West End Street Railway

West End Street Railway Company

West End railway car along Centre Street, Roxbury in 1897
Predecessor	Metropolitan, Cambridge, Consolidated, and South Boston railroads
Founded	January 22, 1887; 137 years ago (1887-01-22)
Defunct	June 10, 1922; 101 years ago (1922-06-10)
Fate	Consolidated
Successor	Boston Elevated Railway
Area served	Greater Boston
Key people	Henry Melville Whitney (president, 1887–1893) Samuel Little (president, 1887–1900)
Revenue	$8,719,031.78 (FY 1897)
Operating income	$2,505,323.22 (FY 1897)
Footnotes / references [1]

The West End Street Railway was a streetcar company that operated in Boston, Massachusetts and several surrounding communities in the late nineteenth century.

Originally an offshoot of a land development venture, the West End rose to prominence when it merged several independent streetcar companies into a single organization, and over the next decade it was the primary operator of public street transit within the Boston area. During this time, the company maintained one of the largest street railway systems in the world, the first unified streetcar system in the United States, and first electrified system in a major US city.^[2]

The West End remained in independent operation until 1897, when it leased its entire line to the Boston Elevated Railway. It was formally consolidated into the Boston Elevated in 1922.