MBTA, Boston. Orange Line 1975

Proof that tripods are essential and that you must not mix different types of film in the same project. Greatly enhanced (saved) with Windows Movie Maker. Copyrighted material. If you use my movie for ANY purpose give proper credit.

[@karljohnson2201]

In 1975 I was a senior in high School in Leominster. I "called in sick" as I recall to go to Bostin and ride the last trip out of Everett. I told the secretary at school what I was up to, and she was encouraging, but thought it was a bit odd too. When ever that fan trip was with the older orange line car, I was on that too. I spent a Saturday walking the line through Charletown photographing it. Different times. Thank you.

[@thomasreagan6745]

Memories! I can still mimic the clattering of the wheels as it went from Charleston into the old Sullivan Station.

[@andresdelcampo6733]

I remember the elevated Orange Line in Jamaica Plain

[@cliffordsales3906]

I grew up with the Washington Street Elevated and the 01100 trains. What nice memories!

[@rodeliot]

I was a child at this time. Never had the opportunity to ride the Charlestown section of the El. Thanks for the video.

[@kevinmoynihan8087]

Awesome video...my grandfather was an Orange Line conductor...retired about 1970...looks like the North Station elevated station was replaced in '75 so this must be early '75...classic video...

[@hunterthelord]

YOU CAN SEE THE SKYLIGHTS FOR THE NEW STATION ON CANAL ST. @0:48

[@SHS854EVER]

Wow talking about flashbacks I remember the Orange line EL before it was torn down.I took the Orange line with my parents a lot fun times.I also remember the old Sullivan station which I miss thanks for posting this great video

[@amazing50000]

The fact that these Boston subway trains were not covered in graffiti in 1975 tells me that graffiti on subway trains was just a New York thing.

[@pudgyv5223]

It is policy in Boston that grafitti is removed immediately. The "artist's" work is never seen. He just wasted a lot of time and money to get no satisfaction.

[@amazing50000]

@@pudgyv5223 Oh ok, got it. Yeah in 1975 New York City was going though a financial crisis, so the city (and state) did not have the resources to do what Boston was doing by removing graffiti off subway trains. Make sense..

[@kenmills4739]

​@@amazing50000 Don't be fooled: NYC always has the resources, it was always spent on condominiums and other pieces of coming up Real Ass•state that doesn't blend well with any city.

[@kenmills4739]

​@@pudgyv5223 Well there IS this place called a stage.

[@kenmills4739]

​@@amazing50000 Bull: I lived in NYC all of my life up to 2020. . .NYC ALWAYS has the resources to use/do what's necessary, but the trouble is spending always goes to building up condominiums in a single overnight bound appeasing money•spending folk, then you have greedy/conflict• savvy/prozac induced/mindset folk who continually sow seeds of discord making life a living hell for others, and when it comes down to REAL issues like fixing up and preserving our transit networks (especially everywhere else) so another generation of folk can experience what it's like when transit was king, "there's never enough and/or any available resources" (excuses to go as well).

[@williampollman2123]

this is my childhood and my youth. i was on the 0900 fantrip with my father on 03-30-75.road the last train out of everett on 04-04-75 and the last train out of forest hills on 05-01-87. something i'll never forget. the elevated was the way to go. you can see everything.

[@Bobrogers99]

Tearing down the El and relocating the Orange Line left Washington Street underserved for rapid transit.

[@kenmills4739]

@Bob Washington Street looks like it shrunk up after the el was removed; if anything, line routes could have been built along Blue Hill Avenue, or alongside with the commuter rail trains to/from Readville, or build completely underground (NIMBYists didn't want any el) to Malden Square after Everett, or 'completely' convert The Fairmount Branch of the commuter rail instead of adding on bits-n-pieces to make it "look" like rapid transit.

[@anglobostonian]

The mistake they made was not building the line UNDER ground on Washington Street in the first place. Had that happened, it would still be here today.

[@chicago-l9125]

I love videos of the "old" Orange Line el! I see a number of sections in this 1975 video that were shortly torn down not too long afterward. I remember snippets of the el appeared in intros for TV series like "The Young Lawyers" and "St. Elsewhere". I always wanted to ride it because in many respects it reminded me of Chicago's elevated lines, particularly the downtown Loop section because the el structures had similar design features to those for the Orange Line in Boston. Too bad the old el for the "T" didn't survive past 1987.

[@merccadoosis8847]

What an awesome video. Thought to myself that I was there on the platform with the photographer. Wish we had audio on this gem. Let's have more ...

[@mariejordan6551]

OH YES I REMEMBER. SUCH. AWESOME. MEMORIES

[@kevinwong6588]

The 01100s were similar in design to the Cleveland Blue Line "Bluebirds" of 1955 (also SMEEs), the 1963 Red Line 01400s and the 1951 East Boston cars. While the 01100s and 01400s were 400 HP each car, the Cleveland cars were only 220 HP - probably the weakest of the SMEE family.

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

The Red Line 01400s were also known as the "bluebirds" and the 01500 and 01600 Pullmans were known as the "silverbirds" because of their brushed aluminum surface. I don't know about the 1951 East Boston cars though.

[@MuckoMan]

I used to hook school in Somerville and we would grab all the transfer tickets out of the dumpster to ride the T-line all day long. We mostly took the green line but sometimes the Orange line into Boston. Sometimes the Charlestown kids would be at North Station mugging and robbing you of your money or chains you had around your neck. I remember there was two of us and about 15 of them and they had us against the wall shaking us down and they looked at us and said let em go. They are worse off than us. We all laughed. We were on our way to Fenway for free jacket day in the bleachers.

[@KeriDSingleton]

Priceless footage and memories. Thank ❤️ you.

[@user-hf1fg1pe5o]

I enjoyed video

[@PedroMartinez-tt7lr]

Great videos!!! Thanks for posting. I love the T

[@nafisali2434]

Manufacterer: Pullman Standard Length: 55' Width: 9' 8.00" Height: 11' 10.00" Weight: 57540 Ibs. Motor: Number 4 Manufacterer: General Steel Model: 1250A1 Trucks: Number 2 Manufacterer: General Steel Model: 70 Seats: 46 Control: General Electric MCM/C-3 Brakes: SMEE Total: 1100-1199 (100) Constructed: 1957-1958 In Service:.1957-1981 Scrapped: 1981-1987 Acquired By Museum: 1178/1179 in 1991

[@davidroache4699]

I was in eighth grade in 1969 and would skip school about once a months and spend all day riding the el. The ol' Pullman cars had no governors back then and with a young motorman driving you could have a ride better than Paragon Park's giant Commit roller coaster!!!!

[@cntygrlby2006]

NOW THIS IS SPECIAL!!!!!

[@richards5553]

yes.. I did grow up in Boston from 1960 to 1978, also I rode the MBTA.

[@interstellarphred]

The 01100's were the best rolling stock to ever run on the system. so of course the "T" scrapped them early to avoid a Dudley branch, and give the Roxbury residents Busing

[@sandrasoares9262]

Thankyou I had a nice looking back in time. Your fan sandra.s Boston mass.

[@kenmills4739]

INTERESTING VIDEO! I would have loved this, yet I was dealing with the closure and removal of The 3 Avenue elevated train in The Bronx (NYC) in 1973-1977. . .I was not aware of subway/elevated trains 'elsewhere' at the time; this film looks like it was fast forwarded/timelapsed a bit because trains don't go around curves like that in a single bound, especially at 90° angles and without catwalks (note The Chicago elevated train accident in 1977 at Wabash Avenue and Lake Street, I must have been psycho/-ic because I remember having a headache in the middle of the night while in bed and hearing the news EST), something NYC's elevated trains lacked way before I was born, and I'm sure Philadelphia's was not absolved of that practice either.

[@BIGkundalini]

Amazing footage.im from Cambridge

[@vernerosenthal4801]

I was always wondering, why I've hardly ever seen trains on the orange, blue, and red lines with their headlights on, even in subways?

[@user-hf1fg1pe5o]

I love video

[@Madness832]

I remember seein' lots of 1100s, in Cabot Yard, Southie, in the 1980s. My guess was that they were cannibalizin' them to keep the Red Line 1400s in service.

[@pudgyv5223]

They were stored at Cabot pending possible sale. When this did not pan out they were junked. Nothing was salvaged for future use. Almost no parts of 01100s were compatible with 01400s. I worked in Cabot shops from 1986 to 2007.

[@kevinharris5737]

Not enough footage from the Forest Hills section.

[@genekelly8467]

Boston-a 1st Class city with a 3rd class transit system.

[@HayastAnFedayi]

Used to be the best in America, especially when this was filmed through the the next 30 years or so...now a different story, a laughing stock with the ineptness of the MBTA

[@kenmills4739]

​​@@HayastAnFedayi You can also thank NIMBYist folk with their bad opinionated perceptions too, that's also everywhere else. . .that's why MBTA can't fulfill the 1945 grand masterplan for expansion- there recently were two exceptions: expanding The Green Line service into Medford (Union Square and Medford/Tufts), while the other lines continue operating along Forever Block awaiting expansion.

[@HayastAnFedayi]

@@kenmills4739 don't get me started on the NIMBY's and their hand in stopping the transportation plans of the region coming to fruition, both rail and roadway, don't get me wrong there will always be issues and dissent, but there should have been compromise on it. For example, rather than just outright scrapping the Inner Belt and other cancelled highways, there could have been a way for it to have been made as a tunnel beltway under the city...but instead the NIMBY's cry and we are left with only I-93 and the always the question of "why has 93 always have had bad traffic and why didn't the Big Dig help get rid of the traffic?"

[@republicofoctania9571]

Also, the MBTA is underfunded since massdot for the last more than 20 years has been spending money on tunnels that don’t even fix traffic and in some areas make it worse

[@interstellarphred]

No one would lose elections screwing transit users; the politicians knew that.

[@richiebarrettjr3629]

I ride all those orange line trains and today train new one my 4th orange line cars the 3rd one shouldn’t not wait almost 50 yrs before breakdown see what happen train leave Wellington going to assembly caught on fire they should change 30 yrs trains for new one

[@luislaplume8261]

I just noticrd that the Boston PCC type L trains had their airhorn on the roof above the motorman cab. Plus they had no blinker doors and picture windows like the ones in Chicago. 😊

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

Charlestown, though rich today, looked quite poor back then, like a rundown UK industrial town. Yet there's not a single graffito in sight, unlike New York City where the trains were covered with it!

[@richards5553]

so in 1975 how did some make this color picture while standing on the tracks ??

[@pudgyv5223]

Kodachrome 25 and Ektachrome 160 film in Bolex H-16 camera. Nobody was on the tracks.

[@ba1428]

St Patrick's Day 1980 Filled with teenagers off to SB for the parade. Dudley station A story to be told

[@matthewsylvester9103]

Anyone else realize those same trains were still in service till a few months ago lmao

[@pudgyv5223]

It was their replacements that served until a month or so ago. Every train in the movie has been out of srevice for over35 years.

[@ajaqua3757]

City square north station

[@hunterthelord]

I GREW UP IN EVERETT ON BROADWAY ACROSS THE STREET FROM EVERETT STATION. THE ORANGE LINE WAS MY BABYSITTER.