Lynn station
Lynn station is an intermodal transit station in downtown Lynn, Massachusetts. It is a station on the MBTA Commuter Rail Newburyport/Rockport Line and a hub for the MBTA bus system.
Service on the Eastern Railroad through Lynn began on August 27, 1838. The original wooden station was replaced by a larger structure in 1848, and the Saugus Branch began serving Lynn in 1855. In the "Great Lynn Depot War", a local disagreement in 1865 about where to place a replacement station became a major court case. It ended in 1872 with the construction of stations at two closely spaced sites, though one was soon torn down. The other station burned in 1889; it was replaced in 1895 by a depot with a large clock tower.
The Boston and Maine Railroad, which had acquired the Eastern in 1883, began a grade separation project through Lynn in 1909 – part of an attempt to quadruple-track the whole line. Completed in 1914, it expanded the station to four tracks and two island platforms, with the 1895-built structure modified "not for the better". It was replaced in 1952 by a modernist brick structure. Saugus Branch service ended in 1958; service on the mainline was subsidized beginning in 1965 by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
The MBTA opened a new accessible island platform in 1992, along with a large parking garage that anticipated a never-realized extension of the Blue Line. In 2003, the bus routes were moved to a busway adjacent to the garage. The rail station and parking garage temporarily closed on October 1, 2022, pending a reconstruction project, while the busway remained open. Interim platforms nearby opened in December 2023.
History
Early history
After the railroads from Boston to Lowell, Worcester, and Providence were chartered in 1830 and 1831, railroads to other surrounding cities including Newburyport and Portsmouth were proposed. The Eastern Railroad was chartered on April 14, 1836. Work began at East Boston in late 1836; it reached Lynn in the spring of 1837, but construction was slowed by the Panic of 1837 and did not reach until 1838. Service from Salem to East Boston began on August 27, 1838, with fares half that of competing stagecoaches.The line through Lynn was built at surface level. A number of stations have served Lynn, including a series of stations near the current location at Central Square as well as a number of other stations around the city. The first depot at the Central Square location, built in 1838, was a small wooden building.
The station was the site of an early protest against the discrimination of African-Americans in transportation. On September 29, 1841, noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass and friend James N. Buffum were thrown from an Eastern Railroad train when Douglass refused to sit in the segregated train coach. Trains were ordered to not stop at Lynn for several days out of concern that the citizens of Lynn would cause additional incidents.
On June 16, 1846, the stockholders authorized the sale of $450,000 of new stock to fund various branch lines plus new depots at Salem and Lynn. The 1838-built station was replaced in 1848 by a brick building with a 2-track train shed, modeled after the 1847-built station at Salem but smaller and lacking towers.
In 1845 and 1846, a line from Malden to Salem via Saugus and Lynnfield was proposed but did not pass the legislature due to bitter objections from the Eastern. Instead, the Saugus Branch Railroad opened from Malden to Lynn Common on February 1, 1853. Affiliated with the Eastern's primary rival, the Boston and Maine Railroad, it did not initially have a connection with the Eastern. In 1855, the Eastern acquired the majority stock of the Saugus Branch Railroad to keep it away from the B&M. The connection to the B&M at Malden was severed, and it was connected to the Eastern at South Malden and West Lynn. Lynn became the primary turnback point for the Saugus Branch after 1855, though a limited number of trains continued to Salem until World War I.
The first horsecars ran to Lynn in 1854 under the Lynn and Boston Railroad. Its line ran between its namesake cities; running through Charlestown on Chelsea Street, Chelsea and Revere on Broadway, then along the Salem Turnpike to Lynn. On November 19, 1888, the Highland Circuit route of the Lynn & Boston became the first electrified trolley line in Massachusetts.
Great Lynn Depot War
When the Eastern Railroad prepared to build a new depot in 1865, a great deal of controversy erupted – an event later known as the "Great Lynn Depot War". One faction wanted the replacement station built at the same Central Square location, while another wanted it built at Knight's Crossing, a block southwest at Market Street. The Central Square faction was aided by a bill passed in the Massachusetts legislature on April 29, 1865, which disallowed a railroad from abandoning a station that had been in service more than five years, as well as an 1868 bill that specifically directed the Eastern Railroad to build the replacement station at Central Square.After a case which reached the Supreme Court in 1871 and a subsequent appeal to the United States Court, a decision was ultimately made to construct stations at both locations. Both the Central Square and Market Street stations were in service by mid-1872, but it was untenable for the railroad to serve two stations just several hundred feet apart. The Market Street station was demolished in 1873 and replaced with a wooden shelter that served only a handful of trains.
The depot controversy was a setback for the Eastern Railroad in a city where residents were already dissatisfied with poor service. In 1872, the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad was charted as a direct competitor to the Eastern; service began from Market Street in 1875 and lasted until 1940. Service to East Boston had been replaced with direct service to Boston via the Grand Junction Railroad in 1854, but Lynn–East Boston service was run from 1872 to 1880 to compete with the BRB&L. In 1880, the service was cut to a Revere–East Boston shuttle, which lasted until 1905.
From approximately the 1850s to the 1930s, Lynn was the terminus for some short turn Boston commuter trains. From 1881 to 1892, some of these trains ran via the Chelsea Beach Branch during the summer.
Track elevation
The B&M acquired the Eastern Railroad in 1883. The 1872-built Central Square station was severely damaged in the Great Lynn Fire on November 26, 1889, which burned much of the downtown area. The B&M soon erected a temporary station at the site using part of the damaged station. Construction of a new station was delayed by real estate acquisition. Bradford Gilbert was consulted for the design of the new station in 1890; after modifications by railroad officials, an 1892 design featured a polygonal clock tower and a large train shed.Construction of the new station ultimately began in early 1894. Designed by B&M architect Henry B. Fletcher, it was different from the earlier plans. The main building, measuring, was on the north side of the tracks west of Silsbee Street; a eastbound station building was on the south side. They were built of buff brick and brownstone, with marble flooring and slate roofs. The two side platforms had -long wooden awnings with slate roofs. The main station building had a -tall square pyramidal clock tower. The new station buildings opened in March 1895 at a total cost exceeding $100,000 ; the old station was demolished soon after.
As early as 1901, the city began planning to eliminate the numerous grade crossings in downtown Lynn. With 150 trains per day on the main line and 40 on the Saugus Branch, some streets were blocked for as long as half of daylight hours. After legal issues, construction of an elevated viaduct began in September 1909. However, the New Haven Railroad briefly gained control of the Boston and Maine at this time, and intended to fully four-track the line through Lynn in conjunction with plans including a possible railroad tunnel under the harbor. The municipality initially intended to force the railroad to depress the four-track line below grade, but later reached an agreement with the railroad to modify the two-track viaduct for four tracks.
The New Haven's plan to four-track the line as far as the branch line splits in Salem and Beverly was stymied by the costs to modify the grade crossings in Chelsea and the single-track tunnel at. Quadruple track became operational for two miles from the junction of the Saugus Branch at West Lynn Tower, through Lynn station to just before Swampscott station. The depot was modified "not for the better" in conjunction with the elevation project. Many of the four-track bridge spans in Lynn, no longer in operation, are still extant.
B&M era
Streetcars service to Lynn continued under the Lynn & Boston until 1901 when it became part of the Boston and Northern Street Railway. By the early 20th century, a number of lines crisscrossed Lynn, with a number of them serving the station. The Bay State Street Railway took over operations in 1911 and joined the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway in 1919. Trolley service in Lynn lasted until 1938.The Boston and Maine Railroad built a new, more modern station in 1952 but reused the 1914-built platforms. This single-story building, located on the south side of the tracks at Mt. Vernon and Exchange streets, was in the same flat-roofed brick style as Winchester Center and Wedgemere built five years later. The building was the first on the Boston & Maine system to have radiant heat, and also included a restaurant and newsstand. The 1895-built station was demolished to make room for a parking lot. Saugus Branch service ended in May 1958, followed by Swampscott Branch service in June 1959 leaving through service on the Eastern Route as the only trains serving Lynn. Around this time, the third and fourth tracks at Lynn, no longer needed for terminating Saugus Branch trains or for shuttles to Marblehead were removed, leaving the station with effectively two side platforms serving two tracks. By the late 1977, the station was a "shambles", with "broken glass, garbage, vulgar graffiti and crumbling cement."