No More Speed Trap Warnings

So my reading public no longer gets speed trap warnings, as I am no longer driving to work much. But I figured that I'd share some interesting things that I see from my Worcester-Framingham line commute into and out of Boston. If you ride the rails with me, you might see these things too, or you might be sound asleep or engrossed in the Wall Street Journal like the other 80% of the people on the train.

Wellesley Hills: the little shelter here is on the back of old Wellesley Hills station, designed by the great H.H. Richardson. Like most of his beautiful train stations, including the one in my native New London, Connecticut, it is sadly underused and in disrepair, now a frame shop and a cleaners in the shadow of an ugly post office.

Wellesley Farms: another H.H. Richardson station, next to a little pond. This one is a gutted hulk. Some of the landscaping, designed by Richardson's good friend and neighbor in Brookline, Frederick Law Olmstead, survives here.

Near the 128/Pike interchange: you pass through an oddly pastoral landscape, the grounds of the Martin Golf Course, and then over the Charles River. I have seen Great Blue Herons from the train here, and some cool modernist office buildings north of the tracks, near the Pike.

Newton: the stops here are rickety shacks on the edge of the turnpike. Each used to have a nice Richardson train station, all demolished for the Pike. I smile at West Newton and Auburndale, looking at the cars sitting in traffic. Near Newtonville, look north of the tracks for the National Guard armory, a nice old Victorian drill hall, complete with "MVM" lettering for the old Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.

Brighton: the graffiti picks up and starts to get pretty complicated here, the surroundings more urban. Brighton used to have a Richardson train station, also Pike-ified, Allston has a knock-off station designed by H.H.'s successors that is now the Sports Depot bar.  Some neat train cars in the big CSX yard next to the Pike.

Yawkey: a parking lot, with beautiful old Fenway in the background. Sox fans, and medical area commuters, deserve so much better. Ever more complex graffiti in this area. Check out the neat Fenway Studios building south of the train line after Yawkey Station, but before the Pru Tunnels.

Back Bay Station: grungy, smokey, loud, the cloaca  of the line. What a loathsome place to start or end the day. I can't wait to leave and emerge into the light along the Pike, with Chinatown and Bay Village to the north and the architectural variety of the South End to the south.

South Station: the Gillette plant and the postal center sit to the east, stark and industrial. Along the tracks, just before the station, the railroad workers have built a little house for a dog or a cat, complete with bedding and food. Watch for the sleek Acela trains, and the rare sighting of the Lake Shore Limited with its archaic sleeper cars.

Here I cut out the side door from South Station onto Atlantic Avenue, after tossing out my paper and my chewing gum. I am amidst the towers of the Financial District, and there are more things to see -  beautiful, strange, historical, mysterious. Another post.