Talk:South Station

Floor plan (subway portion)

Intercity bus terminal

The intercity bus terminal predates 2001 as I used it in 1997. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There used to be one in the median of the Artery south of Congress Street [1]; that may have been the one you used. --SPUI 18:34, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think he may be right. I found this on Google Groups:

"Apr 7 1998, 3:00 am

From yesterday's Boston Globe "Ask The Globe" column. ...

Q. When was the new bus terminal opened for business at South Station?

A. The $122 million South Station Transportation Center, or Intermodal Transportation Center, opened in October 1995, complete with marble floor, a quarter-acre waiting area, and a 50-foot dome atop the rotunda. There you can buy tickets, food, and services. Some 700 buses go in and out each day, carrying close to 10,000 passengers. With spaces for more than 230 cars, passengers can drive into the city, park, and head to the bus, commuter rail, Amtrak, or subway - all under one roof. ... Ron Newman rnew...@thecia.net"

Of course you are correct about the location of the Bus Station that preceded the current one. --agr 15:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Greyhound if you can remember back actually used to have their terminal in the Back Bay neighborhood on St. James Avenue. I think it was at 10 St. James Avenue?.(It has since been torn down.) When the new South Station bus terminal over the commuter rail tracks was completed they relocated their Boston area bus terminal to there. CaribDigita (talk) 14:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup tag?

Can it go away? I don't think the article is as need of cleanup as the banner contends. Geoff.green 02:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, going away.. Still needs work, of course, but no more so than the average Wikipedia article that doesn't have a cleanup banner. Geoff.green 18:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Postal relocation

I was wondering if anyone had any information about where the South Station bulk mail center was being moved to, and whether or not there will still be a 24-hour post office afterwords. -- Beland 06:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Services section

The services section in the info box is way too long and duplicates a more compact version nearer to the top. I propose removing it.--agr (talk) 16:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well first of all, I don't see any duplicates anywhere in the article. Second, the infobox is a vital part of a good station article however, I do see your point about it being way too long. What we need to do is make it collapsible. I'm going to take this discussion over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains since this is a very interesting subject. Murjax (talk) 17:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Address

Hi, I've been trying to look at deeds records and the Boston City Assessor's website to get exact dimensions of the building and land, the city Assessor's website seems to give the address as 640 Atlantic Avenue (This made sense to me, because the Federal Bank Reserve building across the street is 600 Atlantic Avenue). To add to that though, I think I do recall the bus terminal in the rear being called 700 Atlantic Avenue. Would it be better to list the Address here as 640-700 Atlantic Avenue?

• Boston City Assessor's website Parcel ID: 0305364000

CaribDigita (talk) 14:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd go with 640 Atlantic Ave. That's the address of South Station, which is the title of the article.--agr (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Restaurants, shops, shopping districts

I'd question the section "Restaurants, shops, shopping districts" which defines them as being "within a radius of approximately one mile." That covers most of downtown Boston and seems way beyond the scope of this article. In particular, one would normally go to other transit stations to get to most of these places.--agr (talk) 16:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Right. I can't find a single item there served primarily by the South Station T stop. Time to be bold and remove the section. Its presence may also be questionable per WP:NOTDIR. Hertz1888 (talk) 18:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Add this picture?

this would show how much of south station was demolished since 1898.
http://www.south-station.net/Images/Photos/LargePhotos/newhaven2.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.122.12.166 (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Split

I propose that the MBTA subway part of the article is merged out to a new article with the name of South Station (MBTA subway station). I have made a draft here. Thoughts? If nobody "weighs in" in a week, I will do the changes myself →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 19:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• Weak Support. While I don't see the necessity of making a separate article for the subway station since it is technically part of the train station, I don't think it would be too much of an issue as they cater to different services. Grk1011 (talk) 00:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Firsts of all it has not been a week yet, secondly, I see no reason in splitting up the station into two articles. I can not find a single instance of this taking place in any other subway station/ amtrack article. I think it needlessly complicates finding information.--Found5dollar (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• Union Station (WMATA station) is begging to differ. It hasn't been a week? Fuck!! →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 02:27, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
• We also have 34th Street – Penn Station (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line), 34th Street – Penn Station (IND Eighth Avenue Line), and Grand Central – 42nd Street (New York City Subway) →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 02:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

  Atlantic Avenue – Pacific Street (New York City Subway), also →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 02:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support, plenty of precedent for splitting subway stations. oknazevad (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Merge

I proposed that South Station Headhouse be merged into this article as there is no reason why the station's building should have a separate article when it can be covered with more relevance here. Grk1011 (talk) 00:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support I stumbled upon that article while searching for "South Station" and there is really no reason for it to exist. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 01:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support There are other stations that have this info included on their station page.--Enfiladekh1 (talk) 00:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
• Vociferous support The only reason to have a separate article is if it's no longer a train station. That's utterly not the case here, South Station has never been inactive. I'm just going to be bold and merge the articles as a WP:SNOW merge. oknazevad (talk) 18:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done, but with cleanup needed. The only part of the other article worth saving was the NRHP infobox, which I brought over. I know there's a way to have a combined infobox, but I don't know where it is. Some guidance requested. oknazevad (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this what you are looking for? Hertz1888 (talk) 18:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe it is. I'll give it a shot and see how it turns out. Thanks. oknazevad (talk) 18:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope, not working. At least at my skill level of wikignoming. oknazevad (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Original track configuration

Hoi. Is there any information available about the track configuration at the time of the opening of the station? Thus, how many platform tracks were available by then and when was it changed? --Thogo 06:52, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The tracks went all (most of?) the way to Fort Point Channel. They were replaced when the USPS facility was built. If you wish, chase the sources down. Lentower (talk) 08:33, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Terminus Preceding or Following?

It seems very odd to me that in the box on the right side, for all of the Amtrak lines and most of the MBTA lines, South Station is listed as Terminus for the Following Station, but for four lines (the ones which stop at JFK/UMass), South Station is listed as terminus for the Preceding Station. I'm not sure why this is denoted this way, but I think Terminus should either be all under Preceding or all under Following, since the station is the Northern/Eastern terminus for every line listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.205.44 (talk) 12:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The CapeFLYER is technically not an MBTA service

The CapeFLYER is being run by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Administration using MBTA trains south of Middleboro. The infobox suggests that this is an MBTA Commuter Service. It may be useful to somehow list it differently so that readers understand this.FFM784 (talk) 03:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 23:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• South Station → South Station (Boston)
• South Station (disambiguation) → South Station

– Boston is not the only town in the world with a station named South Station. Cecil Huber (talk) 21:55, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support. PRRfan (talk) 22:01, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose The South Station in Boston is the only one named just "South Station" on the disambiguation page. All others follow the format "[City] South station." See the difference? Hot Stop talk-contribs 00:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Yes, so? All the other ones already have disambiguating parts in their article names, so why shouldn't Boston South Station too? Cecil Huber (talk) 00:38, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Because unless you can prove otherwise their fullnames include the location, whereas this one (and North Station) doesn't. Hot Stop talk-contribs 01:00, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
      • Sorry but have to note this is the oddest oppose reason I have ever seen on an RM, it amounts to "The title is like that" In ictu oculi (talk) 01:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
        • Are you thick? There is one station in the world with the name South Station. Every other station with a so-called similar name is City South station. If you can't see the difference you need to get your head checked. Hot Stop talk-contribs 21:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
          • There's no need for name calling. Even if you would be right and the station in Boston would be the only thing in the world called simply 'South Station' (which I doubt it is), I still can't see the reason for it to have this name without disambiguating part in the article header on Wikipedia, which is a global encyclopedia. Cecil Huber (talk) 22:52, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
            • I, too, wish Hot Stop hadn't resorted to name calling because it distracts from his quite sane rationale. The other stations on the dab page are never referred to in their articles (or in any web results I've managed to find) as "South Station". They're shortened to "Bromley South" or "Dorchester South", even locally. The only station referred to in the broader world simply as "South Station" is in Boston, unless you can provide sources to the contrary. Ibadibam (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Their own names have the disambiguation, so that the article names don't need any. No need to make an exception for South Station in Boston; its name is unique. Hertz1888 (talk) 00:50, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Even if you would be right and the station in Boston would be the only thing in the world called simply 'South Station' (which I doubt it is), I still can't see the reason for it to have this name without disambiguating part in the article header on Wikipedia, which is a global encyclopedia. Cecil Huber (talk) 22:52, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hot Stop and Hertz1888. Heck, there's no evidence that the other entries on the disambiguation page are even called "south station" othe than an assertion. Plus there's a little thing called WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and no evidence that this isn't just that. oknazevad (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I think you need to show evidence that this is the primary topic for this term, if you want it to stay under this heading. Cecil Huber (talk) 22:52, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support - not as clear as Talk:North Station but current title still fails WP:Article titles on WP:CRITERIA, as well as failing WP:PRIMARYTOPIC see here (though less badly than North Station), and WP:DISAMBIGUATION. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:04, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Those Google results are meaningless; that's from their French site, and so does nothing to establish primary topic in English. And intentionally removing Boston from the search biases the results against this station. If anything, that one has to remove "Boston" from the search to get such results only reinforces the idea that this station is the primary meaning of "South Station". oknazevad (talk) 13:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support per IIO -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 02:20, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support. In the words of WP:PRECISE, a generic search term like "south station" is not precise enough to identify unambiguously the station in Boston. Thus, the burden of evidence should lie with those who support that there should still be a primary topic. The primary topic should also not be based solely because the one in Boston got the "South Station" ambiguous title first, and the other pages had to follow suit with a disambiguation title. Zzyzx11 (talk) 09:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose; it should probably be at Boston South station, but in the absence of an actual naming guideline for US railway stations who the hell even knows? Mackensen (talk) 11:15, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I interprete that as you are in favour of a move, only just not to what I suggested? Cecil Huber (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This solves no real problem. When the article was named, it was the only "South Station" on WP. Concur with other reasons for opposition. Lentower (talk) 12:15, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, it solves a problem. Boston is hardly the primary topic for Wikipedia. Cecil Huber (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The current title is the official name of the station in question. No other station with an article has this as its official name. A English language Google search produces mostly this station with other links largely to accidental pairings of the two words, not other railway stations. South Station averages over 120 hits a day, and North Station 80, which are high for relatively minor articles. Over 300 articles link to South Station, over 500 to North Station. These are all the tests WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggests. There is no justification for disambiguation here.--agr (talk) 14:37, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, South Station is the only plain South Station on the list, all the others feature their city names in the title. For this reason, I don't see a need to move the page. WikiRedactor (talk) 17:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • And if you live in those cities? We don't all live in Boston. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 21:25, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support, nothing so special about this one location. Are all places having such a name train stations? DeistCosmos (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Did you actually read the arguments from the opposers? Hot Stop talk-contribs 21:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Not a unique name. NIMBY seems to be the reason for most opposition - which is the point being made for the change - except the people making the argument don't see it - because it is their " South Station". My hometown had a "South Station", which the railway company prefixed with the name of the town, because they understood that others existed. Secondarywaltz (talk) 23:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Comment When South Station opened it was the largest in the world. Often (until after WWII when railroad use was largely replaced by automobiles), it was the busiest in the world. Both facts argue against the proposed move. Both facts make it unique among the "south stations" of the world. Lentower (talk) 01:49, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Originally, it was called South Union Station.[2] Amtrak calls it Boston South Station and its station code is BOS.[3] Cecil Huber (talk) 05:35, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Amtrak always prefaces its name with the city name as a convenience to passengers; this does not reflect actual naming conventions. Amtrak uses "Boston Back Bay" for a station universally known as "Back Bay". Pi.1415926535 (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Amtrak doesn't call it "Boston South Station"; it says "Boston, MA - South Station". If you look more carefully at the site, you'll see that the stations are listed as "City, State - StationName (CODE)". The station's name is only the part between the dash and the code. Ibadibam (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support. One of many major 'south stations' in major cities (Brussels-South railway station, Frankfurt South station, Guangzhou South Railway Station, Beijing South Railway Station, Tianjin South station, Stockholm South Station, Vienna South Station...), and for consistency with North Station (Boston). We are a global encyclopedia, and should strive to reduce WP:BIAS, not increase it. No such user (talk) 11:26, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

  Those examples don't serve your point - most of them are arbitrary Wikipedia names that don't reflect what the actual local names are. To any Bruxellois, "Brussels South" is always "Midi" or "Zuid" or some combination thereof. The closest thing to a "South Station" as such is Reddish South railway station which happens to be the least-used station in the entirely of England. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• They most certainly do. In English, they are all called South Station. Cecil Huber (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support as inherently ambiguous. Although most of the hits on a google.com.au search for south station were for the Boston station, this was not true of the google.co.uk or google.co.nz searches, showing that this is not the global primary topic for this title. Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

There is nothing in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC that suggests we need search local editions of Google. And the word "global" does not appear in PRIMARYTOPIC, nor in the entire disambiguation guideline. The goal of disambiguation is to insure articles have unique titles in the en.Wikipedia article name space, not to enable every English-speaking person on the planet to immediately know what the subject of an article is just from the title.--agr (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I tried to replicate your experiment and found that the only "South Station" that came up in search was the Boston one. Every other result was a partial match that included the full city name with it, e.g. "Bromley South Station". This indicates that the Boston station is primary. Ibadibam (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – every entry at South Station (disambiguation) may fail WP:PTM, as none of them are apparently ever referred to as "South Station" — they merely have "South" (or "Süd") somewhere in their names. The only station referred to universally as "South Station" is the one in Boston. That makes it a clear primary topic. Ibadibam (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Relocate forum to North Station?

Can we centralize this discussion at Talk:North Station? The arguments seem to be repeated in both places. And if we do decide to disambiguate either (which I oppose), I think we should do both for consistency.--agr (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Logo

@Funplussmart: If the logo may not be placed anywhere but the infobox, then I believe it should not be in the article at all. (And that goes for other train stations as well.) This is not a case like Amtrak where the logo represents a well-known public company, nor the Mexico City subway stations where the the icons are used for primary identification of the station. The article is about the history and operations of a train station - not of the business that rents out offices in the building, which is scarcely discussed in the article at all - but the logo represents the latter. It is undue weight to place that logo in the most prominent place in the article, where it displaces the much-more-valuable photograph. I believe this is a similar case to WP:BANDLOGO, where there is not sufficient cause to include the logo unless it is substantially discussed in the article. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:24, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I started placing logos on train stations because many articles on airports and other transit facilities normally have them. I don't think the situation is akin to that of WP:BANDLOGO because stations are physical facilities operated by a company or agency and not groups of individuals. I do think it should be kept for consistency with other kinds of facilities, but whether stations or airports or transit facilities in general should or should not have them is another question. There hasn't been much discussion of this as far as I'm aware. funplussmart (talk) 19:41, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

And those airports have logos because they are in common public use, and because the business entity is synonymous with the history and operations. That is not the case here, as I explained above, because the business entity is just a real estate holding company and is largely unrelated to what is discussed in the article. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Services out of date

Many of the services are no longer in South Station, and a few are new.

Pinkberry has long been closed, as well as Starbucks (although a new one is opening).

Additionally, there is only a convenience store, a LovePop card booth, and the CVS. Note that CVS's first floor is basically a convenience store, and the second floor is mostly a full CVS.

The eateries are Au Bon Pain, Auntie Anne's/Carvel, Dunkin', McDonald's, a Chinese restaurant and Tavern in the Square. The following are under construction: Caffè Nero, a bubble tea shop, and a Starbucks as I mentioned above.

The public art is mostly not in place, with the occasional temporary installation. However, there has been a lot of information boards about South Station Travis H. O. (talk) 17:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)