This article which appeared on the cover of The Boston Globe last week reminded me of how much there is to see on the MBTA’s Green Line.

First, you can try to spot the different type of LRV (light rail vehicle) cars. There are three types in service right now: Type 7 I (numbered 36xx), Type 7 II, (numbered 37xx), and Type 8 (numbered 38xx). Honestly, I can’t tell the two different Type 7s apart without looking at the car numbers. At Boylston station you can see some older trolleys: a very cool retro looking PCC car dating to the 1940-50s, and an old-timey looking car from the 1920s.

Boylston station is itself a curiosity: it’s oddly shaped and the track follows a path of tortuous contrivance. It’s nonsensical. But apparently this madness is a product of age. Earlier in its life Boylston was the junction of several tunnels and inclines which required this more complex design.

The tunnels themselves have a number of sights to be seen, but you’re going to have to sit in the front of the car, stare intently out the front window, and ignore the people wondering what you’re doing. Here are a couple of examples.

Just after leaving Boylston heading towards Arlington, you can see a new tunnel veering to the right. Between these two stations are supposed to be traces of: the Charles Street incline, the Public Gardens incline, and a part of an unfinished tunnel. I think I concluded at one point that I am describing the Public Gardens incline, but I can’t be sure. I’m still intently searching for traces of the other two.

Coming into Kenmore, if you look to the right, you’ll very easily see the rails of the Kenmore Portal which once led up to Commonwealth Avenue. If you disembark and return to the surface, it’s easy to see where the incline once emerged.

There’s more than that to see. The MBTA shuts down pretty early for a major metropolitan area (somewhere around 1AM, I believe.) I wonder if anyone has ever tried to organize a sanctioned, after-hours tour of the system. I know I’d take it, even if it is past my bedtime.

If you’d like to read more about this, I recommend 100 Years of the Tremont Street Subway. If you have any details on other things to see I’d love to hear them.

vanshnookenraggen (is that a single name?) has got a great photographed and mapped walking tour of the Grand Junction Railroad right of way. I’ve been to his (?) site on a couple of occasions to check out his Future MBTA maps, but only discovered the walking tours recently.

The Grand Junction basically connects North Station to South Station by cutting through Somerville and Cambridge, MA. I actually lived down the street from where it crosses Cambridge Street just outside of Lechmere Square.

The tracks are rickety though used pretty much every night. Travelling slowly, the creeping locomotive would unleash its horn at regular intervals. Listening from my third storey apartment, it was easy to mark the progress as the soundings grew louder and clearer then softer and muffled. On a winter night, transmitting through the crisp air and the thin walls of my flat, the clarion lost only a little of its potency.

I’ve perused most of the site at this point. If you’re into old rail right of ways, urban exploration, or the MBTA I’m sure you’ll spend some quality time there too.