Boston, MA - South Station (BOS)

South Station
2 South Station
Boston, MA 02110

Station Hours

Annual Ticket Revenue (FY 2024): $180,982,755
Annual Station Ridership (FY 2024): 1,812,258

• Ownerships
• Routes Served
• Contact
• Local Community Links

• Facility Ownership: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
• Parking Lot Ownership: N/A
• Platform Ownership: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
• Track Ownership: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

• Acela
• Lake Shore Limited
• Northeast Regional

Margaret Clark
Regional Contact
governmentaffairsnyc@amtrak.com
For information about Amtrak fares and schedules, please visit Amtrak.com or call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245).

• City of Boston
• Boston South Station
• South Station Expansion Project
• Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA)

Boston’s historic South Station, which presides over Dewey Square in the city’s Financial District, opened for service on New Year’s Day 1899. More than a century later, it remains a vital intermodal hub that brings together Amtrak, MBTA commuter rail, the subway, and local and regional bus lines.  

In 2025, a new open-air passenger concourse opened between the historic station building – known as the headhouse – and the platforms to the south. It can be accessed from the indoor waiting area in the station atrium, or from Summer St. and Atlantic Ave. Soaring arches define the concourse, supporting three vaults capped with shallow domes that float 60 feet above travelers. The surfaces of the bright white vaults are inscribed with a geometric pattern of triangles, which contrast with the soft brown-grey of the arches. 

In the late 19th century, there was a need to combine the services of the five passenger lines that met in the city’s crowded south side, and the Massachusetts Legislature granted a charter to the Boston Terminal Company in 1876. The company was composed of the Boston and Albany Railroad Company, the New England Railroad Company, the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, the Old Colony Railroad Company, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company (popularly known as the New Haven Railroad). 

The company floated bonds from 1896 to 1899 and purchased a 35-acre parcel for $9 million, formerly belonging to the New England Railroad. The city spent $2 million rerouting streets and utilities and building a 200-foot granite seawall along Fort Point Channel to accommodate and protect the station, as it was close to the harbor. Upon its completion after two years of construction, South Station was the largest railroad station in the world and the largest structure in Boston. It was dedicated on New Year’s Eve 1898 with considerable ceremony, including speeches by the mayor and company president, and the building was packed for the celebration.

This five-story Neoclassical station was designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge and built by Norcross Brothers. Its elegant entrance looked much as it does today, with three double doors opening to the corner of the crossed avenues, overseen by numerous windows in an elevated colonnade and graced by a monumental clock topped by an eagle with an eight-foot wingspan. The headhouse sits at a diagonal to the tracks, and a train shed covered the passenger platforms to allow indoor boarding of the trains.

The waiting room, which could accommodate more than 1,500 passengers, was 225 feet long and 65 feet wide. Its floor was decorated with a marble mosaic, and the walls were a combination of polished granite, enameled brick and plaster, illuminated by 1,200 electric lights placed along the walls and coffered ceilings. Light streamed in through great arched windows facing Summer St. Railroad offices occupied the floors above the public spaces.

The early station offered a women’s waiting room with complete amenities. In the general waiting area, oak benches were placed to form alcoves. Ornamental kiosks in the center of the room sold confections and flowers, and other retail space offered newsstands and sundries. Forty-five bathrooms offered further convenience, and there was a private telephone exchange and bicycle parking. From the waiting room, passengers had access to a lunch room with 200 stools and counters made from Tennessee marble and mahogany. Upstairs sat a large dining room, a kitchen and additional serving rooms for private parties and receptions.

Railroad employees likewise enjoyed dressing rooms and their own check system for hats and coats, as well as a mail chute with mail sorting room and speaking tubes.

For the next several decades, South Station was the busiest terminal in the country, serving nearly 40 million passengers a year. The train shed was demolished and rebuilt in 1930 in a $2.5 million renovation. Over the years, open tracks were walled in from the street and terrazzo floors were added in modernizing the interior. Other additions included a new restaurant, ticket office, movie theater and parking garage.

The “Ghost Terminal” under the main concourse makes a curious footnote in South Station’s history. The New Haven Railroad experimented with electricity as early as the 1890s, intending to install an electrified system into South Station, which already ran with four large generators of its own. This second terminal was designed to handle 25,000 daily commuters with a two-track loop and an elaborate underground depot, complete with restrooms and its own waiting room and platforms. However, the first train that arrived was a steam locomotive – and its smoke, sparks and fumes made the space utterly uninhabitable.  

An electric commuter railroad never operated out of this terminal, so great was the discouragement with this opening. During the 1940s, these tracks were removed and a small parking garage and expanded baggage facility with an extension to the post office annex was installed in its place. For a brief time, it was even an employee bowling alley. Today, the space provides office space and storage for MBTA and Amtrak. 

As with other U.S. rail terminals, business slowed post-World War II, as did maintenance, and by the 1960s, South Station was increasingly dilapidated and lightly used. In 1961 the New Haven Railroad declared bankruptcy, and four years later the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) purchased the building for nearly $7 million.  

Hope for restoration was short-lived, however, as the BRA envisioned new uses for the site and decided to demolish the facility. Only a year after newly created Amtrak started serving the station, the BRA in 1972 began removing tracks and portions of the building’s wings. The third floor of the remaining structure was later closed after a fire, and the fifth floor was completely abandoned.  

A group of concerned citizens, outraged at the pending loss of this landmark, succeeded in listing South Station on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Demolition was halted while the headhouse and a portion of the waiting room were still intact.  

The BRA subsequently sold South Station to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in 1978 for $6.1 million so that it could be the base for an intermodal transportation center bringing together rail, bus and subway lines. As part of the deal, the BRA – which later became the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) – retained the air rights above the complex with an eye toward future commercial or residential development. 

By 1984, the MBTA had begun to restore the building at a cost of $195 million. Funding was provided by a combination of monies from the MBTA, Amtrak, Federal Railroad Administration, federal Urban Mass Transit Authority, Equity Office Properties and private development corporations. 

The rehabilitation, completed in 1989, included rebuilding part of the headhouse, addition of a new concourse and reconstruction of 11 tracks with high level platforms. As part of this work, foundations were placed between the tracks to support a future overbuild that could occupy the air rights. A new commuter and intercity bus terminal and parking deck were built over the tracks south of the headhouse and opened in 1995. 

Following the improvement program, South Station became a gateway to the city’s revitalized financial and retail center. The station rehabilitation was an anchor for over six million square feet of office space in the area. The restoration project was also recognized through several national and international awards. Events including exhibits, concerts and fundraisers continue to draw in the larger community. 

In 2020, construction began on the South Station Air Rights Project, a collaboration among the BPDA, developer Hines and the MBTA. This multi-phase project will create a mixed-use, transit-oriented development in the air rights space above the station complex. Eventually to include three new buildings, the first to rise was the South Station Tower, designed by Pelli Clarke & Partners. Completed in 2025, the 51-story, 690-foot skyscraper echoes the curve of the historic headhouse and uses the new arched passenger concourse as its structural base. The tower, clad in glass, includes office space on its lower levels, and residences higher up. 

This first phase also included expansion of the bus terminal and parking garage over train tracks and platforms. Combined with the new concourse, this means that travelers can now move between the station, platforms and bus terminal protected from the elements. Altogether, these improvements expanded the concourse area by nearly 70% and bus terminal capacity by more than 50%. In a future phase, new buildings are planned for the area over the bus terminal. 

South Station is also the subject of a proposed expansion project led by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in coordination with Amtrak, MBTA, Federal Railroad Administration and other local, state and federal stakeholders. The South Station Expansion Project, funded with a federal High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail grant, is intended to increase station terminal capacity and related layover capacity to meet current and anticipated high-speed, intercity and commuter rail service needs. The expansion will enable growth in passenger rail transportation along the Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Washington) and throughout greater New England. 

The project imagines the addition of seven new tracks and four platforms; construction of a new passenger concourse; acquisition and demolition of the adjacent U.S. Postal Service South Annex, which will provide an additional 16 acres to the station site; provision of adequate train layover space; and the extension of the Boston Harborwalk along a reopened Dorchester Avenue. 

Boston itself is one of the most storied cities in the United States, its history much entwined with the nation’s origins. The Shawmut Peninsula, upon which the city is situated, was originally connected to the mainland by only a narrow neck of land, surrounded by Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. The peninsula, archaeologists have discovered, had been inhabited by American Indians as early as 7,500 years ago. European settlers arrived first in Charlestown, across the harbor, and the initial settlement on the peninsula, begun by William Blaxton in 1625, was called “Trimountaine” for the three hills there (only an abbreviated Beacon Hill remains today).

In 1630, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony signed an agreement with the English Crown, and the Winthrop Fleet sailed to the New World, arriving in Boston by way of Salem and Charlestown. The settlement of Trimountaine had its name changed to Boston on September 7, 1630, and Governor Winthrop founded the City of Boston on September 17, naming it after the town of Boston, Lincolnshire, from which many of the settlers came.

The Puritan community of Boston has bequeathed the city its culture of learning, self-reliance and hard work. Boston grew to be the largest settlement in the British North American Colonies and remained so until the 1760s. During the early 1770s, Boston played a primary role in sparking the American Revolution. The city was the site of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and battles such as Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. Between revolutionary leaders hailing from Boston and the citizens’ fight for rights, the city is sometimes styled the “Cradle of Liberty.”

In the 19th century, Boston became one of the world’s wealthiest international ports, exporting products such as rum, fish, salt and tobacco. By the mid-1800s, it also became one of the largest manufacturing centers in the nation, noted for garment production, leather goods and machinery. Manufacturing overtook international trade in dominating the local economy, and the many local streams and rivers not only allowed easy shipment of goods inland but also provided power for many mills and factories.

Following the potato famine of 1845-49, Boston became a haven for Irish immigrants, who have since dominated the culture and leadership of a city that became increasingly diverse in character. Boston was traditionally divided into many ethnic neighborhoods and expanded into the surrounding towns, annexing them. Boston also grew physically not only through annexation but through landfill – using two of the three large hills, as well as rubble and gravel shipped in, to widen the peninsula to its present breadth.

Today, the region’s colleges and universities have a major impact on the city and region’s economy. Boston’s reputation as the “Athens of America” derives largely from the teaching and research activities of more than 100 colleges and universities in the greater metropolitan area, such as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Tourism, healthcare, financial services, publishing, printing and four major convention centers also contribute to the economy, as well as its being the state capital and regional home of federal agencies.

Station Building (with waiting room)