Watertown Yard

Watertown Carhouse is a bus maintenance facility and former streetcar carhouse located in the southern section of Watertown, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Watertown Square. As Watertown Yard, the site also serves as a bus depot serving local and express routes, with additional connections available at Watertown Square on the opposite end of the Watertown Bridge.

"Watertown station" redirects here. For the bus station on the north side of the Charles River, see Watertown Square station.
Watertown
An outbound train arrives at Watertown in 1967
Coordinates42°21′51.45″N 71°11′7.96″W
Owned byMassachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Platforms1 side platform (for buses)
Tracks2 (former)
Connections MBTA bus: 52, 57, 59, 193, 502, 504
History
ClosedJune 21, 1969 (Green Line)[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA Following station
Terminus Green Line Newton Corner
toward Park Street

History
A PCC streetcar (left) and a work car in Watertown Yard in 1967
Watertown Carhouse in 2013

In 1900, streetcar service was extended south from Watertown Square to Newton Corner, which served as a transfer point between the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) and suburban operators. In 1912, the Watertown Line was created by extending the Newton Corner line along these tracks to a new transfer facility, yard, and maintenance facility, Watertown Yard.[2]

Watertown Yard formerly served as the terminus of the Green Line A branch, with its heavy maintenance shops eventually handling most work for the remaining trolley routes by the 1950s. When the D branch opened in 1959, the Riverside shops were opened to supplement the Watertown and Reservoir carhouses. Due to a rolling stock shortage created largely by the opening of the D branch, as well as traffic problems at the poorly designed Newton Corner rotary, the A branch was closed in 1969 and replaced by the #57 bus.[1] However, Watertown Carhouse continued to see frequent use.[3]

The Bennett Street Carhouse near Harvard Square was closed in the 1970s for construction of the Harvard Kennedy School. On February 22, 1974, the MBTA began conversion of Watertown Carhouse to a trolleybus and streetcar maintenance facility to replace Bennett.[4]

During the 1970s and 1980s, the line was kept open for maintenance moves to the carhouse at night. After the newly arrived Boeing LRVs began failing in the late 1970s, the MBTA was desperate for functional rolling stock. At Watertown, 15 out-of-service and wrecked PCC streetcars were rebuilt to as-new condition.[5] (Ten of these cars still run on the Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line).[6] Crews at the carhouse rebuilt trolleybuses serving the Harvard lines, converted other PCC cars into work cars, and salvaged trucks from pre-1924 Blue Line stock to build new work cars.[3] LRVs and even the still-in-use Type 7 cars were brought in for maintenance work, using LRVs equipped with trolley poles to tow the modern pantograph-equipped cars under the older trolley wire.

By the time the tracks to Watertown were removed in 1994, Watertown served primarily as the Green Line's scrapyard.[3] Several wrecked cars, including sections of cars 3648 and 3639 wrecked at Copley in 1989, remained in the carhouse until they were scrapped in 2012.[7][6] Tracks remain in the yard and in the carhouse itself.

Watertown Carhouse is now primarily used as a midday layover for buses, as a crew base, and for light maintenance work. Until January 2006, it was used for servicing, storage, and testing of new dual-mode buses and trolleybuses for the Silver Line Phase 2 BRT sets, which were tested under the wires used by the #71.

Bus routes

A widened sidewalk with two bus shelters on the north side of the site serves as the boarding area at Watertown Yard. Buses entering the yard, especially those going out of service, may drop off passengers at the entrance to the yard. Three local MBTA bus routes, two express routes, and a limited-service route stop at Watertown Yard; all terminate there except for the #59. As a rapid transit replacement service, the #57 is the most frequent and most heavily ridden of the routes.[8]

The 193 Watertown Yard–Haymarket station route is a single early-morning trip. Created in September 1960 for fare collectors, in September 1999 it was added to public timetables.[1]

Connections to the 70 and 71 routes are available at Watertown Square just to the north.

References
  1. Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). NETransit.
  2. "Boston Profits By Elevated Railway Station Improvements". Electric Railway Journal. McGraw-Hill. 48 (7): 258–263. 12 August 1916 – via Internet Archive.
  3. Moore, Scott. "The Watertown Line". NETransit. Archived from the original on 3 February 2002. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
  4. A Chronicle of the Boston Transit System. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 1981. p. 9 – via Internet Archive.
  5. Moore, Scott. "Boston's Green Line Crisis". NETransit. Archived from the original on 6 April 2004. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
  6. "The MBTA Vehicle Inventory Page". Boston Transit eMuseum. 2013. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
  7. Ridership and Service Statistics (PDF) (13 ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2010. p. 2.7. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 13, 2011.
  8. "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14th ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014.
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