Sorry, for the dual mode trolley I was talking about the old Sacramento Northern I forgot to mention that, interesting so I know now why the Boston blue line uses pantograph near the airport
Oh yeah, that!
They didn't care about that safety back when that line was in use. There was no such thing as a protected ROW or things like that. The Blue Line is really neat because of this operation, and also because the cars are a lot shorter than the normal subway cars due to the tight curve at the end and low clearance in the East Boston Tunnel, which was once built for trolley cars but later used by the BRB&L later on to get to East Boston.
The Narrow Gauge was a neat operation back in its heyday. That alone would make a nice model to build. We have existing 3ft (36 inch) equipment if we want the pre-electric era, but if we want the electrics, we would have to do some customizing like adding trolley poles to the heavyweight parlor cars, fitting headlights, and a motorman's cab on the ends. It was these heavy trains, which put them out of business because they couldn't keep up with the faster, lighter trolleys running on the competing street-running lines and a bit later the autos.
I had a nice book on the line that I picked up somewhere, but I lost it when I moved. I got it after discussing the route with my now late grandmother who used to ride the line. She paid about 25-cents for the trip each way. I also worked with someone whose grandfather worked for the company, and this guy's house used to be one of the stations along the way where it ran into Winthrop as a street running interurban. (Way cool!)
Right now there's been a discussions about reusing some of the extant ROW from the BRB&L dayd to extend the Blue Line back up to Lynn, but as you know this is still in the "study and discussion stage". They will have to do some fancy footwork in a few places because there's been a bit of encroachment by condominium developers, some roads, and shopping plazas. They would have to build the drawbridge across the Saugus River, or leave the old ROW and use part of the existing parallel commuter route for that remaining portion to Lynn. At one time that commuter line was the Eastern Railroad, which ran all the way to Portland, ME. Today it ends in Newburyport. The ROW is wide enough for this because that line was once 4-tracks wide in some places due to the old Boston and Maine (B&M) being owned by the New Haven, and the New Haven's plans to quadruple the tracks and even electrify the line like they did their own mainline from New Haven to New York City. That plan fell through in the 1910s when their owner, J.P. Morgan went broke.