The Dorchester Railroad and Dorchester Extension Railroad was a

horse car A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is a tram or streetcar pulled by a horse. Summary The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public transport, public rail transport, ...

line in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts, in the late 19th century. It ran from

Downtown Boston Downtown Boston is the central business district of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Boston was founded in 1630. The largest of the city's commercial districts, Downtown is the location of many corporate or regional headquarters; city, c ...

south to Milton, primarily along Dorchester Avenue on the old Dorchester Turnpike. For several years, it was operated by Gore, Rose and Company, owned by David Gore and George Rose, because the original company could not afford to run it.

History

The Dorchester Avenue Railroad was chartered on April 29, 1854, opened in spring 1857, and bought by the Dorchester Railroad (chartered April 29, 1855) in January 1858. The Dorchester Extension Railroad was chartered on February 18, 1855. Both were leased to Gore, Rose and Company, which operated the line from June 1, 1858, to 1862. Both companies were purchased by the

Metropolitan Railroad The Metropolitan Railroad was the second streetcar company to operate in Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It was incorporated and started operations in 1864, running from the Capitol to the War Department and along H St ...

on October 1, 1863.Hager, Louis P., ed.
History of the West End Street Railway
'. Boston: Louis P. Hager, 1892. pp. 18-19 An 1871 map shows the downtown end continuing from Dorchester Avenue along Federal Street to

Dewey Square Dewey Square is a square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts which lies at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue, Summer Street, Federal Street, Purchase Street and the John F. Kennedy Surface Road, with the Central Artery ( I-93) passing und ...

, and then along Broad Street, which is now partly Atlantic Avenue, to a terminus at State Street, with no connections to any other lines. The railroad later became a surface trolley line of the

West End Street Railway The West End Street Railway was a Tram, streetcar company that operated in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts and several surrounding communities in the late nineteenth century. Originally an offshoot of a land development venture, the West End rose ...

and then the

Boston Elevated Railway The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) was a Tram, 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 R ...

. It no longer carries a single service (which would now be

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

) because the Red Line subway parallels Dorchester Avenue for its entire length. The railroad was one of the first

street railway A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

s in Boston, coming soon after the

Cambridge Railroad The Cambridge Railroad (also known as the Cambridge Horse Railroad) was the first street railway in the Boston, Massachusetts area, linking Harvard Square in Cambridge to Cambridge and Grove Streets in Boston's West End, via Massachusetts Avenue, ...

, which opened March 1856.

External links

*
A Genealogy Biography - Coates

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em 1854 establishments in Massachusetts American companies established in 1854 Railway companies established in 1854 Streetcars in the Boston area