Red Line (MBTA)

RED LINE
Alewife - Ashmont / Braintree

A train of the Red Line leaves over the Longfellow Bridge
, the Charles / MGH station toward Alewife

MBTA underground, light rail and tram lines

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Power system :

Power rail, 600 V =

Route length:

19 km (Alewife-Ashmont)
28 km (Alewife-Braintree)

Stations:

17 (Alewife-Ashmont)
22 (Alewife-Braintree)

Opening:

1912

Type:

Underground or light rail

Place:

Boston , Massachusetts

Operator:

MBTA

Passengers (daily) :

241,603

Legend

		Alewife sweeping system
		U Alewife
		Davis
		from Fitchburg
		porter
		to Boston North Station
		Harvard
		Central
		Kendall / MIT

		Longfellow Bridge
		Charles River
		Charles / MGH Blue Line planned
		Blue Line to Wonderland

		Green Line from Lechmere
		Park Street Loop

		Park Street

		Green Line to Boston College , Cleveland Circle, Riverside and Heath Street

		Downtown crossing orange line
		South Station Silver Line
		Broadway
		Andrew
		Old Colony Lines from South Station

		JFK / UMass

		Savin Hill
		Fields Corner

		Shawmut

		U Ashmont
		to the Ashmont – Mattapan High Speed Line
		Neponset River
		North Quincy
		Wollaston
		Quincy Center
		Quincy Adams


		Greenbush Line
		U Braintree
		Braintree Sweeper

The Red Line is a subway or light rail line operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . The route begins in Cambridge at Alewife station and runs through downtown Boston with transfer options to the Green Line at Park Street Station , the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing and the Silver Line at South Station . South of the city center, the route splits at JFK / UMass station , from where one branch goes to Braintree and the other to Ashmont , from where the Ashmont – Mattapan High Speed Line offers a connection to Mattapan station .

The travel costs are calculated as a flat rate regardless of the place of entry and exit. In 2007, the special fees charged until then for the exit at the Braintree station were discontinued.

history

A Red Line train crosses the Charles River on Longfellow Bridge towards Boston

The Boston skyline from a Red Line vehicle on Longfellow Bridge

The Red Line was the last of the four Boston subway lines ( Green , Orange , Blue ) to begin construction. The section from Harvard through the Tremont Street Subway to Park Street was opened on March 23, 1912. At the Harvard stop , special zones were set up for tickets that had already been paid for, in order to offer an easy transfer to the underground trams , which went through a dedicated tunnel (now the Harvard Bus Tunnel ). The opening of line operations required the construction of the Cambridge Tunnel under Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street in Cambridge , which led from Harvard Station to the now historic Longfellow Bridge . On the Boston side of the bridge, the Red Line became a light rail traveling on elevated tracks that ran over Charles Circle and through another tunnel in Beacon Hill to Park Street station . Further expansion stages to Downtown Crossing and Boston South Station followed on April 4, 1915 and December 3, 1916, respectively, and made it possible to switch to the Washington Street Tunnel and Atlantic Avenue Elevated . From December 15, 1917, Broadway station was served, followed by Andrew station on June 29, 1918 .

Next up was the Dorchester Extension , now operating as the Ashmont Branch . This branch followed a route that had been established in 1870 by the Shawmut Branch Railroad . In 1872, ownership of the line passed to the Old Colony Railroad , which linked its main line on Boston Harrison Square with the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad , whose route ran from Neponset to today's Mattapan station . The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad followed the Old Colony Railroad in the operation of the route, which however ceased operations on September 4, 1926 with a view to the imminent opening of the Boston Elevated Railway .

The Boston Elevated opened the first phase of the Dorchester expansion to Fields Corner on November 5, 1927. The JFK / UMass and Savin Hill stations were built on the surface at the positions of former stations of the Old Colony . The last part of the upgraded line to Ashmont was put into operation on September 1, 1928.

On August 26, 1965, the line was assigned the color red. This color was chosen because crimson red is the color of Harvard University , where one of the end points of the route was at that time.

The first section of the South Shore Line opened on September 1, 1971. This line branched off the main line at a flyover structure north of Columbia and led to northern Savin Hill . The northernmost station on this branch was North Quincy . The rest of the route called the Braintree Extension to the station of the same name was opened on March 22, 1980, the Quincy Adams station began operations on September 10, 1983.

The first section of the Northwest Extension , which included the implementation of the Harvard station , was completed on September 6, 1983. During construction, some temporary stops were made in Harvard Square and the old Eliot depot was demolished. The Kennedy School of Government is now on the site . This was followed by further expansion stages to Porter and Davis (December 8, 1984) and to Alewife (March 20, 1985), with which the current route was established. Original plans to extend the route to Lexington , however, were dropped. The route intended for the route was later developed into the Minuteman Bikeway .

In the late 1980s, the platforms of the older stations were extended to accommodate trains with six cars, which first ran on January 21, 1988.

In 1968, letters were assigned to the southern branches of the line - "A" for the route to Quincy and "C" for the section to Ashmont . The letter "B" has been reserved for a planned branch from Braintree to Brockton . Since 1994 the letters "A" stand for Ashmont , "B" for Braintree and "C" for Alewife .

Line operation

Until the mid-1980s, the Red Line used travel locks on the Ashmont and Harvard branches , while the branch after Braintree was one of the first to use Automatic Train Control (ATC). The other two branches were later converted to ATC.

Initially, the route was controlled by several tower signal boxes until a central electromechanical signal box was installed on the High Street in 1985 . This, in turn, was replaced by an electronic interlocking from Union Switch & Signal in the late 1990s . Further revisions and improvements to the system were carried out internally within the MBTA.

The shortest clock speed that was ever used on the Red Line was 1 ³ ⁄ ₄  minutes and was shown in the 1928 timetable. The number of passengers reached its peak around 1947, when over 850 people were carried per four-car train during rush hour . The introduction of the ATC system resulted in a significantly longer cycle in conjunction with the special layout of the block route in the city center, reducing the transport capacity by 50% compared to the previously used driving blocks. To counter this, the trains were later extended to six cars.

Accessibility

Most, but not all, stations on the Red Line are barrier-free . Only the Wollaston and Valley Road stations are not wheelchair accessible.

Rolling material

Red Line car at the Cabot depot

Series 1800 (left) and 1400 (right) cars in the Cabot depot.

The Red Line cars are designed for large numbers of passengers ( Heavy Rail ) and run on standard-gauge tracks . The trains consist of multiple units assembled in pairs , which are supplied with 600 V voltage by means of a conductor rail . Only trains with six cars run on the Red Line .

The cars are serviced and held at the Cabot depot , which is located near Broadway Station in South Boston . The connection to the depot begins near the JFK / UMass station . The trains will also be parked overnight in Braintree and Ashmont as well as on remains of track west of Alewife .

The beginning: Cambridge underground cars

The so-called Cambridge Subway began operations in 1912 and used for 40 entirely of steel existing cars from the Steel Car Co. Standard were built. They had an exceptional length over buffers of just over 69 ft (21.03 m ), plenty of room for standing passengers at a weight of only 85,900 lb (38,963.58 kg ) and a new arrangement of the doors. So they had three individually pivoting doors on each side, which were evenly spaced over the entire length of the car, so that the maximum distance from any point within the car to a door was about 9 ft (2.74 m ). About 20 ft (6.1 m ) of the interior was separated from the rest by a partition and was used as a smoking compartment. Passenger flows were not in the foreground, so that every door could be used for entry and exit.

Today: trolleys made of aluminum and stainless steel

The Red Line uses three series of aluminum cars built by the Pullman Palace Car Company (PCC) and the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC). The older two series 1500 and 1600 were built by PCC between 1969 and 1970, the younger 1700 series by UTDC in 1988. A little more than 130 of these types are still in use and each offer 62 to 64 seats. They are painted white and have a red stripe along the length of the car, identifying them as the Red Line . The signage to indicate the destination is still done manually.

All three series use traditional DC - traction motors with electromechanical controls, by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation were produced so that they can be easily interchanged. The 1500 and 1700 series could be used as single vehicles, but in practice they are always used in pairs. The 1500 series originally had two driver's cabs (one for each direction of travel), but at the time of the overhaul they were reduced to one for half their life.

Bombardier car at Harvard station

The company Bombardier Transportation built a newer car from stainless steel , the constituents from 1993 to 1994 in Canada built and Barre were assembled. There are 50 seats in these cars, 86 of which are in active service. They have an automated optical and acoustic announcement system for the next stop and indicate the end point by means of yellow LCD signals outside. Most recently, they were also equipped with multi-colored, vandal-proof fabric seats. This 1800 series uses advanced three-phase AC traction motors with solid state controls from General Electric . The trolleys can only be used in pairs. A mix with the cars of the older series takes place only in exceptional cases.

Starting in 2019, the oldest vehicles in the fleet are to be replaced by 132 new vehicles from the Chinese manufacturer CNR . In addition to the firm order, an option for 58 additional vehicles was agreed. The first prototypes are to be delivered for testing in 2018. Series delivery is scheduled to begin in 2019 and be completed in 2021.

Capacity increases

In December 2008, the MBTA began using modified cars from the 1800 series, from which all seats had been removed. This should significantly increase the transport capacity, especially at rush hour . The MBTA was thus a pioneer in the entire USA. These special cars are known as Big Red cars and are also identified as such with large signs next to the doors. The announcements on the platforms were also re-recorded to separately announce the arrival of the Big Red . The Big Red are only used during rush hour in the morning and in the evening.

Art and architecture

In the late 1970s, the MBTA was the first organization in the USA to set up the Arts on the Line project , which aims to present art in public spaces and which later served as a model for analogue projects throughout the country.

In the Kendall / MIT station there is an interactive installation by Paul Matisse called the Kendall Band . Anyone who is interested can use hand levers in the wall to activate three different machines that generate different sound images.

A row of red neon tubes called the End of Red Line hangs over the rails at Alewife Station . The work comes from the Boston artist Alejandro Sinha . There are also other installations in some other stations.

The newer stations (Alewife, Braintree, and Quincy Adams in particular), all of which have large parking garages , are excellent examples of the Brutalist architectural style .

Advertising along the way

Between the stations South Station and Broadway and on the section between Harvard and Central Square there was a time long advertisements in the form of zoetropes . Every single image of the display was revealed mechanically synchronously with the passing train in order to create an animation effect. There are other installations of this type in the New York City Subway , Washington Metro , Bay Area Rapid Transit and also the MRT in Singapore .

Individual evidence

↑ Ridership and Service Statistics (PDF; 6.2 MB) Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2010. Retrieved October 11, 2011.

^ Frequently Asked Questions on the Fare Restructuring and Increase . Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved October 3, 2011.

↑ Gerry O'Regan: MBTA Red Line. Retrieved February 9, 2012 .

↑ Kleespies, Gavin W. and MacDonald, Katie: Transportation History . Harvard Square Business Association. Archived from the original on May 4, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 4, 2011. @1@ 2

^ O'Regan, Gerry: MBTA Red Line . nycsubway.org. Retrieved September 29, 2011.

^ Steel Cars for the Cambridge Subway . In: Electric railway journal . tape XXXIX , no. 2 . McGraw Hill Pub. Co., ISSN 0095-9715 , OCLC 2021289 , pp. 58 .

^ New England Electric Railway Historical Society Seashore Trolley Museum. ( PDF ; 290 kB) The National Streetcar Museum in Lowell. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 19, 2012 ; accessed on February 11, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

↑ Gov. Patrick Announces MBTA's Recommended Company To Build New Subway Cars In Mass. MBTA, October 21, 2014, accessed October 27, 2014 .

^ Jillian Fennimore: MBTA strips out the seats from some Red Line trains. (No longer available online.) In: Cambridge Chronicle . December 4, 2008, archived from the original on November 8, 2012 ; accessed on February 11, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

^ Boston Inspires Public Art ( PDF ) Boston Public Library. S. 5, 6. 2003. Retrieved September 1, 2008: "the MBTA collaborated with the ... Cambridge Arts Council ... to acquire art for the Red Line Northwest Extension Project. The result was the beginning of a world-class public art program and collection that has grown to include over seventy pieces on six transit lines. "