u/DaveDavesSynthist

I promise not to post about this topic again! Only recently did I realize how many 1970s-built stations adhere to this almost-helpful, sorta-confusing scheme. It's the platform end walls that are painted this way, for an easy reference of which direction you're facing. Some stations just have it on one end (Quincy Center). Sullivan Sq. & Community College are painted like-so on both ends! And I've seen it on GL stations, like Symphony. I'm posting today because I hadn't noticed that the Sullivan Square station uses them too to mark inbound/outbound on the mezzanine level (above the platforms).

https://preview.redd.it/mrw9wobhmdkh1.jpg?width=4022&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2651ee14ba04de905d9c823b565289a234d42873

It's wild to me that all this time these colored shenanigans escaped my observation. What I like about the symbolic striping is that like the color-coding RTL names color coding and stripes should be identifiable by any human, precocious child, or ambitious primate - but the use of the colors in the T system are used for the RTLs so to use these same four colors again, for a different purpose? Not surprising that the scheme was dropped and not regarded as popular or helpful.

Typical platform end-wall

While perusing an exhaustive history written in '92 by the State Transportation Library Reference Librarian George Sanborn, Operation Rainbow was noted as a significant development that debuted in 1980. Naturally I had to know what it was!?

Sounds like it was a multi-faceted effort to reduce crime on the transit system. It was called "Rainbow" to signify that crime occurs on all of the T's lines (across the "rainbow" of colors). I hope that the implication was also that they'd not be targeting one neighborhood, "color group" (racial) or other population (LGBTQ+, etc) as the suspected proponents or victims of crime. Feels a little too optimistic, but also exactly what public transportation should be.

Google Search AI provided this very interesting summary which does not represent my views, knowledge, etc and could be partially incorrect. But I found it great:

>launched on May 10, 1980, Operation Rainbow was a sweeping, highly coordinated anti-crime offensive designed to reclaim Boston’s subway system from a wave of violent crime and vandalism. [1]

>Why Was It Called "Operation Rainbow"?

>The initiative drew its name directly from the MBTA's distinctively color-coded transit system (the Red, Blue, Orange, and Green lines). Because criminal activity was impacting all branches of the network, the name "Rainbow" symbolized a comprehensive, system-wide crackdown encompassing every single color line simultaneously. [1]

>What Was Different About It?

>Prior to 1980, transit policing in Boston was largely reactive, siloed, and plagued by jurisdiction friction between local city police and transit officers. Operation Rainbow completely broke this mold through three distinct changes:

>Inter-Agency Cooperation: It established an unprecedented, unified front combining the forces of the MBTA Transit Police, the Boston Police Department, and the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. [1, 2]

>Targeted Prosecution: Instead of just arresting individuals and releasing them back into the transit ecosystem, the Suffolk County DA aligned a dedicated team to fast-track the prosecution of transit criminals. [1]

>Systematic Saturation: Rather than patrolling randomly, data was used to flood known trouble spots simultaneously across different municipal boundaries.

>What Did It Do?

>The operation was built on aggressive visibility and data-driven intelligence gathering:

>The "Major Violators" Strategy: Authorities identified and built profiles on a core group of repeat offenders who were responsible for the vast majority of subway robberies, assaults, and severe vandalism. [1]

>Massive Uniformed Saturation: Hundreds of uniformed officers flooded stations, platforms, and train cars to act as a psychological deterrent to criminals and to reassure nervous commuters.

>Undercover Sweeps: Decoy officers and plainclothes detectives blended in with passengers to catch pickpockets, flashers, and muggers mid-act.

>Was It Successful?

>Yes, Operation Rainbow was highly successful. According to historical records from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and city transit reports, the initiative cut the transit crime rate by over 60 percent. By removing the core group of repeat offenders from the community and fast-tracking their convictions, the MBTA significantly disrupted transit crime patterns and successfully restored public confidence in the safety of the "T" during the early 1980s. [1, 2, 3]

Update: When I read the source that says crime was reduced 60% I see that this wasn't a statistic in the data sense, but more like it was someone in law enforcement patting themselves on the back (maybe they deserved to? idk):

>"We have tremendous violent crimes in the subways. Our office, with the cooperation of the police department, of the MTA, put up an Operation Rainbow. We cut the number of crimes down by over 60 percent, because they knew and we knew that the core of individuals that were causing this problem was a group of about 50 or 60 that committed crime after crime after crime, and that if we could get those scavengers off the street and out of the MTA and into confinement centers you would cut down that problem on the public transportation. It was extremely successful. But once again, it was an area where the funds ran out, and once again it is an area that we have to address."

I’m a hardcore redliner who’s until now only heard about a Boston MBTA subway train being very nyc and in regular revenue service the motorperson tells us (as we glide into Park Street) that this train is going express to Harvard!

The logic always seemed that there’s only one tunnel, one track, it’s not quad-tracked for express and local service like in nyc so what benefit could there possibly be doing skip-stop “express” , right? But if there wasn’t any car ahead that would block its path, and there was a (less crowded) car just a minute behind us that the announcement acceptably indicated would make the “local stops.” In nyc because those are real designations they would just say “this J train will now run express to Myrtle-Wycoff, there’s an M (or J) two minutes behind us for local stops , stand clear of the closing doors.”

I'm endlessly impressed by this document which is perhaps one of the most important to the MBTA's institutional history regarding visual identity and operations. It stands a rare instance of the best practices of previous decades which were so well thought out that since then any published guidelines have maintained without revision. But it also gives us an interesting snapshot re the platform length conversation from the point in time when the current rapid transit lines were modernized, constructed, re-imagined, re-designed.

https://preview.redd.it/xhcbu8bqe03h1.png?width=611&format=png&auto=webp&s=349c3f356c2551d348372c3851df803fcc308168

I didn't appreciate this detail until recently, the enormous effort and expense that was required to achieve the expanded length of platforms in century-old stations! The oldest Red Line cars still in service (Type #1) some of those were delivered with cabs on both ends so that a single car could operate independently on weekends! (learned that in this subreddit). I think of some of these stations as operating as they have for >100 years, and its true, but also not quite like this! This is the first instance known to me of an official MBTA document even suggesting 8-car lengths for heavy rail.

This led me down a fun rabbit hole wherein I re-discovered that the old Orange Line type #12's sister fleet for the Blue Line, the Hawker-Sidleys, carries the same design as the NYC PATH PA-3 cars, other than length....

Take this with all the grains of unofficial salt!

Just now I boarded at Wollaston. I’d noticed there were blue hat vest MBTA employees (blue hat = maintenance of way aka MOW aka Track dept) on either end of the platform (not strange, they’ve been walking the track during revenue service for weeks now, when I asked the track laborer said they were shoring up for World Cup) - but usually I don’t see them on both ends AND the train stopping for several minutes for the motorperson to be clearly talking to the track laborer for an extended period. Then we rode super slow like 5-10mph all the way until Quincy Center. Normal from Quincy to Braintree.

Why am I assuming the blue hat gentleman is a “track laborer” ? Track walkers (technically “System Repairers” ) walk track at night during non revenue hours. Yellow hats are signals, red hats are power, green hats are facilities. When I was a contractor they issued me a white helmet with a T logo but all the permanent E&M employees are issued these color coded helmets and if you look closely their non-revenue vehicles are now color coded with pill-shaped labels saying which E&M dept too.

A: To distinguish them from surface streetcars.

- Seashore Trolley Museum

This is a revelation to me, but very easy to believe because I've always wondered it! Do we all believe this? Is this commonly known?

According to the New England Transit Roster (roster.transithistory.org) the new CRRC Type #14 cars are numbered 1400-1551, and their #4 Red Line twins are 1900-2151, dropping the convention. Blue line #5 East Boston cars 0700-0793 built by Seimens 2007-2008 seem to be the last heavy rail cars adhering to the convention.