Ashmont-Mattapan Trolley Line Discussion

The ONLY correct thing to do is to bulldoze Ashmont station in its entirety and construct a modern iteration of the BERy design that was more ADA friendly (90 years early) than the atrocity which does nothing other than cater to the hideous appearance of "modern" at the detriment of all who have the misfortune to use it. There is no reason Type 9s and buses can't loop together and offer an under cover, level transfer with Rapid Transit trains. It's time for the architectural elitists to swallow their pride on this one and concede to the needs of the godforsaken regular folk to whom public transit isn't just a bullet point on a political resumé.

BandA wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 9:30 pm Cheaper to operate the PCC cars indefinitely. Are there too many passengers for the PCC cars?

Likely, yes. Quite often the cars are at or beyond capacity. The Mattapan-Ashmont line has always been far more popular than the T would ever like to admit, which is what has kept non-historic 1940s equipment going beyond its 80 year mark because, "UGH if you insist, but no way in hell will we spend anything on this lousy line!" As much as we love that 1940s PCCs continue to operate in non-historical current revenue service, it certainly isn't the result of any political respect for the Mattapan high speed line.

Shame they didn't buy more than eight rebuild kits (not to mention wreck a couple cars in 2017). They could have run 2 car trains during the peak times, or at the very least offered more frequent headways. Do the rebuilt cars even have refurbished/working MU capability at all, or are the couplers there for push/tow/just for show as they have been for years?

No MU capability in the new rebuilds. Previously 3265, the first of the new rebuilds, was the only car with MU capability and that was removed for the new rebuild. The line also needs a snowplow to replace the Type 3 plow so service can continue during deep snow and not bustitution.

Can a PCC car in rush hour revenue service push one of the sled plows that the T has used on the Green Line in years past? Is that sled plow constructed with enough precision that it could roll all day in front of a car in revenue service?

With the sled plows, a plowing would be done often enough that a large accumulation of snow, which would halt service on the line, would not occur..

(A non revenue snow plow unit would still be needed to open up the line in the morning.)

The lead sleds are retired, and none were ever assigned to Mattapan anyway. When necessary, heavy snow clearing on the Mattapan Line will be done with augurs/blowers fitted to high rail vehicles as has been practice for years. I would hope that the Brookville PCCs will be able to reliably operate in heavy snow conditions; presently the line is frequently bustituted in winter because most of the cars are missing covers over the electromechanical equipment (accelerator, contactors, etc) underneath.

Those dedicated trolley snowplows they used to store in Watertown, that are now at Seashore Trolley Museum (modified Type IIIs from the 1920s??) worked great.

The Type 3s were originally built in 1907/08. Type 3 plow 5164 was assigned to Mattapan from sometime in the 1980s I believe until the mid-2000s, then retired and sent to Seashore.

On a recent visit to Mattapan, I noticed that the entire rear section of 3262 had been neatly cut off. Was that section transplanted to another car, or has the T slowly been cutting up 3262 for scrap?

From NETransit. http://roster.transithistory.org/

Update: The rear section of wrecked car 3262 is being removed to use for the reconstruction of car 3260, the remaining sections of car 3262 will then be scrapped.

Strikes me as weird that they would go through the trouble (and expense!) to graft pieces of 3262 and 3260 together, but then leave one of the other presently intact and in service cars left over after they've run out of Brookville kits. 3087 is presumed to be the one which will be without a chair when the music stops. I read someplace that the production series it is a part of originally used some wood in their roof construction, but that had been replaced with steel during one of its several prior rebuilds. Is there some other logic we are missing?

If these were manufactured during WWII they would definitely have substituted wood for steel where possible.

Hopefully they will be saving the air conditioning unit off of 3262 to refurbish something else in case there is another major collision.