Red Line (trunk)
JFK/UMass station
Originally called "Columbia", JFK/UMass Station was expanded after the Braintree Branch was constructed in order to allow South Shore riders easy access to the nearby UMass–Boston campus. The Old Colony commuter rail stop was also added late in the process for the reopening of those lines; originally it was planned that commuter trains would not stop between Quincy Center and South Station. A man was killed after these photos were taken when one of the stairways down from Columbia Road collapsed. North of the station, Columbia Junction provides the only access to the Red Line's inconveniently located Cabot Yard, the overnight storage and maintenance facility for the Braintree Branch.
JFK/UMass station
This very odd station configuration, with separate but parallel platforms for the Braintree and Ashmont branches, was built this way because Greater Boston was really, really racist; the branches should have diverged south of Savin Hill (the four tracks run parallel all the way) but management thought that South Shore suburbanites wouldn't take the Red Line to the financial district if their trains stopped in a Black neighborhood. As a result, the newer Old Colony commuter rail suffers from a severe bottleneck here was the five tracks are squeezed in next to the Southeast Expressway. Both Red Line branches took over rights of way belonging to the Old Colony Railroad or its predecessors.