Red Line (MBTA)
The Red Line is one of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ( MBTA ) operated underground or light rail line in the state of Massachusetts in the United States. The route starts in Cambridge at the Alewife station and passes through the center of Boston, with transfers to the Green Line at Park Street Station, the Orange line to Downtown Crossing Station and Silver Line at South Station. To the south of the city center, the track splits at the station JFK / UMass, from where a branch to Braintree and the other goes to Ashmont, from where the Ashmont - Mattapan High Speed Line a terminal connection to the station Mattapan offers.
Travel expenses are calculated independently from the place of entry and exit to a flat rate. In 2007, by then -imposed special fees for the exit at the station Braintree were hired.
History
The Red Line was the last of the four Boston subway lines (Green, Orange, Blue ), was first built. The section from Harvard by the Tremont Street Subway to the Park Street was opened on 23 March 1912. At the stop Harvard special zones have been set up for pre-paid tickets in order to offer an easy transfer to the underground trams that drove through a private tunnel (now the Harvard Bus Tunnel ). The opening of the line operation necessitated the construction of the tunnel under Cambridge Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street in Cambridge, led by the Harvard station to the now historic Longfellow Bridge. On the Boston side of the bridge the Red Line became a vehicle traveling on elevated rail tracks that ran across the Charles Circle and through another tunnel in Beacon Hill to the Park Street Station. Further extensions to Downtown Crossing and Boston South Station, followed on April 4, 1915 and on December 3, 1916, and enabled the transition to the Washington Street tunnel or the Atlantic Avenue Elevated. As of December 15, 1917, the station was hit Broadway, on June 29, 1918 was followed by the station Andrew.
Next came the Dorchester Extension, which is now operated as Ashmont Branch. This branch followed a route that had been erected in 1870 by the Shawmut Branch Railroad. 1872 was the property over to the track on the Old Colony Railroad, which thus their main line linked to the Boston Harrison Square with the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad, whose route from Neponset to the present day Mattapan station was. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad followed the Old Colony Railroad in the operation of the line, but the operation on September 4, 1926 stopped in view of the imminent opening of the Boston Elevated Railway.
The Boston Elevated opened the first phase of the Dorchester extension to Fields Corner on November 5, 1927. Stations JFK / UMass and Savin Hill were built on the surface at the positions of former stations of the Old Colony. The last part of the rail line to Ashmont was put into operation on 1 September 1928.
On August 26, 1965, the line was assigned the color red. The decision was made in this color because crimson is the color of Harvard University, where there was one of the end points of the route at this time.
The first section of the South Shore Line was opened on 1 September 1971. This line branched from the main line from at a Überwerfungsbauwerk north of Columbia and led up to the northern Savin Hill. The northernmost point of this branch was North Quincy. The rest of the track called Braintree extension to the same station was opened on 22 March 1980, the station Quincy Adams took part in the September 10, 1983 to operate on.
The first section of the Northwest Extension, which included the implementation of the Harvard station, was completed on 6 September 1983. During construction, some temporary stops at Harvard Square were built and the old depot demolished in Eliot. On the site today is the Kennedy School of Government. It was followed by further stages of development according to Porter and Davis (8 December 1984) and after Alewife ( March 20, 1985 ), with which the present route was established. Original plans to extend the route to Lexington, however, were dropped. The planned route for the road was later developed for the Minuteman Bikeway.
In the late 1980s, the platforms of the older stations were lengthened to accommodate trains with six cars can be that wrong the first time on 21 January 1988.
In 1968 the southern branches of the line letters were assigned - "A" for the route to Quincy and "C" for the part by Ashmont. The letter " B" was reserved for a planned further branch from Braintree to Brockton after. Since 1994, the letter "A" for Ashmont, "B" for Braintree and "C " stand for Alewife.
Line operation
Until the mid-1980s, the Red Line train stops used on the branches Ashmont and Harvard, while branch to Braintree was one of the first, on the Automatic Train Control ( ATC) was used. Later, the other two branches have been converted to ATC .
First, the line was controlled by several interlocking tower, until 1985 a central electro-mechanical interlocking on the High Street has been installed. This in turn was in the late 1990s, replaced by an electronic interlocking of Union Switch & Signal. Further revisions and improvements to the system were carried out internally within the MBTA.
The shortest driven clock that ever was used on the Red Line, was 1 3/4 minutes and was reported in the schedule of the year 1928. The passenger number reached its peak around 1947, when in the rush hour over 850 persons per four-car train were transported. The introduction of the ATC system led by a significantly longer clocking in interaction with the specific layout of the block section in the city center to a reduction of the total capacity of 50 % compared to the traction lock used previously. To counter this, the trains were later extended to six cars.
Accessibility
Most, but not all stations of the Red Line is accessible. Only the stations Wollaston and Valley Road is not accessible to wheelchair users.
Rolling stock
The cars of the Red Line are designed for large numbers of passengers (Heavy Rail ) and drive on tracks with standard gauge. The trains consist of pairs of composite railcars, which are powered by power rail with 600V voltage. On the Red Line only trains with six cars.
The cars are serviced at the depot in Cabot and made available, which is located near the station Broadway in South Boston. The link to the depot starts near the station JFK / UMass. Overnight trains are parked in Braintree and Ashmont and on track remnants west of Alewife.
The beginning: Cambridge subway cars
The so-called Cambridge Subway began operations in 1912 and used for 40 consisting entirely of steel cars, which were built by the Standard Steel Car Co.. They had an extraordinary length over buffers of slightly more than 69 ft ( 21.03 m), a lot of space for standing passengers at a weight of only 85,900 pounds ( 38,964 kg ), the placement of the doors. So they had three individually pivoting doors on each side, which were spread evenly over the entire carriage length, so that the maximum distance from any point within the carriage ft up to a door about 9 (2.74 m), respectively. About 20 ft (6.1 m ) of the interior were separated by a partition from the rest and were used as a smoking compartment. Passenger flows were not in the foreground, so that each door for the entry and exit could be used.
Today: car made of aluminum and stainless steel
The Red Line uses three series of existing aluminum cars that were built by the Pullman Palace Car Company ( PCC) as well as the Urban Transportation Development Corporation ( UTDC ). The older two series in 1500 and 1600 were built in 1969-1970 by PCC, the younger 1700s series of UTDC in 1988. Among these types are a little more than 130 cars in use and each have 62 to 64 seats. They are painted white and have a red stripe across the entire carriage length, which they identify as the Red Line. The signage to indicate the destination station is still performed manually.
All three series use traditional DC traction motors with electromechanical controls, which were produced by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, so that they can be easily interchanged. The Series 1500 and 1700 could be used as individual vehicles, in practice, however, they are always used in pairs. The 1500 series were originally of two cabs (one for each direction ), which, however, were reduced at the time of overhaul on the half life time on each one.
The company Bombardier Transportation built a newer car made of stainless steel, the components were built from 1993 to 1994 in Canada and assembled in Barre. In this car, there are 50 seats, 86 of them are in active service. They have an automated visual and audible notification system for each next stop and show the terminal by the yellow LCD signals on the outside. Recently they were also equipped with multi-color, vandal-resistant fabric seats. This 1800 series uses modern AC traction motors with solid state controls of General Electric. The car can only be used in pairs. A mixture with cars from the older series will take place only in exceptional cases.
Capacity increases
In December 2008, the MBTA began with the use of modified cars of the 1800s series, from which all seats had been removed. Thus, the transport capacity should be significantly increased especially during rush hour. The MBTA was a pioneer in the entire United States. These special cars are referred to as Big Red car and are shown with large signs next to the doors as such. Even the announcements on the platforms have been added to announce the arrival of the Big Red separately. The Big Red coming exclusively to the rush hours in the morning and in the evening for use.
Art and Architecture
The MBTA called in the late 1970s, the first organization of the United States, the project Arts on the Line which has the display of art in public space to the target and later served as a model for similar projects throughout the country.
In the station Kendall / MIT is an interactive installation by Paul Matisse with the name Kendall band. Anyone interested can activate via attached in the wall lever three different machines which produce different sound pictures.
About the rails of the Alewife station hangs a row of red neon tubes called End of Red Line. The work dates from Boston artist Alejandro Sinha. There are other installations also in some other stations.
The newer stations (particularly Alewife, Braintree and Quincy Adams), all of which have large car parks, are excellent examples of the architectural style of Brutalism.
Advertising along the route
Between the stations South Station and Broadway as well as on the section between Harvard and Central Square there was a time long advertisements in the form of Zoetropen. Here, each frame of the display was mechanically synchronized revealed with the passing train to create an animation effect in this way. There are other installations of its kind in the New York City Subway, Washington Metro, the Bay Area Rapid Transit and the MRT in Singapore.