After SOAC
finished its run in New York CIty, it toured the
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SOAC Visits Boston (The Third Rail, November
1974)
After completion of its New York tour, the State-of-the-Art car
(SOAC) moved on to Boston, home of America's oldest subway.
Monday, August 19,
[1974] marked the beginning of revenue service for the two-car train on
the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's "Red" Line, operating
between Harvard Station and the light rapid transit extension at Ashmont
in Dorchester, and between Harvard and Quincy Center onthe new South Shore
Line.
Its bugs worked out, SOAC showed
its stuff on the extension, where it operated at 70 mph speeds, MBTA
officicals found that SOAC's operation provided an unexpected benefit: it
enabled them to test features of their control procedures not possible
with the line's regular trains.
The
one-month Boston tour of DOT's advanced rapid transit train concluded with
a September 14 excursion attended by 150 rail buffs. Proceeds from the
fantrip were donated to the Jimmy Fund, a popular Boston
charity.
SOAC now moves on to
demonstration stays in Cleveland, Chicago and
Philadelphia.
A Home for SOAC in South Jersey
(The Third Rail, July-September
1975)
Some small relief for
the Lindenwold high-speed line's car shortage is in the cards, thanks to
U.S. DOT and its State-of-the-Art Cars (SOAC), which are slated to see
service on the Delaware River Port Authority's line.
SOAC was developed by
the DOT's Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) to showcase
innovative ideas in modern rail car design and technology
Revenue
demonstrations of SOAC cars took place in five U.S. rapid rail cities—New
York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia—where thousands of
riders enjoyed the opportunity to see transit's latest.
In 1971, UMTA let a
contract to the Boeing Vertol Company of Philadelphia to construct and
demonstrate a rail car representative of the current state-of-the-art in
rail rapid transit. Besides demonstrating technological innovation, the
cars were used in actual revenue service to provide passengers with an
opportunity to sample equipment designed to make rail transit riding more
attractive.
The unique two-car SOAC
unit, 150 feet long, was built by the St. Louis Car Division of General
Steel Industries, and underwent extensive testing at the Rail Transit Test
Track at DOT's Transportation Test Center in Pueblo,
Colorado.
In addition to standard
acceptance tests, the SOAC vehicles underwent a series of engineering
tests that produced a standard test procedure for future vehicle programs
and a strong baseline set of data against which actual performance could
be measured.
SOAC was then put into
simulated revenue service at the Test Center, making "station stops"
during 3,000 miles of operation around the ninemile transit test track.
Before leaving the Test Center, SOAC had logged 20,000 miles of
operation.
The cars then went on
the road, where they operated on the Eighth Avenue "A," Brighton "D,"
Queens "E," and Sea Beach "N" lines of New York's NYCTA; the Boston area
on MBTA's Cambridge-Dorchester and
South Shore "Red" lines; the Cleveland Transit System's Airport
service; the Chicago Transit Authority's Skokie Swift; and SEPTA'S Broad
Street Line in Philadelphia.
The cars operated 104
total revenue service days in the five cities, carrying 312,500 passengers
over 19,595 miles. Passenger reaction was decidedly positive; applause
greeted the cars when they first entered Boston's Park
Street
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