Due to community opposition, however, the last leg of the line was built as a high speed trolley line from Ashmont to Mattapan. Two of the new stations, Fields Corner and Ashmont, were built as large transfer stations. It was built at grade along a former New York and New Haven Railroad line which served Dorchester and Mattapan. The first branch was built to Ashmont from Andrew Sq. Soon the line was extended to Broadway in South Boston where a large underground two level trolley transfer station way built but this was rendered obsolete when the line was extended again to Andrew Sq where an even larger above ground transfer station was built and remains to this day, though it was completely rebuilt in the 1990s. There is also a section of tunnel from Downtown Crossing to South Station which is used as offices and storage. The top tunnel was never used by trolleys but is currently used as the mezzanine from Park St to Downtown Crossing. A little known fact is that the tunnel was constructed with two levels, the bottom level for subway trains and the top level for trolley cars to go from South Boston to Park St. Slowly over the next few years the tunnel was extended to South Station via Downtown Crossing (Washington, as it was originally known). The original Red Line only went from Harvard Sq in Cambridge to Park St station in Boston. Eventually it was decided to build the line as a subway with three stations, the terminal at Harvard Sq being a giant transfer station for trolleys coming in from the suburbs of Arlington, Belmont, and Watertown. Some people wanted 5 stations so to better serve the city itself while others wanted fewer so that suburbanites could reach downtown Boston faster. There were also arguments over how many stations there were to be built. By the turn of the century elevated railroads were regarded as a dirty nuisance. On the other side of the Charles River the people of Cambridge were up in arms about an elevated subway running down the main thoroughfare of the city, Massachusetts Ave. Eventually the tunnel was converted to heavy rail for the Blue Line but the clearances were far too narrow for the larger and wider elevated trains. After it was decided to keep trolley traffic and subway traffic separate in the Tremont St subway, a new plan emerged which had trains running elevated from Harvard Sq to Bowdoin Sq but then diving under Boston Harbor to Maverick Sq in East Boston, but due to disputes between the Boston Transit Commission (created by the state to plan the subway system) and the Boston Elevated Railroad Company (BERy, the corporation building the system) the tunnel under the harbor to East Boston was only built for trolleys. The Red Line was originally envisioned as an elevated line, like the old Orange Line, that would go from Harvard Sq in Cambridge to Bowdoin Sq in Boston where it would connect with the Tremont St subway. There is also a C branch which is any train headed towards Alewife from either branch. This branch was started in 1971 and was finally completed in the early 1980s. The second branch, the B branch, splits off after JFK/UMass, skipping Savin Hill, and makes its way to Braintree via Quincy. At Ashmont you can transfer to the Mattapan High Speed Line which is a high speed light rail line which runs along the border of Boston and Milton, terminating in Mattapan. The A branch travels to Ashmont and is the oldest branch, finished in 1924. In Dorchester the lines split after the JFK/UMass stop. They both travel along the line into Somerville, Cambridge, Central Boston, and South Boston. Both branches start at the Arlington/Cambridge border at Alewife. It is made up of two branches and a High Speed Light Rail Line. The Red Line is the longest subway line in the T.
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