Here is the street level entrance to Ball Square Station on Boston Ave. The upper entrance is on the Broadway bridge to the right. Although the first train already passed thru here at 4:45 am, the official opening festivities begin at 7 am. There are not too many people here yet.

Ball Square Station platform.

A lot more people have come out to join the party. The crowd will eventually grow to about 300. The mayors of Somerville and Medford are in attendance, shaking hands, and passing out buttons. Somerville's former mayor is also here. A jazz band is playing near the ticket kiosks on the right.

Baritone Sax, Alto Sax, Trombone and Drum. All the guys wearing hats and gloves — cold AF! That Tromboner sees my pointing camera! Hope he sees himself on this page.

This train is headed northwest to the final stop at Tufts University on the Medford Hillside.

The crowd is getting much bigger. Most of the people are here for the celebration, not so much for the commute. Although the signs ask riders to validate their fare, why would anyone do that with the gates wide open? My rides were free, of course!

Somerville's current mayor Katjana Ballantyne is the woman holding up her tan-gloved hand in the center of the photo; former mayor Joe Curatone is the guy leaning in to talk to a reporter. The blond head in the forefront is that of Medford mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn.

Now I'm on the outbound train rolling into Medford Hillside at Tufts University. When I got there, I changed to the inbound train to traverse all the new stations: Medford/Tufts, Ball Square, Magoun Square, Gilman Square, East Somerville, then continued on past the new Lechmere Station into North Station in Boston.

I took videos of the train rolling into all five new stations, these extracted stills show them in order.

Looking across a complex series of byways, this photo was taken on the Somerville/Cambridge line. The outbound train on the ground level is the D branch which crosses under the E branch at Brickbottom on its way to the new Union Square Station that opened earlier this year. The highest bridge toward the top of the photo with the brown railing is the pedestrian/bike Community Path newly extended from Lowell Street in Somerville all the way into Boston. Can't wait to ride my bike on it way up there above all the train tracks. The path is not open yet but is said to be opening soon! The brown building on the left where the cars are headed is the McDonald's at Twin City Plaza.

Having crossed over into Cambridge, we are now at the new elevated Lechmere Station. The pile of rubble visible between Cambridge Street and the O'Brien Highway is what's left of the former Lechmere Station post-demolition.

On the way back, rolling into East Somerville from Lechmere.

Gilman Square — where I got off the train to walk back home. The massive building on the hillside is part of the newly completed Somerville High School. The walk home up School Street to Broadway only took 8 minutes. Sweet!

They were giving out these commemorative buttons at Ball Square early this morning. They said, there was one for each new station, but I only got these three.

New MBTA map including all the new stations.