Suburban Station Grounds 
WELLESLEY FARMS STATION 
artistic conception, without permitting the 
railroad ideal of sheer directness, utility and 
dead level to intrude, seems to be the secret 
of the good effect here secured. The station 
grounds, small as they are, are like a little 
park. This suggests that the landscape 
architect must have been left very free. 
After the railroad engineers had finished their 
work he must have done his untrammeled. 
T he policy of noninterference is to be kept 
in mind as a fundamental principle in ob¬ 
serving the other station grounds that are 
noted. 
On the other half of the Circuit, the main 
line half, are Brighton and the Newtons— 
places passed over with hardly a. word in the 
earlier article. Yet they are interesting as 
illustrating the treatment of a 
type of topography that is not 
uncommon near large cities 
and that always seems difficult 
to handle artistically. Here 
four tracks cut a broad, re¬ 
lentless swath, and they are 
thrust through the towns at a 
level lower than the adjacent 
streets so that there may be 
no excuse for grade crossings. 
Between stations the sides ot 
the cut are prettily planted, 
but the highway is paralleling 
the steam road at the top of 
the bank, leaving small space 
for gardening effects when a 
station is to be put in and a 
retaining wall substituted for 
the slope of the earth. What 
shall be done with the problem ? 
At Brighton the highway 
dips a little, and the station 
has been put at its level, a 
flight of steps leading up from 
the railroad platform to the 
floor of the waiting - room. 
The retaining wall is brought 
frankly to the station, but at 
its top -there are the bushes 
and shrubs of a little garden. 
This garden is beside the 
highway, with the stone sta¬ 
tion — charming from that 
side—as the center of the pic¬ 
ture, and with no hint of the 
less pleasant parts of a railroad. At West 
Newton, on the other hand, the station, 
which is of the older type, has been built at 
the track level. At what must have been 
considerable expense, the retaining wall has 
been pushed clear beyond the building, and 
a road has been brought down to the level 
of the station. There follows the familiar 
result of a station that is only an incident, 
and a slight one, in the course of the rail¬ 
road, while it has no essential connection 
with the town to which it ought to mean so 
much. The illustration shows the pleasantly 
planted embankment; but this stops as the 
station is reached, is lower than the approach 
road—hence barely visible from it—and can 
be said to add no charm to the station sur- 
THE FOND AT WELLESLEY FARMS 
BOSTON & ALBANY R.R. 
