Type 5 and PCC at Boylston

On Wednesday I had a chance to ride the Green line to Hynes/ICA for a convention. I had not been in the subway S. of Park for a while (last century).

At Boylston I noticed there were 2 cars sitting on the inbouind side, the unused track that used to lead to the Tremont St. line years ago, behind fence. They appeared to be a Type 5 and a Picture Window PCC car.

Anyone know what these cars are there for - Is the MBTA planning a subway museum like NY has? Or are they just being stored for later movement to a museum like Seashore?

PS - a good ride both ways from North Station to Hynes. Got a type 7 with non-working destination sign at NS, turned out to be an E, so changed to a B line type 8 at Govt Center, which stayed on the rails OK . Don't care for the seating on the 8, the transverse seating on the 7 more comfortable (and better for railfan viewing).

The MBTA owns the PCC (#3255, a 1951-vintage Pullman Standard). The Type-5 (#5734) is owned by Seashore, and leased to the MBTA for $1/year.

I believe they last ran in "passenger service" during the 100th anniversary trolley parade in 1997 (as I recall, also running were an LRV and two Type-7s).

The Type-5 has only trolley poles, and so in order to run in the subway, it needs a pole-tender to navigate the shoe over the wire frogs and cut-outs. I also understand that it has structural issues, such as "weak knees," requiring much work if it is to run again.

I recall the PCC has a pantograph, but I don't know its mechanical and structual condition.

A number of the Inspectors who formerly paid attention to them (with links to Seashore) have retired from the MBTA. In any event, there are no plans for these cars, other than to let them sit and deteriorate, which is a shame.

It is sad, the T is anti transit preservation... like re-painting 4049 from it's orange and cream scheme, bums!!!

Diverging Route wrote:(#3255, a 1951-vintage Pullman Standard)

It's actually #3295, a picture-window car. You have the builder and date right, though. The 3255 was a "Wartime" car built in 1945 or 1946, like the cars that still run on the Mattapan-Ashmont line.

The 3295 ran on a fantrip in 1997 or so, I believe - you may be able to find photos of this trip if you search around. They show the pantograph in operation, so obviously it was working at the time. It definitely is too bad that they don't run trips with those cars anymore - I got the rare opportunity to ride 5734 one summer in the early '90s, when it was actually run in revenue service on a weekend.

"It is sad, the T is anti transit preservation..."

I don't think that's a true statement, based on the large number of MBTA trolleys and rapid transit cars and other artifacts that the authority has made available to the Seashore museum over the years. The two cars at Boylston Street are not unlike the stuffed and mounted PCC car that SEPTA has parked in the concourse of one of the Market Street subway stations in Philadelphia -- artifacts that are thankfully preserved in a place where people car easily see them, but unlikely to run again.

If you had said "anti-street running", I'd agree completely.

Diverging Route wrote: The Type-5 has only trolley poles, and so in order to run in the subway, it needs a pole-tender to navigate the shoe over the wire frogs and cut-outs.

Related question, then...how did the pole-equipped PCC's and panto-equipped LRV's co-mingle under the same overhead when they were in-service together on the Green Line from '76-85. Was there some sort of special overhead in place on all but the A-line trackage and street-running E trackage that allowed simultaneous pole and pantograph operation? And how did that work? Aren't they inherently physically incompatible with each other?

Someone more knowledgeable may say otherwise, but I don't think they're inherently incompatible. The key differences are in the wire hangers and the joints at turnouts. I believe dual-mode hangers are possible (it simply requires that no part of them protrudes below the level of the wire, which would snag the pantograph) and then wire frogs at turnouts that have beveled edges will work with both poles and pantographs.

However, it appears that once all the PCCs were gone from revenue service, the lines were re-wired for pantograph-only operation. This means primarily that when you come to a turnout, no wire frog is used. If you look carefully, you'll see that the two wires converge and then cross over each other, then one terminates at the nearest pole. The pantograph shoe can simply glide from one wire to the other, so it's a lot simpler that way.

I think the use of pantographs also eliminates some of the bracing that was required on curves - I remember noticing all sorts of complex pull-offs on the twists and turns of the A-line trackage, but I don't think they need as much of this on the current lines. The pantograph shoe is wide enough that the wire does not need to trace a perfect arc through the curve.

Feel free to correct me if the above is not accurate.

It is true dude, the T did not make that stuff for seashore... Danny Cohen, Sisson and others did...not the T management...Cohen did and others who volunteer for seashore made sure it was preserved... George Sanborn was a huge factor in getting stuff. Not the T management.

Hiya,
I had this question answered for me a while ago, so I'll pass this answer on again. The trolley overhead was adapted for pantograph operation by installing a sort of slipshoe arangement which allowed the pantograph arm to slide under the frogs at cutouts and splits in the route. The assembly looked like a normal frog with two wings on the outside which were bent up on the ends. As the pantograph came along, it would be pushed down off of the trolley wire gradually by the bent parts of the wings and run under the frog on the wings (probably about an inch or two below), then rise back up onto the main wire on the bent part on the opposing side when the panto was beyond the frog.

Interestingly, I saw this arangement in operation on the tramway in Blackpool, England. There they run most weekday regular revenue service with pantographs, but they have a very large fleet of historic trams from all over the UK which they run regularly in full revenue service on weekends. I literally watched a pantograph tram follow an electropole tram across a frog with absolutely no difficulty at all. The only main concession to the pantographs was that the wire was alternated in a zig-zag pattern to limit wear to the pantographs. This didn't hurt the electropoles at all (which were both the wheel and slipshoe variety).

As far as I know, the standard wire hangers were not great for the pantographs because they would scratch but they didn't really cause operation difficulties. I also seem to remember someone pointing out that due to wire bounce, there were speed restrictions for the pantograph LRVs on the Riverside Line.

Someone told me that the biggest problem with trolley overhead in Boston is that it ran in an almost straight line behind the car (centered over the middle of the track), so this would cause a wear mark in the carbon shoe on top of the pantograph. Since the top of the panto is made up of something like 8 carbon elements, it meant that until the alternating (zig-zag) type of cantanary was installed, they were going through a lot of carbon elements on the pantographs.

Hope this helps to answer that question!

-A

PS: When I get my PC working again, I am pretty sure I have a picture of the slipshoe-frog from Blackpool. I'll post it when I find it!

Yes, but still need cooperation of T mangement to get the cars and at cheap. The T could get more money selling to scrappers than Seashore and other museums lilke Warehouse Pt. for what , $1/car? Before many of the PCCs were scrapped the T tried to sell them, especially the rebuilds, with few takers because of the prices asked. The T has usually had a good relationship with Seashore, even borrowing equipment from them.

The good relations of borrowing and getting cars for 1 buck is because of danny & george.

There were at least two Boeing LRVs that had been retrofitted with poles on each end. 3600 and I think 3603. I once asked a motorman why those cars had both Pans and poles and he said that they were used to scrape ice off the trolley wire on the D line in the winter. Maybe it was so they would run on the parts of the system with the old trolley hardware.

A PCC used to be left at Riverside in the 80s. It might be the same one. Someone left the rolling sign on a destination along the Tremont Street line.

If the T is just going to let those cars sit, maybe Seashore Museum needs to get a couple of flats down there and reclaim them.

bingdude wrote:There were at least two Boeing LRVs that had been retrofitted with poles on each end. 3600 and I think 3603.

The Boeings were numbered in the 3400 & 3500 number series. The 3600 (&3700) number series are the Kinki-Shayro Type 7's.