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And, they're off: 1980s-era Orange Line cars begin their final journey
By adamg on Thu, 09/22/2022 - 9:55am
Was that Taps playing softly in the distance? Photo by MBTA.
WBZ reports on and photographs the first of the old Orange Line trains to be trucked out of the Wellington Yards for the trip to a Middleboro scrapping facility owned by Costello Dismantling Co., whose logo consists of a preying mantis.
Spotted on 95S: some Orange Line cars headed to a farm upstate (a scrapyard in Middleborough to get torn apart) pic.twitter.com/YGTU9TNvv8
— Ryan O. Ferguson (@ryanoferguson) September 22, 2022
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Comments
Any for sale?
I'd retrofit one to be a shed. Neighbors can pay tokens to borrow rakes and my mower.
If you are willing to pay the
If you are willing to pay the cost to remove the asbestos from under the floors first,
Somehow I'm worried that this might be premature
Remember cash for clunkers, when affluent people got subsidies for buying new cars, while destroying perfectly good ones? Instead of implementing part II, helping out low income people by swapping for the real clunkers, the used car market became inflated. Has anyone considered holding the clunkers in reserve for a year while the shiny new cars get tested in normal service, including winter?
This is the first of four batches to be recycled
So they've got plenty of remaining stock if the new cars crash and burn and they need to restore service on the old fleet.
Testing
They have been testing some for at least 6 months. Worked out a few bugs, but I guess it is too early to say they have worked out all the important issues.
They've had some old cars
Parked on the spare track north of Wellington for several months now. They looked like they had been stripped for parts, which makes sense if you're trying to keep the rest of the geriatric fleet in service.
Not sure what this has to do with cash for clunkers, which was really just a scheme to keep largely unionized car manufacturers afloat.
They don't have enough track
They don't have enough track storage space to deliver 152 new ones and still keep all 120 old ones around. 76 of 152 new ones are here, they have reached the point that they must start removing old ones to have space to finish delivering the remaining new ones.
The Mantis
Love the origin story of the logo
The reflection of the light on the glass
The reflection of the cab light on the front window makes it look like the car is on fire. #hauntinglyappropriate
We could start a Transit Museum
Mattapan station would be the perfect location attracting railfans from all over world.
The T once hired a general manager who ...
Proposed doing some interesting stuff with the abandoned Green Line tunnel at Boylston Street and the old trolleys that sit there. But then he had to deal with more pressing stuff, left to try to get the Olympics here and now runs the NYC Transit Authority.
In the past, a few of the old
In the past, a few of the old cars, ones in the best condition, do get shipped off to museums. This is one in Maine: https://trolleymuseum.org/
Scrapped? They should be
Scrapped? They should be dumped in the harbor to create a reef or become affordable housing somewhere.
Museum Pieces Likely
The cars set out on the siding north of Wellington are the units in worse shape and have been scavenged for parts to keep a few of the Hawker units operational. They will keep and maintain a few of them as back-ups while the rest of the CRRC units are received and pressed into service. All MBTA lines have a set number of peak usage trainsets and spares for best daily operation. Once that number is reached or exceeded the rest of the Hawkers will move out.
The ones being trucked were rumored on some social media areas as being sent to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, ME. They have samples of most of the older MBTA fleet's heavy rail (Red, Orange, Blue) and streetcars, i.e. PCC units and pre-PCC era.