Vehicle purchases made by the MBTA in the 1970s brought entirely new fleets to both the Orange and Blue Lines. In 1978, the T approved a contract with Hawker Siddeley of Canada for the purchase of seventy new cars for the Blue Line and 120 new cars for the Orange Line. The UMTA provided eighty percent funding for the new vehicles. The MBTA touted: “The procurement of 70 Blue Line and 120 Orange Line cars, at a cost of $115 million, is the largest single procurement contract ever issued by the MBTA.” Each Blue Line car cost $540,000, sat forty riders and carried just over 100 standees. Each Orange Line car cost $550,000 and was rated to carry fifty-eight people seated with 162 standing. While both fleets were similar in general layout and aesthetics, the Blue Line cars were approximately fifteen feet shorter than the sixty-five-foot long Orange Line models. The reduced length of the Blue Line models was required for the cars to navigate the tight radii of East Boston Tunnel trackage, a legacy of the line’s genesis as a streetcar subway. All of the Hawker Siddeley cars featured paddles for picking up third-rail DC power, but Blue Line models were also equipped with roof-mounted pantographs, needed for making contact with overhead wire along the Revere Extension. The Blue Line Hawker Siddeley cars, designated as East Boston Tunnel Type 4s, brought some firsts to the Blue Line, including air suspension instead of steel springs, vertical grab poles instead of ceiling grab handles, two-way radio communications and public address systems. Mated-pair 0600–0601 arrived in October 1980 at Orient Heights Car House, where the MBTA held an open house to show off the new vehicles. Both the Blue and Orange Line cars featured backlit maps, improvements upon older Order of Stations signs of the BERy and MTA eras and unique on MBTA vehicles.
When the Type 4s entered revenue service on July 16, 1981, they began replacing a motley fleet of aging vehicles, some placed into service by the BERy in the early 1920s. At the end of July 1983, nearly seventy of the new cars were in service. Soon, Blue Line service was exclusively provided by Hawker Siddeley cars, following the retirement of the last train of 1924 Pullman-built Type 1 East Boston Tunnel Cars on May 18, 1982. The 0600-series cars remained in service for decades, until their retirement, back to where they first arrived, Orient Heights Yard. There, in 2012, two years after being replaced by a larger car fleet of 94 cars with stainless steel bodies from Siemens, a scrapping contractor’s massive hydraulic shears cut into the decommissioned cars, rendering them out of existence. On the Orange Line, the first six Hawker Siddeley cars entered revenue service in February 1983. By the end of the year, at least 100 of the new cars were in regular service. The new cars, designated as Orange Line Type 12s, replaced older cars, many constructed in 1957. The remaining Orange Line Hawker cars spent their final decade working the Orange Line from 2012 to 2022, living their final years running between Oak Grove and Forest Hills. The first of their successors, Orange Line No. 14 rapid transit cars, entered service in late 2019.

Proposed Blue and Orange Line Cars, Circa 1978
A conceptual drawing of new rapid transit cars for the Blue Line (background) and Orange Line (foreground) shows designs modeled or similar to the then-recently built Red Line “Silver Birds.”

Orange Line Car Map Lens, April 7, 2018
All of the MBTA’s Orange and Blue Line Hawker Siddeley cars featured maps adhered to plastic lenses backlit by fluorescent lighting.

An inbound train of Orange Line Type 12 cars at Massachusetts Avenue Station on the Southwest Corridor.

Orange Line Hawker Car Interior, 1987

The Orange Line Hawker Type 12s (01200-series) were the last rapid transit cars to run on the Washington Street Elevated before it ceased operations in 1987 and was demolished, but the cars still existed and continued to serve the line and on the then-new, relocated and present-day Southwest Corridor line from Forest Hills to Oak Grove for decades all the way until their retirement in late 2022, after 39 years of service.

During the blizzard of ‘78, when Boston got like 2-3 feet of snow and the strong winds, making the wind chill feel like below 0, MBTA really struggled during it with old trains consistently or often breaking down in the frigid cold temps and having trouble getting through the high and thick piles of snow on the tracks and major systems/components that work to keep the trains operable failing rapidly such as propulsion, electrical, traction motors and air systems. These mechanical issues and constant breakdowns were frustrating Blue Line passengers, meaning they were getting angry and annoyed and many saying that the line was in desperate need for new trains. They also caused major to severe and persistent delays on the line often and the blizzard was one of the culprits, but the old rolling stock the line was using was the main or chief culprit.

Many of the cars were 50+ years old and at the time, the oldest rapid transit cars still in operation on any mass transit service in the country and in the world. These dated back to the mid 1920s and fully modernized in 1951–53 for the opening of the MTA rapid transit Revere Extension line on street or surface-level of the East Boston Tunnel line to Revere, with new stations at Airport, Day Square, Orient Heights, Suffolk Downs, Beachmont, Revere Beach and Wonderland.

The No. 3 fleet, built by St. Louis Car Company in the early 1950s supplemented the No. 1 and No. 2 fleets, built by Pullman-Standard. These were purchased to provide extra rolling stock for the new Revere line.

In 1975, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority began the planning process for new trains to replace the existing rolling stock on its Blue and Orange Lines, since the existing rolling stock on those lines were 30 years old and some way over and in the need of replacement.

December 22, 2014: A similar order was used in 1978 for the current Orange Line cars and the old Blue Line cars.

Shortly after the blizzard, or the next year, the MBTA started making major repairs or upgrades such as repairing/fixing tracks and performing major station renovations to make them accessible and make large-scale improvements to stations left for too long and becoming in decrepit or poor condition, decreasing reliability and passenger safety significantly. This was also to lengthen platforms at several stations to accommodate longer train sets, possibly by the 2000s. This was also to fix any infrastructure seriously damaged by the blizzard and winter storm.

Most of them would be rebuilt entirely from the ground-up and have a completely new station built and relocated from the location of the old station for many.

The year was 1975 and the T was looking to acquire new cars to replace the existing equipment on its Blue and Orange Lines, since much of the equipment running on those lines were approaching or exceeding 30 years of age, with some way beyond that timeframe and were in the need of replacement. On August 21, 1978, the MBTA awarded a $115 Million contract to Hawker Siddeley of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada to purchase 190 new rapid transit subway cars for its Blue and Orange Lines, to replace the two line’s current rolling stock, some of which were way beyond the 25-year lifespans and split as: 70 new cars for the Blue Line and 120 new cars for the Orange Line. At the time, the purchase was the largest single order of rapid transit vehicles in U.S. railroad history, with the most amount of cost. The cost for each Blue Line car was 540,000 U.S. dollars and the cost for each Orange Line car was 550,000 U.S. dollars. All cars were completed at the Hawker Siddeley plant in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Delivery of the first two Blue Line cars took place on October 18, 1980 and the month after, on November 10, 1980, as part of an open house at Orient Heights Yard, Blue Line riders got to check out the new cars inside the Carhouse and GM expressed an important milestone on that they arrived to support the long-awaited modernization of the entire fleet. A set of the new cars was seen on an early morning test run at the Wood Island Station in December 1980. After seven months of exhaustive non-revenue tests and inspections up and down the entire line, the first four-car set of the new cars entered revenue service on July 16, 1981. First revenue consist was cars 0600/0601 and 0604/0605. By April 1982, only 30 cars had been delivered, with the remaining 40 slated to be delivered by the fall of 1982, even though all 70 were delivered by the end of 1982. The last 1924 Pullman train ran on May 18, 1982, followed by the last 1952 St. Louis train on July 18, 1982. By July 1983, nearly 70 of the new cars were in service. All were in service by the end of July that year. Delivery of the first 20 Hawker cars for the Orange Line took place in December 1981. The first four-car set entered revenue service on February 16, 1983. First revenue consist was cars 01200/01201, 01202/01203. The rest of the cars were constructed and delivered throughout 1983. By November 1983, all 120 cars had been delivered. By mid 1984, the full order was completed. At that time, all 190 new rapid transit subway cars were in service on both lines. The final four-car set was accepted for service on June 1, 1984.

An inbound Orange Line train arrives at Haymarket Station with many people waiting on the platform in this September 16, 1983 photograph.

A train of 1957-built Pullman No. 11 rapid transit El cars arrives at Dover Station, led by car No. 01116 on June 10, 1980. The last of these 1957-built Pullman Orange Line cars were retired on November 20, 1983 as the new Type 12 Hawker cars had arrived in full.

A train of Orange Line Hawker Siddeley 01200-series cars pause at Malden Center Station heading outbound to Oak Grove. These cars were built in 1981–1983 and represented the wave of modern rapid transit cars for the early 1980s era and had its design contributed to their sister Blue Line cars, dubbed Type 4 EBT cars, or 0600-series cars, which were built in the same era, but stubbier and shorter versions of the Orange Line models and unique, or unlike most rapid transit cars at the time as they were equipped with both roof-mounted pantographs and third-rail shoes. The design was also passed over or along to contribute the construction of the PATH PA4 cars also built by Hawker Siddeley and used on the Port Authority Trans Hudson system between New York and New Jersey, the only subway-type rapid transit service, shuttling passengers between New Jersey and World Trade Center in Manhattan New York City and the only such service running between those two U.S. states.

Both fleets used many of the same components, so parts from retired and scrapped Blue Line cars were used for Wellington Carhouse and Yard maintenance teams to maintain and fix/repair the Orange Line fleet for another decade.

The 0600s were also older the 01200s, built 1 year earlier, 1980–1982 vs. 1981–1983.

3678 was built in 1988 and overhauled by Alstom in March 2018.

September 19, 2017: 3678 has now been yanked for prep-to-ship, leaving only two new/old paint units in service now: 3684 and 3694.

March 4, 2018: 3678 has arrived home to Riverside and is about to go into testing.

May 3, 2018: 3678 now back in-service.

File: MBTA test train at Waban Station, April 2018.jpg.

English: A test train (a freshly rebuilt Type 7 LRV) at Waban Station.

Date: April 22, 2018

MBTA 3678, a recently rebuilt Type 7 LRV at Riverside Yard, July 2018.

Date: July 20, 2018

At 14:52, the announcement said no “Attention Please, no Green Line service at Government Center, so please get off at State Street and take the Orange Line (towards Oak Grove) to Haymarket or North Station for Green Line service”. Another alternative is to take the Orange Line one stop from State to Downtown Crossing (towards Forest Hills) and walk via the Winter Street Concourse to Park Street for Green Line service.

Another option was to take a shuttle bus from State and Devonshire/Milk Streets to Winter/Summer Streets (near the State House entrance) and walk via the concourse to Park Street.

Regular MBTA yellow and Yankee yellow buses saying Green Line shuttle was available for passengers also. I think passengers couldn’t connect to Green Line service at Government Center due to a disabled train, or a signal problem at the station and another could be a train with a door problem at another station. This was temporary, with regular service resuming for the evening rush hour, or the next day for the morning rush hour.

Kinda reminded me of when government center station closed for its two-year reconstruction starting on March 1, 2014 that both Blue and Green Line trains bypassed the station in both directions, but didn’t stop there. Passengers who wanted to connect to Green Line service going westbound, had to get off at State, take the Orange Line one stop to Haymarket (or North Station) and connect to Green Line service going westbound. For D Riverside service, since that line didn’t serve North Station or Haymarket, riders had to take either a C or E to Park, then transfer to a D train. The newly renovated, fully-accessible and more comfortable new station opened on January 26, 2016, after nearly two years of construction of transforming the entire facility from an old, complicated, worn-down, dirty, poor light quality and inaccessible station to a brighter, better-and-well-lit, fully-accessible, safer, cleaner and more comfortable station.

News from 2016 on mbta.com from an article posted on January 26, 2016 stated “Government Center Re-opened to Public”. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at 11:45 a.m. and full passenger service to the station resumed an hour later at 12:43 p.m., for the first time in nearly two years.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola and elected local state/transportation officials delivered an hour of remarks to excited passengers and hundreds of young train enthusiasts standing altogether inside the new glass-and-steel Headhouse mezzanine area and the press before going downstairs for a tour of the new, sparkling, spotless and deeply clean station. The first Green Line trains rolled into the station to pick up passengers for the first time in nearly two years, MBTA officials stated on Sunday afternoon at 12:43 p.m. ESDT.

A big banner inside the Headhouse mezzanine read “Government Center Grand Reopening”. A very nice treat for all regular MBTA riders and Boston residents.

Hello. Nice train video. Thank you for sharing.😃

Anybody know what that blocked off tunnel is at 11:51? Where did it go to? It also looks like a junction where one track once went straight and the other still curves left.

Not sure. Sounds like a flat spot on a wheel; that thumping.. No ?