Tag Archives: MBTA

Bus Photo of the Month: May 2023

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Neoplan AN440LF ETB Trolleybus 4104

Location: Massachusetts Avenue at Garden Street, Cambridge, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Date of Photo: May 2, 2011

About a year ago, the long-running trolleybus network emanating from Harvard Station was discontinued after 86 years of operation.  The first trolleybus route in the Boston area began on April 11, 1936, replacing a streetcar line that operated on the same route.  Over the next three decades, the MBTA (once established) would operate 37 trolleybus routes at the network’s peak, mostly in the Cambridge area but trolleybus routes also ran in the Arborway and Dorchester areas.  Most of these routes replaced streetcars but some actually replaced standard bus lines.  In 1963, all but four of the trolleybus lines were converted to diesel bus routes.  There prevalent theory for why the trolleybuses were not eliminated entirely at that time is that the MBTA wished to reduce the amount of diesel fumes in the bus tunnels at Harvard Station, though some attribute it to the environmentalist movement of the 1970s. The design of the Harvard Bus Tunnel resulted in the MBTA ordering trolleybuses with a door on the left side, as seen in this photo, to facilitate boarding and alighting without passengers needing to cross the bus roadway.

In any case, the trackless trolleys continued to operate through the tunnel and throughout Cambridge on these routes until March 2022.  At that time, the North Cambridge Carhouse where the trolleybus fleet was based was closed in conjunction with public works projects in Cambridge and Watertown that necessitated removing the catenary used to power the vehicles.  The MBTA is converting the North Cambridge Carhouse for electric bus operation, and the former trolleybus routes at this garage will be operated by electric buses when the carhouse reopens.

When the Silver Line opened in 2004, it marked the resumption of trolleybus service within Boston proper for the first time since the early 1960s.  However, the MBTA has ordered hybrid buses with extended battery range to replace the current fleet of dual mode buses that operate on the Silver Line.  When these new buses arrive, the trolleybus era in Greater Boston will truly end.

For more photos of MBTA Buses and Trolleybuses, please click here.  

Some Things Are Worth Waiting For…

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New Flyer XE60 19506
Very observant visitors to this site might have noticed two things recently.  First, it has been a very long time (nearly two years in fact) since any announcements of new photos being posted to Oren’s Transit Page have been made.  Second, the January 2023 Bus Photo of the Month came from a city that was not included on Oren’s Transit Page before.  The reasons for this are several fold.  In 2021, travel was slowly resuming and the Oren’s Transit Page Baby (as he was known then) required a level of care that was age-appropriate but one that does not facilitate frequent website updates.  In 2022, travel really took off again, as my travels took me not only up and down the Northeast Corridor but to the Florida panhandle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Israel, and Greece.  As you can imagine, travels that extensive generate lots of photos, which in turn, take time to organize, touch up, caption, and post.  The good news is I’ve made some headway on that front, and I believe any photos I took prior to May 2022 are now online.

The “highlights” from this update in my opinion in “chronological” order are:

The rest of 2022’s photos are still to come, and I’ve already taken one trip within the US in 2023 and I’m sure more are to come, so stay tuned.  The photos from all those travels will be posted.  Eventually.

Here is the full listing of where new photos were added to the site, with new sections highlighted in bold and italics.  

Rail Photo of the Month: January 2023

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CAF Type 9 LRV 3919

Location: Commonwealth Avenue at Washington Street, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA)
Date of Photo: July 6, 2021

Last month, the second phase of the Green Line Extension in Boston opened to Medford.  This followed the first phase which inaugurated service to the Union Square station in Somerville.  This was the first extension of the Green Line since the Riverside Branch was inaugurated in 1959, though the Green Line route has been modified at other occasions (such as when the line was rerouted from the now demolished Causeway Street elevated to a new underground station at North Station).  The extension required the procurement of additional rolling stock, which resulted in the CAF Type 9 order being placed.  These twenty-four cars were solely for fleet expansion and none of the existing Type 7 or Type 8 cars were retired upon delivery of the Type 9s.  The Type 9 bodies were assembled in Spain and final assembly was conducted in Elmira, New York.  The first Type 9 entered revenue service in December of 2018.  The Type 9 interiors feature additional screens for passenger information and announcements and a shorter high floor section. 

For more photos of MBTA Type 9 LRVs, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: September 2022

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Kinki-Sharyo Type 7 LRV 3714

Location: Beacon Street between Washington Square and Fairbanks Street stations, Brookline, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
Date of Photo: May 2, 2011

Despite what many seem to be inclined to think, the oldest subway system in North America is not in New York, but rather, in Boston.  In fact, this month marks the 125th anniversary of the opening of the segment of what is now known as the Green Line between Boylston and Park Street.  The original Tremont Street subway was built to provide a way to get streetcars off of congested streets at the surface, and has evolved to form part of the central trunk of today’s Green Line.  The line has been modified in various ways over the years as Boston has grown and developed, but the Boylston Station remains largely unaltered from its original 1897 state.  The Tremont Street Subway are designated as a National Historic Landmark due to its significance as the first subway in the United States.  The Green Line is in the midst of an expansion of sorts, with the new Union Square branch having opened in March 2022 and the Medford/Tufts branch scheduled to open in November 2022.

For more photos of the MBTA Green Line, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: May 2020

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Neoplan AN460LF 1132

Neoplan AN460LF 1132

Location: South Station, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
Date of Photo: January 28, 2018

The MBTA Silver Line is certainly a curious hybrid within one of the few transit agencies in the United States to operate such a wide variety of route types.  The line is served by buses, but portions of the line operate in a tunnel where the buses are powered by electricity rather than diesel.  There are named stations with signage in the style of the agency’s rail lines, and the route appears in its own color on the system map.  But once the buses reach the Boston Waterfront district, they operate on the surface seemingly like any other MBTA bus service would.  

The dual powered Neoplan buses on the SL1, SL2, and SL3 routes are reaching retirement age, and the MBTA is already testing battery powered New Flyer buses that could replace the original Silver Line fleet.  While the exact plans for replacing the Neoplans are still undecided from what I understand, there will only be so many more opportunities to ride these buses on this one of a kind line in Boston.

For more photos of the MBTA’s Neoplan AN460LF buses, please click here.

 

Rail Photo of the Month: May 2019

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Hawker-Siddeley PA-3 01244

Hawker-Siddeley PA-3 01244

Location: Green Street, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
Date of Photo: May 2, 2011

In the early morning hours of May 1, 1987, the MBTA Orange Line operated on its original, Washington Street elevated route for the final time.  The Orange Line (then known as the Main Line Elevated) originally included three elevated sections. The Atlantic Avenue Elevated was truncated to a shuttle in 1928 and closed entirely in 1938. The Charlestown Elevated was replaced by the Haymarket North Extension in 1975.  And the southern portion of the Washington Street Elevated route from Chinatown to Forest Hills, passing through the South End and Roxbury along the way.  MBTA crews worked over the weekend to tie in the Washington Street subway with the Orange Line’s new alignment that used the Southwest Corridor that had originally been built for I-95’s planned route through Boston.  The new alignment opened on May 4 and remains in service to this day.  I took this photo exactly eight years ago at the Green Street Station, one of the new stations along the Southwest Corridor alignment.

For more photos of the MBTA Orange Line, please click here.

In addition, you can see Boston TV station WBZ’s coverage of the last Orange Line train via the Washington Street elevated route in this video clip:  

Note: Some of the information in this post was changed based on corrections provided from a reader on May 7, 2019.

Just in time for the summer travel season, Winter 2018 photos have been posted!

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Gillig Advantage 458
The first part of 2018 here at Oren’s Transit Page headquarters has been busy.  The next few months also have some travel planned both to places I’ve been before as well as new ones, but in this post, I wish to let everyone know that new photos from the past few months from a variety of places are now available on this site.  You may have noticed some recent photos of the month were from locations that had not been featured on any part of this site before.

I made my first trip to Memphis, Tennessee back in November 2017.  Unfortunately, it was before that city’s Main Street Trolley reopened, but I guess that just means I’ll have to go back some day.  However, I did get some photos of MATA’s all Gillig bus fleet, which you can find in the new Memphis section on this site.

CAF-GEE UM12
In January, I spent two weeks in Brazil and Argentina.  While I had been to Rio de Janerio back in 2010, I didn’t take any photos of that city’s subway on that trip.  That has changed, and there is now a Rio Metro page here on Oren’s Transit Page.  There are also additions to the existing Rio bus page.  After Rio, I was in Iguazu Falls, where I had also been in 2010, but there are no new photos from here.  The following stop was Buenos Aires, marking my first time in that city, and I have plenty of photos from that city.  The Buenos Aires Subte (Underground), while small, has a rich history and also has the distinction of serving the southernmost subway station in the world. 
Micro Ómnibus 45 S.A. 35
You might recognize some of the 6000 Series cars on the Buenos Aires pages from Madrid and that would make sense, as Buenos Aires bought them secondhand from the Spanish capital.  The network of buses, known locally as colectivos, is an impressive sight to see as they crisscross the city in just about every imaginable direction.  Each colectivo line is operated by a private firm, and each private firm only operates a handful of lines at most.  The buses on each route have unique liveries to make identification by waiting passengers easier.  

At the end of January, I was in the Boston area for a weekend, and at the start of April I spent a weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

As is often the case, I also added a number of photos from around the DC area.  Most of the new photos are additions to pre-existing galleries, but I also finally added photos of Shuttle UM, the campus bus system for the University of Maryland-College Park, and Loundoun County Transit.

Below, you’ll find a complete list of pages with new photos.  Enjoy! 

Gillig Advantage 3710

 

New Photos of New Services!

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Kinki-Sharyo Type 7 LRV 3691
If this website had a tagline, it would have to address the fact that I have a never ending photo queue and a whole host of things I’d love to share here on the Travelogue if I had unlimited time to do so.  The reality is that while running this website is a labor of love, it is a hobby, and real life has to take priority at times.  Among the many reasons I’ve been posting less is that the Oren’s Transit Page has expanded to include “Mrs. Oren’s Transit Page.”  While she is quite supportive of my hobby and even enjoys coming with me on my railfan excursions on occasion, I’d like to think that she appreciates the fact that I assisted with wedding planning and then showed up at the (transit accessible) wedding itself.  However, over the course of wedding planning, I’ve still had plenty of chances to snap photos of transit and in the past few days, finally had a chance to organize and caption many of those photos.  In fact, over 75 photos were added to various sections of the website in this update.

This update includes photos of several things that had not, to date, appeared on my website before now. 

Gillig Advantage 4060
It didn’t get its own post aside from the October Photo of the Month, and it took me over 12 months from the time it opened until I actually rode it, but the are now photos of and a page dedicated to the DC Streetcar.  If that isn’t new enough for you, my first photos of the WMATA New Flyer XN40s that entered service in 2016 are now online as well.  I rode these vehicles for the first time back in July.  If you want to feast your eyes on an even more recent addition to the DC area transit scene, Ride On Extra started one month ago and there are new photos of the BRT styled buses dedicated to this service on the Ride On 40 Foot Gillig Advantage Buses page. 

Other DC area pages also had photos added to them; these are the WMATA Breda Rehab, WMATA Kawasaki 7000 Series, WMATA Metrorail Stations, WMATA 2008 NABI 60-BRT/CNG, WMATA New Flyer XDE60 Buses, WMATA XDE40 Buses, WMATA New Flyer DE40LFA, WMATA New Flyer DE60LFA, WMATA New Flyer D40LFR, WMATA New Flyer DE40LF, WMATA New Flyer C40LF & C40LFR, WMATA Orion VII/CNG, DC Circulator, Ride On 40 Foot Orion V, Ride On 35 Foot Orion V, Ride On 40 Foot Gillig Advantage/HEV, and MARC Commuter Rail pages.

The photo queue also had some photos from short trips to other cities along the US East Coast, and I was finally able to get to those, too.  You will find new photos in the New Jersey Transit Rail Operations and New Jersey Transit Bus Operations pages in the New Jersey section, MBTA Green Line and MBTA Buses pages in the Boston section, and on the MARTA page in the Atlanta section. 

ALP-46 4613
Naturally, I took Amtrak to travel to some of these places, so there are also new photos on the Amtrak ACS-64 Locomotives, Amtrak Genesis Locomotives, Acela Express, and Amtrak Stations pages.

As always, I make my perpetual promise to feature some of my favorite photos and the stories behind them in “The Viewfinder” in the near future.  I hope to be able to follow through on that promise soon.  In the meantime, enjoy the new additions and I hope to share other photos from my queue of uncaptioned photos in the near future.

Rail Photo of the Month: September 2017

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Breda Type 8 LRV 3846

Breda Type 8 LRV 3846

Location: Kenmore Station, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
Date of Photo: February 12, 2004

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the opening of America’s first subway line.  It was on this date in 1897 that the first segment of the Tremont Street Subway opened in an attempt to reduce congestion caused by streetcars on the streets of Boston.  The first segment was quite short, just running from Park Street to a now disused and sealed portal near Boylston Station.  Over time, portals have been sealed and the subway has been extended, but trains have been using the original Tremont Street Subway continuously for all these years.  The Green Line certainly isn’t my favorite transit experience in the world (or even in Boston to be honest, especially when in a rush to get somewhere), but despite the frustrations its passengers may experience, it is certainly quite unique and a very important piece of American transit history.  Here’s to the next 120 years!

For more photos of the MBTA Green Line, please click here.

 

OTP Update: New section and lots of new photos!

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Gillig Advantage 911 (right) and Gillig Advantage/CNG 264
After a tease on the Oren’s Transit Page Facebook page a few weeks ago, I have finally made it through my photo queue to add a slew of photos from all over the US to the website this morning.  Highlighting this update is the newest section of the website from Richmond, Virginia.  Richmond has a 175 unit bus fleet and is building a new bus rapid transit line and you can now see some of their current operations here on the website.  Richmond is also home to the Triple Crossing, the only known spot in North America where three Class I railroads cross each other at the same spot, and there is a photo on the Norfolk Southern page from that location.

If you wanted to travel by train from Richmond to other places featured on Oren’s Transit Page, Amtrak would be a great choice, and you can now see photos of the relatively recently restored Main Street Station in downtown Richmond on the Amtrak Stations page, as well as Amtrak’s Genesis P42 Locomotives serving the station.  New photos were also added to the Amtrak ACS-64 Locomotives and Acela Express pages.

Kawasaki 7140
Further along the Northeast Corridor, a number of Washington, DC area galleries got updates, too.  New photos of the DC Circulator, as well as WMATA’s now retired New Flyer C40LF buses were added to the respective galleries.  On the rail side of things in DC, there are new photos in the Rohr (1000 Series), Breda Rehab, and Kawasaki (7000 Series) galleries.  

Even further to the north, there are two new Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority bus photos in this update.  If you travel very far to the east, a single photo of an Israel Railways Bombardier trainset that was not included in the most recent update from Israel is now on the site.  

Despite my constantly telling myself there isn’t all that much in the photo queue, getting through it all always seems to take longer than I expect.  I have a number of interesting articles to profile on Oren’s Reading List, and also plan to share more commentary on some of my photos through the Viewfinder, including some of my favorite photos from this update.  In addition to adding new photos from a variety of sections, I also hope to have the New York section rebuilt sometime in the next 6 months.  But while you’re waiting on all the content to come, I do hope you enjoy the new content that was just added or revisiting the content that I’ve posted over the past 16+ years.