day. An infill station at Beaconsfield to serve magnate Henry Melville Whitney's Beaconsfield Hotel opened in 1907. The New York Central Railroad had bought the B&A in 1900 primarily for long-distance service. After the New York Central electrified several suburban lines around New York City, the public asked for similar improvements around Boston. The New York Central studied third-rail electrification of the Highland branch and the main line as far as Framingham in 1911, but did not find it to be cost-effective. The lines instead continued to use steam power until diesel locomotives were substituted around 1950. Trains which traveled from Boston to Riverside via the Highland branch returned via the main line, thus completing the "circuit". In 1904 a round trip took 1 hour and 15 minutes. The B&A main line was quadruple-tracked between Boston and Riverside; tracks 3 and 4 were used by suburban trains. After the Needham cutoff opened in 1906, the New Haven rerouted most trains on the Charles River line via Forest Hills rather than the Highland branch to avoid congestion at the Cook Street junction. From 1911 to 1914, the New Haven operated "Needham Circuit" service operating via Needham and Newton Highlands. In 1926, the Newton Lower Falls branch was rerouted to join the Highland branch south of Riverside. The branch ran with overhead electrification between Newton Lower Falls and Riverside until 1930, then with locomotives until 1957. By November 1912, the Highland branch had 30 daily round trips, plus several Needham trains operating via Newton Highlands. This frequency dropped by one-quarter by 1919 (with many Highland branch trains not completing the circuit on the main line), then stayed constant for two decades. The B&A upgraded Brookline Junction to centralized traffic control (CTC) in 1932, improving the flow of traffic between the branch and the main line. By 1950, the Highland branch saw just seven daily round trips. Sale to MTA The Massachusetts state legislature had first proposed replacing the conventional train service on the Highland branch with streetcars running from the Tremont Street Subway in 1926. The next major round of planning in the mid-1940s suggested the same conversion, along with a branch to Needham. The idea returned in the mid-1950s as a combination of factors, both general and specific, made the concept attractive. The commuter rail business had ceased to be profitable for most railroads in the United States. Causes included high