Photos: The MBTA’s New Green Line Train, Arriving 2027

2:05 PM EDT on October 30, 2024

People wait to enter the mockup of a new Type 10 Green Line train set up on City Hall Plaza on Wed., Oct. 30, 2024.

This week, under a party tent on City Hall Plaza, the MBTA has been inviting riders to tour a life-sized mockup of its new Green Line "Type 10" light rail vehicles, which will increase passenger capacity and improve accessibility when they arrive in 2027.

In 2022, the MBTA Board of Directors authorized a $810 million contract for 102 "Type 10" Green Line vehicles. The first "pilot" trains are scheduled to arrive in 2026 for testing, and the new trains will start carrying passengers sometime in 2027, if all goes according to schedule.

When all 102 new trains are delivered – sometime in the early 2030s – the T will be able to retire the line's "Type 7" trains, which were built in the 1980s and 1990s, and "Type 8" trains, built between 1999 and 2007.

A person in a wheelchair uses a small ramp to cross the threshold of a MBTA Green Line train next to a window with a large wheelchair icon. — The new Type 10 trains will feature wider doors, shown here, to allow for easier and faster boarding at stations. Most doors will also have deployable bridge plate ramps (outlined in yellow in the photo above) to bridge the gap between trains and station platforms.

Many design features of the new trains are organized around improving the riding experience for people in wheelchairs and people with sensory impairments.

Unlike existing Green Line trains, the Type 10 vehicles will have a "low floor" design, without any steps inside the vehicle.

A mockup of a passenger information screen inside a light rail vehicle. The display reads "Approaching Government Center" next to a wheelchair icon. Below that, the screen reads "All elevators currently online" followed by a list of transit connections and estimated arrival times for station connections to the Blue Line, other Green Line branches, and the 354 bus. — Large passenger information screens inside the new trains will feature digital displays that can broadcast rider alerts and connections to other transit services at each station.

An "inductive hearing loop" inside each train will let people with hearing aids receive clear announcements above the din of other noises on crowded trains. And large passenger information screens throughout the vehicle will broadcast easy-to-read announcements about service changes, elevator outages, and upcoming stops.

"This is moving the T towards being a fully accessible system," said MassDOT Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

Someone points to a strip map showing part of the MBTA Green Line on a screen above the window of a train car. — A mockup of new digital screens that will replace the strip maps on MBTA Type 10 Green Line trains.

Green Line operators are also excited about the new trains.

"This is basically a better version of the Type 9s, which are made by the same company," Justin Kwiatkowski, a Green Line operator, told StreetsblogMASS on Wednesday (the Type 9 trains, which debuted in 2018 to help serve the Green Line extension, are the newest trains currently operating on the Green Line).