–39 . Plate H . 1:1,800.
  6. Plan of the town of West Roxbury : compiled from various plans and surveys, by order of the selectmen . 1:4,800 . 1873 . Moses . Theodore Bland.
  7. Book: Report of the Board of Directors of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation for the Year Ending September 30, 1881 . 8, 9 . Boston and Providence Railroad . 1881.
  8. Web site: The Mount Hope Railroad Station: A Brief History Of Roslindale's Mount Hope Railroad Station . October 2007 . Dennis M. . Kirkpatrick.
  9. News: Local Railroad Notes . Boston Evening Transcript . April 16, 1884 . 2 . Newspapers.com.
  10. Web site: Boston Elevated Railway and Boston Department of Public Utilities . 1945 . Boston Rapid Transit System & Proposed Extensions 1945 - Metropolitan Transit Recess Commission Air View . Wardmaps LLC . 17 March 2013.
  11. Web site: MBTA planning staff . A Comprehensive Development Program for Public Transportation in the Massachusetts Bay Area: 1966 . Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority . V-9 . . May 3, 1966 .
  12. Web site: Central Transportation Planning Staff . The Transportation Plan for the Boston Region . National Transportation Library . 2 . 15 November 1993 . 17 March 2013 . 9 April 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190409035238/https://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/boston.html . dead .
  13. Web site: Central Transportation Planning Staff . Chapter 5C: Service Expansion . May 2003 . 2004 Program for Mass Transportation . Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization . 5C–83 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120220063110/http://www.bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/pmt-old/PMT-5.pdf . January 2004 . February 20, 2012.