MBTA Blue Line Night Operations Part 2

This second part of our video takes us from Airport Station to the last station on the line. This trip is before the recent upgrade project. Video is Circa 1996

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• MBTA
• Blue
• Line
• Subway

[BostonUrbEx]

In both of these vids the operator shuffles around when leaving the stations. I assume looking out to make sure the doors are clear. Did they only use one operator back then, or was it just because the blue line trains were 2 cars shorter?

[Digit654]

I'm not exactly sure as this video was shot by "T" employees. I would assume that the train was 2 cars shorter as the "T" has upgraded the stations and the trains. I will have to contact the "T" employee who shot the video. I'll let you know.

[Roboboy]

@Digit654 What was the motivation for the MBTA employees to shoot this? Did the MBTA employee who originally shoot this do this explicitly for railfanning or for the MBTA?

[Digit654]

@Roboboy I'm thinking that this was purely for railfanning purposes. I was working in Revere at the time and one of my volunteers worked at the Orient Heights Barn and edited the video together. It was videoed on 8mm converted to 3/4 UMatic and edited using a Video Toaster. It was later converted to SVHS and finally to DVD.

[Digit654]

@Roboboy I'm assuming here, and a bad thing for me to do, that the employee did this strickly as a personal project and the guy from the car barn edited it for community TV. I though that this was rather a unique perspective of T operations. it ran on Revere Community Television (KBLE-TV8) numerious times and even made a foray into the regional Continental Cablevision channel.

I myself am kind of a railfan, so that is why I brought the video to You Tube. Thanks for the comments and questions

[CJaguar265]

Do you have any more footage of the abandoned portion of Government Center aka Old Scollay Square Station

[Digit654]

Needless to say, no. Just what you see in the video. Sorry, I did not shoot this video as it was shot/edited by MBTA Blue Line Employees

[stuey123usa]

The single ballsiest thing ever done in the history of American civil engineering, was when someone said, "Let's build a streetcar tunnel from East Boston under the Harbor" in 1904.

Nineteen hundred, freakin FOUR; that tunnel opened.

Elephant balls.

[railnjpama]

Aw, I would have loved to have seen the loop at Bowdoin.

[videonut33]

@2012alexg Thanks for the correction!

[2012alexg]

@gabrieljude811 its from 1996

[2012alexg]

@videonut33 Oak Grove

[TheDylanJoyce]

aquarium station is my favorite

[2012alexg]

@Digit654 The Blue Line still has only one operator, even though there are six car trains now.

[2012alexg]

Was Bowdoin open at night before?

[2012alexg]

Now what ever happened to State? It looks like shit now. Why didn't they leave it alone?

[Roboboy]

That's pretty awesome. I certainly hope the MBTA doesn't become wise, start searching for YouTube content, then have this pulled for security risk - which they could conceivably stretch since not much of the internal tunnel structure has changed despite the accessibility and station-lengthening improvements that have happened since 1996.