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State unwraps revamped Green Line trolleys
By adamg on Wed, 03/18/2015 - 4:18pm
MassDOT reports it's started accepting delivery of the first of 86 Type 7 trolleys being rebuilt in a factory in upstate New York.
The cars, which went into service in 1986 and 1987, were nearing the end of their intended lifespans. Unlike with Orange and Red Line cars that are now well past theirs, the state was able to find a company willing to rehab them.
The $104.4 million project includes preserving the integrity of the vehicle structure, roof, and exterior and improving the reliability of the fleet. Systems are being replaced or upgraded while others are being overhauled. Some of the improvements include a replacement in the upgraded design HVAC, auxiliary lighting, flooring, seating, and insulation. The overhaul work addresses the structure, roof, exterior skin, door system, brake equipment, trucks, and propulsion.
All refurbished cars are inspected, cleaned and subjected to extensive testing prior to being returned to service. The first car will enter passenger service in early April. The current refurbishment schedule calls for approximately half of the 86 trolleys to be returned to service by next winter, and the other half by the end of 2016.
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Comments
50 shades of green
When they remove the hoods, are they still Kinki?
Maybe not
Sometimes whoever refurbished the train rips off the Kinki nameplate on the inside behind the driver and replaces it with their own. This always seems like a shame.
Kinki trains are hot! (As in, they need better AC)
I always thought they were cool
Then again, in the summers of the late 1980s, I would let all those terribly Boeing disasters load up and pass by, looking for a Kinki hookup. Kinki trains were a breath of fresh air!
Young Whippersnappers!
I want the PCC cars back! We had no air conditioning except for windows with bars on 'em - and we liked it!
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Go to San Francisco!
The PCCs have their very own Tír na nÓg going on there!
http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/
Very Cool
Aside from the one in their collection actually from Boston, they even have a Dallas car as in the photo above. For those who may not be as old - or afflicted with transportation Asperger's - as I am, that's the city from whom the MBTA (MTA, in those days) purchased that part of their fleet.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Unfortunately
I think the MBTA car in San Francisco isn't actually from Boston. They just painted it the T colors to represent.
I tried Googling for the source where I read this originally, but alas it's lost in the interwebz. Wikipedia does say that SFMTA's PCC fleet is mostly sourced from San Francisco's old fleet and Newark, NJ.
San Francisco's site has the background
Yes, several of their PCCs came from NJTransit (Newark City Subway). Several came from SEPTA as well.
http://www.streetcar.org/streetcarroster/
Nice that the car they have in Public Service livery is one that actually ran in Newark. When I was in San Francisco in '99, I think they had one of the tribute PCCs in those colors, but that was before they bought the NJT cars.
Public Service ran in other NJ cities besides Newark. I think they were tied to the power company PSE&G (Public Service Electric & Gas).
I did kind'a like that NJT color scheme, too.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&c...
Still got the PCCs on the
Still got the PCCs on the high speed line, although the HVAC has been modernized :)
Yup, Grew Up With Them There
That's why they hold such a special place in my heart. I rode those cars more than any others.
When I was very young - I'm talking 1960's - the cars on that line were the double-ended Dallas cars (seen in the photo above.) When I say "double-ended", I mean that there was a driver's seat, fare box, controls, etc., at both ends.
(I have to suppose they were built that way so they could operate on a one-track line and still be driven forward rather than reverse on the return trip.)
It was the great pleasure of all little kids in our neighborhood to ride in the driver's seat not being used and pretend to be the trolley driver (even when, as was usually the case, the T had removed the actual seat and you had to perch your ass on the metal rod that remained!)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
They should run a PCC-centric
They should run a PCC-centric route along the greenway from North Station to South Station - it'd serve as the direct link between the two, and a tourist attraction for everyone else.
best idea
I've been saying this for years. The embaradero in SF is a tourists dream, and a north/south surface line with historic PCC trolleys would be a win-win situation
San Francisco's use of all
San Francisco's use of all that older equipment is practical only because of the weather there. You hardly ever get snow and therefore don't have the copious quantities of salt that would necessitate not running the classic stuff several months of the year.
Besides, somebody would probably tow a classic boat into the classic trolley wire, and THEN where would we be?
Boston ran PCCs in the salty
Boston ran PCCs in the salty streets for decades.
Ditto
Also, I hope they retain the seating arrangement. On these cars you can get a seat instead of being jammed into a bench as on the Breda cars.
I was extremely disappointed to see
that the Breda seating arrangement is to be retained for the Type 9s. Given that their principal service will be Riverside to Somerville, it's too bad those passengers will be getting another cattle car arrangement instead.
When the Budd RDCs
and, later, the original Pullman-Standard push-pull cars were rebuilt for the commuter rail, the "new" builders plates referenced both the original manufacturer/construction date, as well as the rebuilder and rebuild date.
It would be nice if Allstom does something similar with the Type 7 rebuilds.
Beautiful! Really glad to see
Beautiful! Really glad to see they kept the original white and green color, rather than the newer but odd teal and silver combo.
The teal and silver trains
are from Italy! *plays techno music*
Some of the Type 7s
have been re-painted in teal and sliver as well. Apparently the color scheme was implemented at the request of the wife of one of the former general managers (shades of how the New Haven RR's "McGinnis" paint schemes were adopted).
Extensive testing, eh?
Did they do a test where they pointed a snow blower at the engine's air intake? Because apparently it's important that our trains can deal with that.
Kinki
Not surprising that they are being rehabbed.
yeah, ~30 years is end of life, but considering its far cheaper to rehab older cars, it's money well spent. The Kinki-Sharyo Cars are some of the more reliable cars on the green line in recent years, so it's worth the investment to get another 10-20 years out of them.
Of course, no interior pictures yet. I wonder what's changed. They better not have removed the dark paneling from behind the driver's cab!
The faux wood grain remains
The faux wood grain remains to haunt you in your deepest slumber and workday commuters f-o-r-e-v-e-r
And new cars are custom-built
And new cars are custom-built to handle the Boylston curve (etc.), so they can't just order a standard trolley.
Most European
tram systems have curves with radiuses equal to or tighter than the Boylston curve, so it's not that specalized a design requirement.
Interior
http://oi58.tinypic.com/dyox3m.jpg
So looks like damn near
So looks like damn near nothing has changed on the inside, then (not that I'm hating, it's just the first thing I noticed)
interior
It looks like the seat pad color has changed from orange to black, and it also looks like the floor was replaced near the door, but yeah other than that it looks the same to me. I was kind of disappointed for some reason.
It appears that they finally
It appears that they finally added some kind of actual cover over where the original (manual) 'destination signs' on the side of the cars used to be. i realize this is completely nit picky, but i just felt it to be really telling of our system's level of quality that when they just took the mechanical signs out and replaced it with digital signage, they didn't even bother to replace the plastic panel so you were looking through a piece of glass at the back of the digital sign.
I would hope they have completely replaced
the destination signs as well with something that's actually legible at a distance (like the current LED signs on the buses) and isn't as prone to failure as the current LCD signs - which BTW, were not original equipment to the Kinki cars, but were a retrofit - actually, a side "benefit" - resulting from the Type 7 electrical mods required when Breda chose not to meet the T's original compatibility specifications (and got a huge change order for the "extra" work they did in completely rewiring the Type 7s besides).
I managed to ride the first pair of Kinki cars, 3600 and 3601, on their first revenue trip. They came in deadhead from Riverside and looped at Government Center. Boarded at Government Center, and we got as far as Park Street, when the doors on both cars failed to operate. After manually opening the doors, the train was taken out of service and went out to Northeastern siding, where it remained until the end of the PM rush hour.
This is the company doing the
This is the company doing the work
http://www.alstom.com/us/products-and-services/transport/metros-light-ra...