BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority will hold three public meetings in the coming weeks to gather input about the future of Boston’s historic Mattapan-Ashmont High Speed Line.
Earlier this year, MBTA officials announced that they want to replace the Mattapan line’s aging Presidents’ Conference Committee streetcars with more modern light rail vehicles in the next decade. [See “MBTA proposes replacing historic PCC streetcars,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 29, 2019.] On Monday, MBTA announced the dates of three meetings where the public can learn more about the proposal: March 27 at ABCD Mattapan Family Service Center, April 2 at the Milton Council on Aging, and April 4 at the Lower Mills Branch Public Library in Dorchester. All three meetings start at 6 p.m.
Although beloved by locals and enthusiasts alike, the 2.6-mile Mattapan route on the end of the Red Line has become an historic oddity for the MBTA. The line has been plagued with service problems in recent years and MBTA officials have said it is hard to find parts to keep the fleet of 10 PCC cars — all built more than 70 years ago — on the rails. In 2017, the MBTA decided to spend $7.9 million to upgrade eight of the PCC cars in order to keep them in service for at least another decade. The agency also hired an outside firm to work with the community to create a roadmap for the route’s future.
The MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board is expected to vote on the proposal to replace the PCCs with LRVs — similar to the ones found on the Green Line — later this year.
Although a number of cities still use PCCs in regular service — including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and most recently El Paso — the Boston cars are the only ones in the United States to have never been retired from service.
Remember riding these PCC cars on Huntington Ave in the mid 1980s
They should do as San Francisco and El Paso does – have Brookville manufacture them and bring them up to modern standards. San Francisco runs a large fleet and the cars run many more miles per day on city streets.
Of course it makes perfect sense, Dennis. They’re planning for the future. If the cars are to be replaced, they will have to prepare an RFP, put together financing, and have the cars manufactured. That can take 3-5 years. This is just the first public meetings.
How do the PCCs get to Everett? Trucks. That’s a big PITA, I’d imagine, but new LRVs will also be geographically removed from the rest of the system, so that will likely not change, I doubt they will build a maintenance facility in Mattapan, although there is physical space for it at the end of the line there.
Finally, while commuting by PCC sounds charming, sometimes it’s not. Modern safety, convenience and HVAC are very nice things to have. I live in New Orleans, and now commute by Canal Street streetcar. Translation it has AC.
I like riding the St Charles line on a nice day like today (I rode back from the dentist to work today, it was around 70 and gorgeous) but in August it’s not very pleasant.
Why not refurbish old streetcars when possible and make new streetcars in the updated image of the beloved cars. This approach to re-designing iconic and classic vehicles has been used successfully by Ford with their Mustang, Chevrolet with their Camaro,Dodge with their Challenger and other examples. The same could be applied to re-designing locomotives and passenger cars in a modern day retro fashion. Sometimes a good idea such as the F series of locomotives and dome cars on passenger trains should still be the standard in design with modernization applied. Many times in history what’s old is new again and if you want to get the public’s attention,then get away from the generic utilitarian designs and manufacture some flashy locomotives and passenger cars for no more cost than what is being made today and the free public relations benefits will be enormous.
Two years ago they spent $8 million to keep the cars running for 10 years. And now only two years in they are thinking of possibly getting rid of these cars. That part makes no sense.
Ed, Well they might just catch on to be the new standard design,especially when the operators start realizing the economic benefits that the aesthetics will attain.
Meetings, hearings, plans, consultants … no wonder nothing ever gets done in this country.
MBTA has bought dozens of light rail vehicles for the Green Line (and judged by the condition of the fleet and the gross overloading needs many additional). What’s the big deal of two or three more for the Red Line extension to Mattapan? For all the gnashing of teeth you’d think Dorchester and Milton were being sold to the North Koreans.
The effort (meaning cost) that it takes to design a retro-lookng Mustang with modern technical innards can be recovered by selling tens of thousands of them. How many retro-modern PCC cars could a builder–who is starting closer to scratch than Ford did with the Mustang–expect to sell? 100? 200? Adding 1% of a 7- to 8-figure development cost on top of the basic manufacturing cost of a small number of vehicles would make the cost prohibitive. (For example, if they spent $8 million to develop the new vehicle and sold 200, that would add $40,000 per vehicle.) It’s a grand idea, but I doubt that the economics are there.
Could a PCC-like body be developed to wrap around the guts of an existing modern streetcar? Maybe, but I’ll bet the overall effect would be disappointing and not worth the effort.
Doug – Thanks for the note.
We had a discussion about the PCCs on this forum some months ago when it was published that the PCCs were maintained in far-off Everett. No one had the slightest idea how the PCCs got to that garage.
I had no idea the PCCs and the Green Line cars were of a different loading gauge (until your post) as the Green Line was PCCs back in the day.
Mr. Landey, what’s you’ve mentioned is called “paralysis by analysis.” One of the reasons nothing ever gets done, among others. A certain group of people seem to be prone to it, more so than others, but why go into particulars?
Anyway, if San Francisco cal keep their fleet of classic PCC’s, in classic PCC paint schemes operational than what’s Boston’s excuse? C’mon Boston, you gonna let the West Coasties beat you on this?
Charles, it’s not as simple as moving Green Line cars to Mattapan. Bridges need to be widened and rebuilt for the heavier and longer LRVs, amongst other capital improvements needed for the switch.