(The following appeared on the Boston Globe website on March 24, 2011.)
BOSTON — Dingy-looking but functional, one of the T’s new “pre-owned” locomotives backed into North Station for the first time today, where MBTA General Manager Richard A. Davey applied a T decal and officially placed the engine in service, hailing it as needed help for the beleaguered commuter rail.
The locomotive is one of three formerly owned by Maryland’s MARC commuter rail that will go into service on MBTA lines over the next two weeks, leased by the T at $300 apiece per day. The T is leasing them from an Idaho locomotive maker that recently built new engines for MARC and is also slated to build 20 for the T, at $115 million.
Although cast off by MARC, the 16-year-old engines are newer than all but two of the MBTA’s 82 engines, more than half of which date to the 1970s and nearly all of which are at or past the manufacturer’s recommended lifespan of 25 years.
The full story is on the Boston Globe website.