Consolidation
At the time of West End's formation, horsecar service in the Boston area was divided between several independent railway companies. The four principal ones were: Metropolitan, Cambridge, Consolidated, and South Boston. Each of these principal railways enjoyed a virtual monopoly in a particular area of the metro with the Metropolitan being dominant in lower, western and East Boston, Cambridge in the area of Cambridge, Consolidated in Charlestown and lower Middlesex County, and the South Boston in the South Boston peninsula, from which they transported passengers to a series of several shared terminuses within the central city.
West End originally intended to coordinate operations with principal companies in order to gain access to Downtown Boston; these efforts were however stymied by Metropolitan and Cambridge's directors who feared that the new organization represented a threat to their interests. Whitney and his associates decided to carry out a much more ambitious strategy, in which they acquired a majority of stock in each of the established railways and united them under common ownership. Within a short time, they were able to achieve a controlling interest in all four principal companies. In June 1887, Massachusetts state legislature granted West End a dispensation to unite with any other streetcar company operating in Boston. After some more months of negotiations, consolidation was completed in November 1887, in which shareholders of the four companies turned in their existing shares and in exchange received varying amounts of West End 8% preferred stock.
The consolidation transformed West End into one of the world's largest street railway companies, bringing some two hundred miles of track under its ownership. The move also created the first unified public transit system in a major American city, with nearly all streetcar service in Boston, except that of Lynn and Boston, being operated by the company as a result.;. Over the first ten months following consolidation, West End reported a rider count of 85 million. In its first full year of operations in fiscal year 1888-89, the system carried over 104 million passengers.
Initial public reaction to consolidation to the consolidated company was mixed. Detractors raised concerns that it would set the stage for a monopoly. Proponents, however, argued that it ended the inefficiencies of competing railways, which were blamed for high levels of congestion and blockades on Boston's streets, and improving service as a result. In remarks to stockholders shortly after the merger, Whitney defended consolidation, saying, "the blockades occurring on the principal thoroughfares" in Boston had reached the point of requiring a remedy, and that "if [the West End] had not taken hold of this matter the city would surely have done something [instead]."
