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Boston - May 2007
   

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Boston –  AC for PCCs

Rail Transit Online, May 2007

The 10 venerable PCC cars that provide service on the Mattapan trolley line will be retrofitted with air conditioning once they return to service in the fall.  The 2.5-mi. (4 km) streetcar route connects the Red Line terminal at Ashmont station with the Mattapan neighborhood, carrying 7,000 weekday passengers.  Trolley service is currently suspended as part of a project to rehabilitate the line —  including new catenary, cosmetic upgrades to the eight stations and new seats and paint for the cars — and to replace Ashmont station.  The air conditioning scheme will borrow engineering designs used by Philadelphia's SEPTA when it had PCCs, also built in the 1940s, refurbished for the reopening of Route 15.  “They're charming old cars, but they lack one thing that every other vehicle has: air conditioning,” MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas told Boston Metro.  The estimated cost is between $900,000 and $1.1 million, said Grabauskas.  The air conditioning project appears to put to rest rumors that the PCCs will be replaced with modern cars anytime soon.  (MBTA Photo) 

 

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