Ashmontâ€“Mattapan High Speed Line

The Ashmont - Mattapan High Speed Line or M-Line is a streetcar in the state of Massachusetts in the United States that runs from Boston to Milton. It is considered part of the MBTA Red Line, in contrast to this light even though it uses rail vehicles and passengers have to change trains at the station Ashmont. The line was opened on 26 August 1929 and is the only one of the MBTA, which runs through a cemetery. The term High Speed Line ( high speed line) already meets long unavailable because it has neither a completely intersection-free route still on vehicles with high speed by today's standards.

History

The route follows the originally used by the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad for passenger and freight rail line for steam locomotives, which opened in December 1847, and in 1872 part of the Old Colony Railroad and in 1893, New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was. In 1927, the company was set with steam locomotive and the track closed for two years in order to retool for the tram service. At this time was long debated whether it would be better until after Mattapan continue the subway from Ashmont, so that a transfer may be omitted in the tram. The extra costs for an expansion of the subway, however, were considered to be too high. The track is owned by the MBTA and has on its entire length of 2.6 mi ( 4.2 km ), only two intersections, so that they may go largely unchecked.

The longest -lasting closure of the route lasted from 24 June 2006 to 22 December 2007, when the stations were renovated in Ashmont and Mattapan. The operation was carried out at this time by rail replacement services. Today, all stations except Valley Road, which can not be upgraded for structural reasons, disabled facilities expanded and modernized.

Rolling stock

The next on the track to use rail vehicles consist of old, but rebuilt PCC cars, which went before on the Green Line. A vehicle of this type can also be seen in a side tunnel of the Green Line station on Boylston Street.

Further developments

The MBTA led in 2009 with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on the track by a pilot to test a technology comparable to a collision avoidance system in an automobile, in order to avoid dangerous events. For this, the radar technology and increasingly faster beeps are used to warn the train driver obstacles. Analogous to the Positive Train Control, the system can bring the train to a stop automatically when the driver takes no action to avoid collision. If successful, the system on the Green Line should be used where there had recently been some collisions.