The Newton and Boston Street Railway was a

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

company in the Boston, Massachusetts area, eventually bought by the

Middlesex and Boston Street Railway The Middlesex and Boston Street Railway (M&B) was a streetcar and later bus company in the area west of Boston. Streetcars last ran in 1930, and in 1972 the company's operations were merged into the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MB ...

. Its line is now the 59 Needham Junction –

Watertown Square Watertown Square is the main square of Watertown, Massachusetts, located at the confluence of North Beacon Street and Main Street ( US-20), Mt. Auburn Street ( MA-16), Pleasant Street, Arsenal Street, and Charles River Road. The Armenian Library a ...

via Newtonville bus.

History

The Newton and Boston Street Railway was organized in 1891. It soon opened an electric trolley line between Newton Upper Falls and Newtonville, with regular service beginning August 31, 1892. An 1897 map and an 1899 map show a branch to

Newton Centre Newton Centre is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The main commercial center of Newton Centre is a triangular area surrounding the intersections of Beacon Street, Centre St ...

. The 1899 map also shows a branch of the Commonwealth Avenue Street Railway very closely paralleling it. In 1899, the company proposed a never-built line between Reservoir and Newton Center via Beacon Street. The Newtonville and Watertown Street Railway was leased October 1, 1897, allowing it to continue northeast to Watertown. An extension southwest to Needham center was built in 1906. On October 9, 1909, the Newton and Boston was merged into the

. The line was bustituted in 1926. The

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network ...

began to

subsidize A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from the government, the ter ...

the route in September 1964, and assigned it the number 32 Needham–Watertown. When the MBTA took over the M&B on June 30, 1972, it was renumbered to 532. It was again renumbered in September 1982, and is now the 59 Needham Junction – Watertown Square via Newtonville.

Route

The only changes from the original route to the present day have been at Newton Upper Falls. The original alignment was rather circuitous, looping north of Eliot Street on High, Summer and Chestnut Streets, presumably to avoid steep grades. An alignment in the mid-1970s used a

one-way pair A one-way pair, one-way couple, or couplet refers to that portion of a bi-directional traffic facilitysuch as a road, bus, streetcar, or light rail linewhere its opposing flows exist as two independent and roughly parallel facilities. Descript ...

, with the northbound direction looping south of Eliot Street. It now uses the old ''northbound'' side (Oak and Chestnut Streets) in both directions, the opposite of the original route. Until 20 April 1981, the route only went north from Needham Center; it was extended at that time to Needham Junction. 59A Needham Street–Watertown Square was added in December 1984, running Watertown to

Newton Highlands Newton Highlands is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The Newton Highlands Historic District includes residential and commercial businesses back to the late 19th century. ...

and splitting there onto its own alignment to the Needham Industrial Park. 59A service was merged into 59 in December 1989, with alternate weekday trips using the 59A alignment (and continuing to Newton Junction). The branch to Newton Centre split from the main route (on Walnut Street), heading east on

Homer Street Homer Street is a quiet one-way street in the Marylebone neighbourhood of the City of Westminster, London. It runs from Old Marylebone Road in the north to Crawford Street in the south. The street is part of the Marylebone Ward of Westminster Cit ...

. It turned south on Centre Street, southeast on Willow Street, south on Sumner Street, and west on

Beacon Street Beacon Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts and its western suburbs Brookline and Newton. It passes through many of Boston's central and western neighborhoods, including Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway–Kenmore, the Boston Uni ...

, ending at Centre Street.

External links and references

MBTA – Route 59

Railroad History Database

Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

)

References

{{Reflist Streetcars in the Boston area