The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 27

I 2S Boston Evening Globe Wednesday, May 9, 1973 Green Line scheduled lo get 150 cars by 1976 Pa. firm tooling up to construct deluxe trolleys for MBTA The company got a formal go-ahead last week to build 150 of the cars for Boston, and another 80 for San Francisco. In accepting the combined contracts from the two cities for $69 million, Boeing Vertol officials said they could produce an extraordinarily quiet car. But they are aware they must not make it so quiet that an ordinary conversation could be unwittingly overheard by other passengers. Another point, as expressed by Carl Weiland, the firm's director of Surface Transportation Systems: The new trams will have the latest in electronic controls.

But they must not be so complicated and sophisticated that the MBTA crews can fix them By A. S. Plotkin Globe Staff PHILADELPHIA When the snorting iron horse had no rivals in land transportation not many years ago, the huge plant here turned out locomotives. At the peak of the Vietnam war it assembled Chinook helicopters for the Army at a rate of one a day. The emphasis has now shifted back to steel rails, but with a space-age touch: The Boeing Vertol firm is tooling up to make a fleet of swivel-jointed deluxe trolley cars for Boston's MBTA.

The expectation is that the 165,000 daily riders of the Green line will enter a new earin comfortable, quiet, fast travel by 1976. from a German firm hoping to get a subcontract. There are sample flanged wheels some of the traditional solid steel, some with a rubber doughnut-like inner ring which should dampen the metallic clangs and shrieks on the curves in the Boylston and Tremont street tunnel. (The MBTA also plans for a cut in the noise level at the Boylston and Park street stations by erecting shoulder-high walls of acoustic material). The side windows of the 71-foot-long cars (the existing Green line trolleys are 48 feet) will be of plastic so tough they will repel almost any kind of missile even bullets.

But an oddity is that their surface is soft enough to only by sending out an SOS, if they run into a snag, for PhD types at MIT, or for Boeing experts. The 110-acre plant just south of Philadelphia is so big that some employees ride bicycles, as at the Pentagon. It is still building a few new helicopters, for the "American and foreign governments, and rebuilding some batterd hulks just back from Vietnam. (It also is developing a prototype for the world's biggest copter for the Army, capable of lifting 30 tons.) But there are already signs of preparation for the new venture into urban transit: A painted wooden mockup of a coupler for a train of cars, be scratched by rubber-bladed windshield wipers. Hence the window frames at either end may have both an inside layer of plastic, and an outside layer of ordinary tempered glass hard and clear for maintaining the operator's vision.

The MBTA cars, with spare parts and air conditioning, will cost about $310,000 apiece. The San Francisco version will not have the air-conditioning, but will have instead a device to retract the steps at each door (three on each side). The reason is the San Francisco cars will soon be using a new intown tunnel with high platform stations like those in Boston's rapid transit subway stations along the Red, Orange and Blue lines. er vehicles of that type be used in the MBTA's transit tunnels. And since the new trams will bend in the middle like a caterpillar, they appear to offer an exciting possibility for more tunnel use than on the Green line.

The thinking is that perhaps 75 of the new cars, supplemented by some of the best of the Boston Maine's old Budd cars, might suffice for the proposed state-owned rail commuter system. The Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration, which is paying two-thirds of the costs, sees these "light rail" cars filling a real need in a number of other big cities, besides Boston and San Francisco. Rebuilding the MBTA's Green line tunnel stations to include high platforms would be so costly there are no present plans to do it. The Boston cars will have 52 seats, of molded glass fiber and cushioned inserts. Their peak-hour capacity is 210 per car, and standees can grab overhead bars.

There will be three double doors on each side, a big improvement over the present trolley cars. This will allow much faster loading and unloading. Travel speed will be up to 55 mph. The first six completed prototype cars are due in 20 months. Four will go to a Federal test track facility at Pueblo, and two will go to San Francisco.

The MBTA is scheduled to get its first car, for testing around February, 1975, and the bulk of the fleet in 1976. MBTA Board Chairman Henry S. Lodge and General Manager Joseph C. Kelly were clearly impressed when, with several others from Boston, they toured the plant last week. The MBTA has an option to buy 25 more cars at the same price, and there were hints this may indeed be done.

Lodge further indicated the new trolleys might be the answr to future rail commuter needs around Boston. Like the East Boston rapid transit cars, they will have an overhead catenary for power pickup. A recent consultant's study urged that commut MOM FUNDAMENTAL: SITUATIONS oil light on your purse, all created with casual AOOvTTMTN 1 Even sitting is down to the basics! And what could be more essential to Mom than her own chair special retreat for those moments when she needs some rest and These are wonderfully simple fumisWrs that can set her scene and yours in a wink. Cluster them toiiher in intimate little groups or spread them apart for everyone; For starters, sit down and enjoy the most unusual bean bakery -f eVer invented bean bag hassocks or the mighty original. Exnttrtnuint with? rnmfnr nnA rolnyntinn nno of nur Iniinn rknirc inn IT ami paddeci with thick foam.

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