Railroad Forums 

  • Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

  • Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
It is currently Sat Apr 27, 2024 7:02 am

Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.

Moderators: sery2831, CRail

 Reply

Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640097  by Dascalargo
 
Maybe I'm crazy, but...

Was there a period in the late-1970s/early-1980s when we didn't use tokens on The T? I seem to recall tokens being reintroduced at some point because they hadn't been used for a while. Am I misremembering or was there a time when the turnstiles at stations and fare boxes took only coins and we didn't have tokens in circulation?

I just looked up the fare changes. When the fare was 50 cents (1975-1980), did they stop using tokens? I would have gone from a children's fare to an adult fare during that timeframe, and I'm almost certain I remember giving a dollar and getting four quarters consistently, never a token. But then at some point, after I was already paying an adult fare, I saw tokens for the first time. Were tokens reintroduced when we went to 60 cents in 1980? Or were they always in circulation, but used less frequently during the 50-cent fare era?

Thanks. This has been bugging me.

Re: Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640131  by Disney Guy
 
Yes, there was a time when tokens wer retired and that turned out to be temporary.

This was when the base fare was raised from 20 cents to 25 cents, and quarters were a convenient single coin fare medium. It was also convenient tomodify the turnstile coinc slots to take only quarters.

There was an effort made to get riders to turn in unused tokens, including a published deadline for doing so. The overt reason was to prevent hoarding of tokens slightly before the fare increase went into effect. I am not sure of whether the intent to re-introduce the tokens yet later was already in mind.

At any rate, re-introducing the tokens at a higher price (don't remember when) could be readily done after most of the tokens had been recalled. All of the "Metropolitan Transit Authority" tokens were reused, also.

Re: Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640135  by MACTRAXX
 
Dascalargo - Welcome to RR.Net and the MBTA Forum

I was interested in MBTA transit fares myself - and as DG mentions you are correct about tokens being not
in use in favor of regular US coins in T turnstiles and on vehicles...

I first traveled to Boston in 1979 and remember the 25 cent fare...I learned that dimes were also used in an
older transit mid-day program called "Dime Time" as a rider incentive sometime during the 1970s...

When the fare rose the older "Metropolitan Transit Authority" thick brass tokens from the 50s/60s era were
brought back at some point during the first half of the 1980s...

Later during the 80s the MBTA introduced their own tokens with a graphic of a 1963 Red Line car front end...
These would be used continuously until the MBTA phased out tokens in favor of the Charlie Card...

There was an interesting variation of a special token issued in 1987 for the opening of the Southwest Corridor
Orange Line that was silver metallic instead of yellow brass that stood out not only because of their color -
Some riders and even station clerks would confuse them with a nickel which was close in size and thickness...

I remember buying these SWC tokens and that their color made them stand out among the regular T tokens.
Collectors of transit tokens were very interested in the SWC variation...

This subject has made me more interested again in the subject of MBTA (and MTA) tokens...
www.thebsra.org
Boston Street Railway Association - should be able to answer the subject of T transit tokens...
I would be interested in seeing a MBTA transit fare timeline myself...MACTRAXX

Re: Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640173  by Tobin Dax
 
I was going to BC at that time, and taking the Riverside Line to Chestnut Hill (Even with the walk, it was faster than the B Line). The fare was 50¢. My part-time job paid monthly, and I remember being broke enough the end of one month that I poured a roll of pennies into the fare box. It took them too.

Re: Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640184  by R36 Combine Coach
 
The oldest of the modern era tokens in use to 2006 were actually introduced by the predecessor MTA in 1951, see August 2005 ERA Bulletin, p. 15-16. Several commemorative tokens are also mentioned, these include Sail 1992 and the Southwest Corridor.

Re: Were MBTA tokens every temporarily retired?

 #1640193  by jwhite07
 
west point - no money train (at least in modernish times). I recall a crew driving around in an armored truck to each station and using hand dollies to pick up and drop off sealed metal boxes at the token booths for the revenue collections. Carhouses and bus garages had large vacuum systems that would plug into a port at the bottom of the fareboxes and literally suck the cash and tokens out (which is why for years dollar bills were discouraged - they would invariably get shredded in the process) and dump them into a big sealed hopper for later collection. All of that money eventually made its way to a counting room in the Everett shop complex which at one point became rather infamous for a news expose of the employees within freely and blatantly "helping themselves" to the proceeds in front of the security cameras in the room, since they believed (erroneously, as they were to find out) that nobody was monitoring the cameras.

I'm sure the process has evolved and become much more secure but I have no details other than it still involves armored trucks and hand dollies, not money trains.

(Edited to add that the armored truck crews do carry sidearms.)
 Reply
 Return to “Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)”
 - All times are UTC-05:00 -