Checking Out MBTA

MBTA; North Station, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

Back in November I had a chance to visit a city I've spent way too little time in. Boston has a diverse transit scene, and I've photographed the streetcars and rapid transit in the past. But my coverage of the commuter railroads operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has been rather thin. On November 9, 2014, I spent a day tracking down some of those operations, along with Mike Burkhart.

We were coming down from Maine that morning, so our first stop was near the far end of the Rockport line at Gloucester, Mass. The marshes along the coast provide plenty of causeways and bridges. We got an outbound train here.

MBTA; Gloucester, Mass.; November 9, 2014

After looking for some angles near Logan Airport around Revere and Chelsea and not finding much, we headed south of the city along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which is also used by MBTA trains heading to Providence, R.I. We caught an inbound train at the Attleboro station pushing towards Beantown. The tower in the distance is, sadly, inaccessible.

MBTA; Attleboro, Mass.; November 9, 2014

One of MBTA's newest locomotives, HSP46 No. 2002, led a southbound train through the station. The last remnants of fall foliage were clinging to the area.

MBTA; Attleboro, Mass.; November 9, 2014

From here we entered the Big Dig under the city and emerged across the Charles River from North Station. A pedestrian bridge over the yard throat made for a nice vantage point, although some design elements of the bridge limited some of the angles.

MBTA; North Station, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

Just beneath the pedestrian bridge is Tower A, which still controls some movements in and out of the station, as well as the moveable bridges over the Charles.

MBTA; North Station, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

Tower A still has the name of its original owner cast in concrete above the windows.

MBTA; Tower A, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

The vantage point is adjacent to North Point Park, and adjacent to the park is the MBTA Green Line rapid transit bridge over the Charles. Boston's Duck Boats enter the river directly beneath the footbridge, so there seems to always be one of the amphibious crafts around. The Science Park station is adjacent to the light rail bridge over the river.

MBTA; Science Park, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

While we were there, one of MBTA's eco-friendly "genset" locomotives made an appearance. MBTA has a shop just northwest of North Station, so there are always deadhead moves under the pedestrian bridge going back and forth between the shop and the station.

MBTA; North Station, Boston, Mass.; November 9, 2014

The last stop of the day was at Waltham on the Fitchburg line, where a tower still stands. There was a lot of track work going on -- so much, in fact, that service was suspended on the line for the weekend, so we didn't see a train here. The tower closed fairly recently, and one has to wonder if the new track work might mean the end of the tower.

MBTA; Waltham, Mass.; November 9, 2014

This day filled in some gaps in my MBTA coverage. But it also showed I need to get back to Boston again soon. There is a lot to see along the MBTA's commuter lines. More photos from this day can be found here.

Cool Chromes -- Traction Action

Cool Chromes is a recurring feature of slides that have passed through the scanner recently.

Newark City Subway; Newark, N.J.; April 21, 1985

In this edition of Cool Chromes we're going to look at some traction -- electric-powered streetcars and subways. Our first shot above takes us back to April 21, 1985. The Newark City Subway (operated by New Jersey Transit) was having an anniversary of some sort (I can't remember exactly what!) and brought out one of its work cars for display at the Franklin Loop at the north end of the line. Today the PCC streetcar, the work car and even the loop are all gone.

MBTA; Riverside Carhouse, Newton, Mass.; July 1986

Next we have a line-up of Boeing-built Light Rail Vehicles (LRV) for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) at the company's Riverside carhouse in Newton (I think; I wasn't the greatest at taking notes). This view was made possible thanks to a tour operated for the joint convention of the National Railway Historical Society and National Model Railroad Association in July 1986. Once again, all these Boeing-built cars are gone to retirement.

SEPTA; Hunting Park, Penn.; January 28, 1995

Here's a Peter Witt streetcar operating in charter service for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The Philadelphia transit agency used to maintain a small fleet of historic cars, but has since dispersed its collection. The Peter Witt now resides at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton. This shot was taken on January 28, 1995, during a Super Saturday Streetcar Special operated by the Wilmington Chapter NRHS.

PATH; Kearny, N.J.

We finish this edition of Cool Chromes with a shot of the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) system. A work train is out on the line at Kearny, N.J., using retired cars and a flat car. One of the curses of slides is the processor didn't always stamp the processing date on the mount (especially after Kodak gave up doing its own processing) so this slide is, for the moment, undated (I may have mentioned I was bad at taking notes). However, I would guess it was taken during a boat trip on the Hackensack River either during or right around the time of the 1988 NRHS Convention in New Jersey in July 1988.

Random Ramblings -- Thanks, Cranky!

MBTA; Suffolk Downs, Boston, Mass.; January 25, 2009

First off, I can't believe this was almost four years ago. Mike Burkhart and I were in Boston to shoot streetcars and subways, and on January 25, 2009, we found our way on the Blue Line, the subway line operated by Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority that runs from downtown out to Logan Airport and continues northeast into the suburbs beyond Revere Beach (despite being known as a "subway," a large portion of the line is above ground and actually runs on a former railroad right-of-way). The MBTA had a policy for many years that you needed to have a permit for photography, but under pressure from the ACLU and others in the post-9/11 world, that policy had been rescinded and the published photo policy now allows for noncommercial property without a permit. We had encountered a couple of employees during the weekend asking if we had a permit, but when we told them the permit policy had been abolished they left us alone.

We found our way onto the platform at Suffolk Downs on the Blue Line where we were set up for a shot of an inbound train. An outbound train pulled up on the platform next to us, putting the operator's window right next to us. Immediately the operator started giving us a load of bull about permits and how what we were doing was illegal. We weren't backing down or moving, however, since the inbound car was on its way. He had a schedule to maintain so he gave up his yapping and departed with his train. But thanks to the delay in jawing at us, we were able to get this really nice shot of two trains passing. Thanks, Cranky!