Remembering the 01400s

TRANSITman619 wrote:robert, what do you mean they have been reduced to ashes? were they all burned up or sold for scrap?

I believe he was using it as a figure of speech (saying they were turned into razor blades would be more appropriate, though ). With all the chemicals in them, there's no way they would be allowed to burn the cars (plus, unlike the trolley cars of old, there's no wood in them to burn off anyway).

The cars were cut up for scrap.

i kind of figured that its too bad they are mostly all gone!

I know, they should have saved some more.

I remember as a kid when the 01400's replaced the older cars on the Dorchester-Cambridge Line (pre-"Red Line".) There was a contest to select the color scheme. The state's colors, blue and gold, won out. Frankly, as a 12 year old who liked to stand in back of the open steel mesh front door grate in the summertime, I was disappointed. That was like safely riding on the front platform with all the feel, smells, sounds, and visuals of riding outside the car !

I know, since the 01400s have full cabs and are like most subway cars still around today. The older units' last public revenue trip was November 24, 1963 (Sunday), six and a half months after the 01400s debut.

I posted some photos of the 01400's (and a couple of Silverbird pics) in the 'Bluebirds and Silverbirds' thread. That thread is now locked, but in the interest of conserving bandwidth I'm not going to re-post those pics here.

It was locked to prevent duplicate threads

And you can just send me the links (if you have more) via Private Message or Email.

You wouldn't happen to have any photographs of the interior of the Silverbirds pre-renovation, would you? (I know this is the 01400 thread, but I'm not sure where to post such a request now that the Bluebirds and Silverbirds thread has been closed)...

Those are some nice photographs...

The One RailBus63 took in 1982 was a prerebuilt unit with the interior looking as it's original condition. The 1990 interior shot, however, was after mid-life overhaul.

I'll have to dig through my slide collection to see what Silverbird interior photos I have. I might have a shot of a car with the original commuter-type seats that were replaced with the current style of seating in 1980.

Well, to dust off this thread, I wanna happily say that while riding MBCR 043 (14) yesterday afternoon on board BTC-1A 254 behind 1028 (the locomotive) I got to see the 01400 train at the closes track opposite it's main track, but at the closest track to the commuter and Amtrak Yard thus allowing me to see it up close and personal. I saw the backlit numberboards which are black background against white numerals, and I saw all those baseball cards stickers along the windows which made it impressive, and I also understand that each of the 4 units is decorated after the 4 sports here, one has Red Sox memeorabilia, the other one Bruins stuff, the third unit (not sure which) has Patriots stuff while the fourth unit Celtics stickers.

The train was parked as follows: North-01470-01477+01469-01480

I picked up a metal/plexiglass sign "Pay Fare" box from 01407 at a BSRA auction years ago that's on my to-do list to re-electrify and display it. Does anybody know what the deal was with paying inside the car ? I'm told that the boxes hung in back of the operator's cab and that the operator collected fares (??)

There is a mount behind the mount behind the motorman in the cab where a fare box sat . The ida was that they would open one door by the motorman and they would deposit the fare in the farebox inside the cab. I think they were going to have it used for the outlying stations where there would be no collector and you pay as you borded.

If you noticed the window behind the motorman opened for them to collect fares.

http://sery2831.smugmug.com/gallery/104 ... 2ZU5G-A-LB

I've never heard of that done anywhere else. I don't understand how it would work. I'm assuming that the operator would open and close his window at each station stop where he was collecting fares. But, how would he keep track of people getting on ? Was only one door opened on his end ? What happened on a four-car train ? They actually mounted a fare box there ? Was it in the operator's cab or outside his partition ? What stations ? What happened when there was a deadbeat ? I can see why that was a short-lived plan, but even so - man ! Anybody know the time frame for this clever plan ? The operators must have hated this.