Remembering the 01400s

[CRail]

I'm listening...

[3rdrail]

(That might be before a lot of your times. The Penn Central Railroad is widely acknowledged as being the railroad to take if you wanted to be late on decrepit, filthy, falling apart equipment, made up in trains of impossibly forlorn and unusual combinations of equipment with extremely surly train personnel. If they could have gotten away with screwing a piece of plywood on a couple of axles to make up a coach, they would have done it.)

[MBTA3247]

But where would they have gotten money for the plywood from?

[RailBus63]

Obvious question here...if they're in that bad a shape, why are they not bringing over some 0600's from Blue for work duty??? They did this with a whole bunch of OL 01100's in the 80's reassigned to Cabot after they were retired from Wellington. Who cares if there's no cab signals on Red and they have to crawl to do their thing. It's shutdown hours and they can't afford to be getting revenue cars needed for the next morning bogged down with work duty.

The 0600’s would be less than ideal for Red Line duty - I would think that the difference between the platform height and car floor height compared to a regular Red Line train, plus the considerable gap due to the narrow width of the 0600’s, would constitute an occupational hazard for employees who work on these trains. The 01100’s had the platform gap issue but I believe the floor height was the same as a Red Line car.

[3rdrail]

The 0600’s would be less than ideal for Red Line duty - I would think that the difference between the platform height and car floor height compared to a regular Red Line train, plus the considerable gap due to the narrow width of the 0600’s, would constitute an occupational hazard for employees who work on these trains. The 01100’s had the platform gap issue but I believe the floor height was the same as a Red Line car.

That's a fairly easy fix that can be done by the shops that was performed years ago when Main Line cars ran temporarily on the Red Line due to a car shortage issue. Shims were installed on the bolsters and extensions were placed on the thresholds to gap the extra distance there. Floor height is about four inches lower on the Main Line 3'-8-11/16" vs the Red Line's 4'-1".

[BowdoinStation]

Say what you will about the 01400's... I still say the MBTA should clean em up' and bring em' out on Sunday mornings and special occasions for "Heritage Fleet" railfan runs, and make a few extra small bucks to attack that HUGE deficit... Heck it could offset the monies lost by not promoting "Cutty Sark" after July 1. Put em' back into the 'Blue Bird" paint scheme. Those 4 cars seem to be alive and well, and the MBTA can find four of the well worn 01500's or 01600's to turn into work cars.. Didn't mean to get off course here.. Those 4 antiques could be used for "fundraising" or "Community awareness" rides and campaigns ?

Although the 01400's were known for being loud, rough riding, and uncomfortable seating.. Those seats seem more like a comfortable lounger compared to the absolute worst of the worst seating on the new Blue Line 0700' cars..

OK, I am back in the tunnel

[StevieC48]

Well I will say the inrerior lighting has been modified, by adding new lighting through out the set. Also I had asked about a 0600 fantrip and they said no way and the 0600's just retired, so the T dosen't want to do any nostalgic running of antuique equipnent. If so the PCC and Type 5 wouldn't be cut off from the central subway at Boylston. The only thing of nostalga the T has is the bus 2600 to runb in parades and ocasional chartered fan trip. The T is also looking to cut the buidget and they would consider the extra money and time to put into getting the 1400's etc to running condition a waste. Oh Paul can you clarify when they ran the 01100's in service on the red line in passenger service when there was a shortage cause the only info of them running on the red line was they were the first cars 01178-79 with silverbirds into the new Harvard north extention. It is documented in an issue of Rollsign when Harvard opened. But speaking to the Curator of Subway Cars at Seashore he related to me they never saw any passenger service on the red line at all due to the gap in the platform. But I am intregued if they did I would like to know more. Not sure if my source is mistaken. Please enlighten me. I am intrested to know more about it. THanks

[RailBus63]

The 01100's never ran in passenger service on the Red Line - they were moved over strictly for work train service.

There was a proposal discussed briefly around 1980-81 to have Hawker-Siddeley modify #01300-01319 with gap extenders and assign them temporarily to the Red Line to increase the fleet, since the Orange Line had surplus cars at the time (no six-car trains could be run on the elevated) but obviously this never came to pass.

[3rdrail]

I never said that 01100's ran revenue in Cambridge. They were an early batch of 0100/0200 Main Line cars from the Main Line with attached sills and shims that filled in gaps in car requirements over there, filling in the Cambridge Number 1's and 2's (0600) until they could bring in the 3's in 1919. Also Railbus, El stations were lengthened to take eight car trains by 1909. They were built to handle six 46'-7-1/4" trains in 1906.

I'll tell you where the T dropped the ball in a historic car set- the East Boston Tunnel 1's and 2's (0500's)- the only Boston rapid of it's age able to run anywhere on the rail system in theory. They weren't in bad condition either.

[RailBus63]

IAlso Railbus, El stations were lengthened to take eight car trains by 1909. They were built to handle six 46'-7-1/4" trains in 1906.

By my calculations they were still too short. Unless the BERy extended the el platforms with an additional 17 feet to spare, a six-car train of 01200's would not fit (train length of 390 feet for a six-car Hawker set vs. 373 feet for an eight-car train of standard 1901-27 El cars). Platform extensions were also needed in the Washington Street tunnel, although Haymarket and Essex southbound had already been completed in earlier modernization programs.

[SM89]

I've uploaded a picture of the set at Cabot to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MBTA_ ... series.JPG

[Robert Paniagua]

@SM89, thats a good photo, and see if anyone can make a Wikipedia Page of the 01400-series cars. Hopefully theyll be preserved, maybe other trolley museums will take them like ShoreLine in Connecticut, or the Coney Island Yard could use them too for it's museum

[StevieC48]

My bad Paul didnt read in to the statement. I do remembering reading about it in one of the BSRA bulitens. I am curious if any photos were taken or saved of this. Thanks for the reminder.

[jonnhrr]

I agree with Paul - the T should have kept a set of the type 1/2 EBT cars (0500's). They were classics, comparable to the IRT Lo-V's that were preserved in NYC.

But a set of 01400's repainted in the blue/white/gold would be nice too. I still remember as a 13 yr old the first day of revenue service boarding a shiny new set at Field's Corner.
Jon

[3rdrail]

1960's MTA brochure showing a 01400 in it's classic "Bluebird".