RATP series MA
The MA series (also: MA 51 ) is a vehicle type of Métro Paris . The Paris public transport company RATP put the MA into service as the first new-build vehicles after the Second World War in 1951. "MA" means Matériel articulé (articulated material), the following number for the vehicle series of the Paris Métro usually denotes the year of the first order or first commissioning. In the case of the MA series, this is often not done because there were no more successors to the MA series.
history
The Sprague-Thomson series , which was the only one at Métro Paris in 1948, was no longer sufficient for the increased traffic volume of the post-war period. In addition, the oldest wagons were from 1905 and were therefore over forty years old. The Administration Provisoire des Transports Parisiens (APTP) has therefore been developing a concept for new trains since 1945. They should consist of 36-meter-long units of three cars, two units should be easy to couple to form a 72-meter-long train that could be separated again just as quickly. In order to save weight, it was decided to use eight-axle trains that rested in the middle on two Jakobs bogies . The disadvantage of this design, which had been considered since 1936, was that the three car bodies could not be separated from one another.
description
The units, which consist of three cars, are 36.62 meters long, the end cars each 13.31 meters long have four 1.00 meter wide doors on each side at equal intervals. The 10.00 meter long intermediate car has only three doors of the same width and identical spacing. The two inner bogies are equipped with two 94-horsepower motors powered bogies , the two outer non-driven bogies . Two motors are combined into a group that is controlled by the Jeumont-Heidmann control system (characteristic: camshaft driven by a servo motor ). The compressed air brakes of the type Westinghouse are adjustable during braking and releasing the latter introduced a new feature in the Paris network. A mercury-controlled anti-lock system (situated in a tubular mercury rises in blocking the brakes and triggers an electrical contact made) and Scharfenberg couplings at both ends of the three- -Wagen-Zugs were further innovations.
In terms of color, the new trains with their blue and light blue livery differed greatly from the Sprague-Thomson cars; the first- class sections in the middle car were initially in creamy white. In the mid-1970s, the trains below the ribbon were uniformly painted in a darker blue, with a dark blue stripe on the upper edge. From then on, a yellow band over the windows marked the compartments of the second, a blue one that of the first class, which was now housed in an end car. This color scheme was retained until the vehicles were taken out of service.
The interior lighting of the cars was done for the first time with fluorescent tubes , the leather-covered upholstered seats of both classes were similar to those of the first class of the old trains. Unused driver's cabs could be slammed into the passenger compartment thanks to a movable partition.
Acquisition and use
Decisive for the order placed in December 1948 was the upcoming extension of a branch of line 13 (former line B of the north-south ) from Porte de Saint-Ouen to Carrefour Pleyel . The forty three-part vehicles E 001 to E 040 ("E" stands for élément ) were built at Brissonneau et Lotz .
The first vehicle was delivered to the Vaugirard depot on line 12 in September 1951 . The remaining trains were gradually used on line 13 between February 1952 and May 1953 . During the day, two coupled units operated on the Y-shaped route, the weakening of trains (separation of two three-car units) was only carried out cautiously in the evening and on Sundays. Frequent problems with the electrical connections led to the final removal of the Scharfenberg couplings in 1972.
The MA initially operated exclusively on line 13, before this was combined with the former line 14 and equipped with MF-67 trains. Between spring 1975 and June 1976, the MA series was transferred to line 10 , where it only ran as a six-car train and remained until it was gradually phased out from 1988. In this context, the vehicles, corresponding to the MF 67 series, were repainted and received, among other things, modified door locking devices.
Parking and retirement
As early as the early 1950s, the RATP began to prefer trains with pneumatic tires . From August 1951, the MP 51 was a corresponding prototype on the Voie navette between the Porte des Lilas and Pré-Saint-Gervais stations . In 1956 , the first series vehicles of the MP 55 series with pneumatic tires arrived, initially for route 11 . Since the RATP assumed that all lines would have switched to the new system by the turn of the millennium, no further orders for vehicles running on steel wheels were initially made. It was only with the MF 67 series from 1968 that such new material came back onto the tracks.
In 1988 the first trains of the MA series disappeared from the line. The last regular day of use of an MA train was June 15, 1994. With the exception of two units, all trains of this series were decommissioned and largely scrapped.
Whereabouts
The RATP has received the unit E 010 of the MA series, another (E 023) is located at the Association d'Exploitation du Matériel Sprague (ADEMAS).
Web links
- Photo of an MA train in dark blue and white paint, 1987 at viennaslide.com
literature
- Jean Tricoire: Un siècle de métro en 14 lignes. De Bienvenüe à Météor . 2nd Edition. La Vie du Rail, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-902808-87-9 .
- Brian Hardy: Paris Metro Handbook . 3. Edition. Capital Transport, Harrow Weald 1999, ISBN 1-85414-212-7 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Jean Tricoire: Un siècle de métro en 14 lignes. De Bienvenüe à Météor . 2nd Edition. La Vie du Rail, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-902808-87-9 , p. 94 .
- ^ Brian Hardy: Paris Metro Handbook . 3. Edition. Capital Transport Publishing, Harrow Weald 1999, ISBN 1-85414-212-7 , pp. 68 .
- ↑ Jean Tricoire: op. Cit. , P. 95.
- ↑ Jean Tricoire: op. Cit. , P. 103.
- ^ Brian Hardy: op. Cit. , P. 69.
