TEXT ON SCREEN: HOW DO YOU KEEP THE OLDEST SUBWAY IN THE NATION RUNNING?

THE ANSWER SPANS A CENTURY OF TECHNOLOGY.

JOE MCNALL: We’re repairing and maintaining the old with the new.  The equipment ranges anywhere from the early, early 1900s, to up-to-date, present time.

TEXT ON SCREEN: BOSTON’S SUBWAY HAD ONLY TWO STATIONS WHEN IT OPENED IN 1897.

TODAY IT HAS SIXTY.

JOE MCNALL: You’ve got hundreds of track circuits. We’ve got over 400 switches. We have hundreds and hundreds of signals, thousands of relays.

TEXT ON SCREEN: AND THIS IS THE PLACE THAT KEEPS IT ALL WORKING.

THE SIGNAL SHOP.

JOE MCNALL: You have to be able to work on the components and repair them or else trains are going to be stopped, and that’s what we do here in the signal shop, is we make sure that these things are repaired, and we always have spares in the event something happens out in the field.

TEXT ON SCREEN: ON THE TRACKS, EQUIPMENT CAN FAIL FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS.

JOE MCNALL: It could be salt on the track shorting the track out a little bit.  It could be a broken rail. It could be trash.  A can in the right location could cause a problem.

TEXT ON SCREEN: AND THAT MEANS A DELAY.

BUT REPAIRS AREN’T ALWAYS EASY.

JOE MCNALL: The signals that we have on the Green Line date back to the early 1900s.  They’re very old, very hard to maintain.

These people are working on the Green Line relays. They are constantly repairing these things. They no longer make these anymore, so the material and everything that builds these things are very scarce.

Boston’s Green Line is the oldest underground subway that we have in the nation, and we are in the middle of a project right now to upgrade and have the new modern relays that we can get right off the shelf, so I’m hoping within the next year or two that this project will retire all those old relays that we’re talking about. After 100 years of service, I think these relays absolutely need a break.

(END)