Sullivan

The last of the trio of stops opened on April 4, 1975 is Sullivan Square. This station opened to replace the old elevated station of the same name and roughly the same location.

The current Sullivan station sits under I-93 and the Newburyport/Rockport and Haverhill Line tracks run next to the station but do not stop, as there currently is no platform at Sullivan for the commuter rail. A temporary commuter rail platform, however, was constructed in 1984 at Sullivan for then Ipswich/Rockport line passengers to transfer to the Orange Line, as North Station was closed because trains could not enter due to the approach trestles needing to be rebuilt after catching on fire. This temporary platform no longer exists.

Sullivan Square is a major bus hub for the Charlestown/Somerville area, and it seems like people coming from buses account for the bulk of the station entries at Sullivan.

Sullivan has two platforms, both are which in use. The left track is for southbound trains, the center track for northbound trains, and the right track is a test track used for testing the new Orange Line cars coming this year. The test trains currently run between here and Wellington. At the time of this writing, crews are working on reconstructing the test track all the way to Community College. If the extension to Reading ever happened, the current center (northbound) track would have been the bi-directional express track and the right (test track) would have been the northbound track.

Primary platform at Sullivan. Notice how the supports for I-93 run through the station's structure.