Ashmont-Mattapan Trolley Line Discussion

It's supply chain more than design. Those historic winters of '77 & '78 beat up the fleet real good too, but they were 40 years younger and a majority fleet entrenched at a main shop back then. Riverside, Reservoir, Arborway, and Watertown could clean motors, swap motors, scramble parts to Mattapan Yard and recover fleet uptime vastly quicker because the scale was orders of magnitude different. Today just getting parts and labor to fix a propulsion short could take days per car simply as a function of scarcity. Therefore the needs are totally different on the prevention/preservation side vs. when PCC propulsion maint was more scalable w/ parts supply that was more expendable. Snow prevention in the coming rebuilds addresses that new reality of tiny scale head-on, thankfully.

typesix wrote:Or it is another case of not putting the pan covers back on the motor controllers, as was common when the PCCs ran on the Green line.

This is exactly the problem.

At least one PCC was trucked from Mattapan to Everett today.

That car was 3265.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_ ... et_workers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An MBTA trolley driver paid a friend $2,000 to don a Halloween mask and "attack" him while he was on the job, allowing him to fraudulently collect workers' compensation and disability insurance, according to authorities.

Thomas Lucey, 46, is facing charges of insurance fraud and other counts, including misleading police, after the bizarre plot crumbled when police pulled fingerprints off a fake plastic pumpkin the so-called "attacker" left behind and traced it back to Lucey's friend, according to Transit Police and prosecutors.

3238 has re-entered service recently with parts from 3260 and 3262 according to NETransit.

Another Globe story on the future of the PCCs:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/ ... story.html

Further developments on the Mattapan front.

https://www.dotnews.com/2019/mbta-recom ... olley-line" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reading between the lines here, it's looking like the Type 10s will be the most radical departure in Green Line rolling stock design since the LRVs, and will likely be replacing the entire Type 7/8/9 fleet in the late 2020s, with the 9s being shifted to the Mattapan High Speed Line as an alternative to scrapping trains that are <10 years old.

Can one dream of a heritage line using the PCCs on the Greenway and/or over to the Waterfront?

San Francisco has managed to make their PCCs (F Line) ADA compatible with rebuilding and mods at Brookville.

I'd like to see a PCC heritage line serving South Boston and the Seaport. The PCCs running down Broadway to Castle Island would be pretty phenomenal to see.

Or leave them in place, and acquire a couple more for spares.

Would need left hand door.

A question I would have with the Type 9 migration plan is how would the rest of them be used? You don't need 24 Type 9s to service the Mattapan Line, and I doubt there's enough room to store that many cars at Mattapan anyway. Maybe 6 or 8 cars are all that is necessary there, and the rest of them would have to stay behind on the Green Line and serve as an even smaller orphan fleet than they already will be.

Also not mentioned is if Type 9s get migrated to Mattapan, there NEEDS to be a signal system on the High Speed Line. No kicking the can down the road any more on that one. Running big, 50mph capable modern LRVs with no signal system is just asking for it.

The Type 9s would also be appropriate for other 'orphan' lines - converting South Station-Silver Line Way shuttles to LRV, or the proposed Broadway line in Everett.

Article about bringing newer rolling stock or alternates to the line:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/ ... l#comments