. Railway age gazette . eneral ma-chinery; there were no blacksmith or boiler facilities. The in-tent was to make this a nucleus for the main shop for the system. The work of carrying out the plans, as far as developed forEast Somerville, proved to be a slow process. In consequencethe Boston & Maine employed a special engineer in 1910 with acorps of draftsmen and field engineers, whose exclusive dutywas to work out the shop problem. One of the first decisionsreached was to abandon further development at East Somervillefor several reasons. First, the ground was too congested to permit of future
. Railway age gazette . eneral ma-chinery; there were no blacksmith or boiler facilities. The in-tent was to make this a nucleus for the main shop for the system. The work of carrying out the plans, as far as developed forEast Somerville, proved to be a slow process. In consequencethe Boston & Maine employed a special engineer in 1910 with acorps of draftsmen and field engineers, whose exclusive dutywas to work out the shop problem. One of the first decisionsreached was to abandon further development at East Somervillefor several reasons. First, the ground was too congested to permit of future ex-tension ; the plans as worked out were very complete, in fact toocomplete, taking care of present needs but not allowing forexpansion. The necessity for the constant use of a transfertable and a one entrance shop yard were, in themselves, not idealconditions. Second, anticipated electrification within a radius of 25 milesof Boston, made the location geographically poor from a steam o yfekhmansRoadwai/—» Housa. Plan Showing Yard Tracks and Grouping of the Buildings at the Billerica Shops was the shop to which locomotives were sent for stripping theboilers for shipment to contract shops and where they were re-assembled on return; all firebox and heavy boiler work was, ofnecessity, done at some contract shop. The Boston shops were destroyed by fire December 5, 1907,badly crippling the railroad in so far as repairs to equipmentwere concerned. Orders were given to develop plans for a gen-eral shop, to include, not only locomotive, but passenger andfreight car repairs, the car situation being just as serious as thelocomotive. The site selected was East Somerville, on a pieceof property owned by the railroad, located on the Mystic riverand contiguous to the main line tracks. Small progress was made in actual development; a generallayout plan was made and a building erected approximately 250ft. long, containing ten repair pits and two low machinery building was equippe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectrailroa, bookyear1913
