Monthly Meetings

One of the Association’s most popular activities is our monthly meetings, which are currently being held virtually via Zoom due to the pandemic. Meetings begin at 7:30PM, typically on the first Saturday of every month. A short business meeting (including a detailed current events segment on MBTA news) is followed by an entertainment program, consisting of past and present transit operations from around the Northeast, the nation, and the world. Entertainment usually begins at approximately 8PM and generally lasts about two hours.

All active BSRA Members on our email list will receive a link to join the meeting within 24 hours before start time. If you’re a member and not on our email list, you can sign up for it here.

If you’re NOT a current BSRA member, and interested in attending our meetings, you can request one-time access by emailing us — or join the BSRA today for easy monthly access, among other benefits!

In the unlikely event we need to cancel a meeting, a notice will be posted on the home page of this website, on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and sent to those on our email list by 4PM the day of the meeting.

We are always looking for presenters at future meetings! If you are interested, please contact us. We generally seek presentations of historic or recent-event subjects, especially those involving cities in the Northeast.

Upcoming Meetings

Download as a PDF

March 6, 2021
Car Barns of Boston Elevated in Cambridge, Arlington, and Watertown
Leo Sullivan returns to present more Boston Street Railway Shops and Car Barns through the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, This will include pictures, plans and narrative.

April 3, 2021
New York, Poland, and Ukraine
Eric Oszustowicz will present the scenes images of the New York City Subway system from 2015 to 2020. Recent images of the LIRR, Metro North and New Jersey Transit are also on the agenda in addition to a quick look at the newest NYCT buses. Then he will present photos of various tram and metro systems throughout Ukraine and Poland during 2017 and 2018. Commuter and intercity rail will also be included.

May 1, 2021
The RollSign Archives: Part 2
The RollSign archives hold over a century of unique Boston transit images, including many rarely seen views from RollSign contributors through the years. In part 2 of this series, Nick Tomkavage returns to present even more from the BSRA’s collection of scenes that have never been published, or were published decades ago.

Additional Meeting Dates (Entertainment TBD):
June 5; July 10; August 7; September 11, 2021.

Past Meeting Entertainment Reports

We have offered a wide variety of entertainment through the years, and provide detailed reports of past meetings at the link below.
View Entertainment Reports

Items for Sale at Our Meetings

We typically offer a selection of books and other items for sale as part of our effort to offset the cost of room rent and meeting expenses. As such, we typically do not permit outside vendors to sell items at our meetings.

Click to View Full Policy on Outside Vendors
BSRA POLICY ON SALES BY OUTSIDE VENDORS AT OUR MEETINGS

Outside vendors will not be permitted to sell items at the BSRA’s monthly meetings; only official sales by the BSRA itself will be allowed. This policy applies to sales of all categories of items, including (but not limited to) books, magazines, videos, photos, slides, memorabilia, collectibles, and event tickets.

In rare cases, exceptions to this policy may be made on a one-time basis, but any such exception will require at least two weeks’ advance notice in writing from the vendor to the BSRA, and must be approved by majority vote of a committee consisting of the BSRA President, Vice President, and Treasurer. (In the absence of either the Vice President or Treasurer, the Publications Director may serve as an alternate.) Once the committee has approved the request of a given vendor to sell at a given meeting, notice of that approval will be issued to the vendor in writing by the BSRA President or his designee.

If an exception is made pursuant to the above paragraph, and if the vendor is selling tangible items that would be subject to Massachusetts Sales Tax, then the vendor must be registered with the Sales and Use Tax Division of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. A copy of the vendor’s Form ST-1 must be included with his/her written application to sell at a BSRA meeting, and the vendor must also have a physical copy of the Form ST-1 with him/her at the meeting where the sales are conducted.

Approved by the BSRA Directors at their meeting on August 14, 2014