Tremont Tunnel

Did you know there exist abandoned tunnels beneath Boston?  The musty world of silence echoes with trains past, squeaks of present rats, and suggests the supernatural horror of Poe, who was born a minute’s walk from America’s first subway tunnel.  This tunnel went from Park Street, along Tremont, crossing Boylston, through the Theater District.  At Tremont and Boylston, from the door at the surface of Boylston Station, you can hear the awful shriek of metal wheels on tracks far below as today’s train is routed sharply away from the Tremont tunnel, into Back Bay.  Such sounds must screech loudly through the walls of the receiving, abandoned tunnel, an empty darkness witnessed by man nevermore.  Well, almost nevermore.  There’s a video segment below.  We’ll get to that.  Anyway, the tunnel Bostonians traveled in 1897 continues to the Theater District.  And there is now a movement to open it up by installing a new museum-like area for the public.

Today we laugh at the skeptics who thought the buildings on Tremont would fall when the rolling trains of the new subway would cause earthquake conditions.  Horse-drawn carriages so glutted the upper world, that the area below was called into service.  In 1897 Tremont street was an aggravating bottleneck, as the Fitzgerald Expressway was for us, and the opening of America’s first subway relieved the road rage of Tremont Street travelers, as the Big Dig did for us.

Other Boston Tunnels

Speaking of the Big Dig, the Ted Williams Tunnel is the deepest tunnel in North America.  And an entirely different set of tunnels exists beneath the North End.  This tunnel system is exploited by the horror stories of H. P. Lovecraft (c.f., “Pickman’s Model“) and deserves an article of its own.

The Present Video

The intrigue of abandoned underground areas blends with classical religious iconography and horror literature.  And some people are drawn by whatever it is of the past, the removed, the out-of-reach, that speaks to them.  The fascination comes out sometimes in the form of an interest in the trains that rode the highways of history and are now in museums.  One such “train buff,” “trainspotter,” or “railfan,” is the president of the Boston Street Railway Association, Bradley Clarke.  Three years ago he was permitted to explore, with flashlights and a safety team from the MBTA, the abandoned subway tunnels.  From Boston.com, here’s a short video of their adventure.

(Click here for the video)