MA: 19th-century pieces of wood are forcing a ‘huge’ train shutdown in Boston. MBTA officials explain why

MBTA officials shared more details Thursday on why they are shutting down an extensive section of the Green Line through the heart of Downtown Boston for half of December.

The T needs to replace a 130-year-old piece of the Green Line tunnels that houses the trains’ overhead wires. Described as a wooden “trough,” it has been there since the line was first constructed in the late 1890s.

To complete the work, the agency plans to close the central core of the Green Line from Dec. 8 through Dec. 22.

Completing the work is “vital,” Massachusetts Transportation Secretary and MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said in an interview Thursday afternoon. The two-week closure, he said, was the most minimally disruptive way to schedule the project.

The trough — installed 20 years before President John F. Kennedy was born — remains safe and functional, but federal officials had flagged it for replacement.

“Has it outlived its useful life? Yes,” MBTA Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan said. “Is replacing it imperative to get our state of good repair where we want it to be? Absolutely.”

Beginning at North Station, the closure will extend to Babcock Street on the Green Line’s B Branch, to Kenmore on the line’s C and D Branches and to Heath Street on the E Branch.

During the 15-day closure, the T will also tackle another major project — installing a new safety system in the busiest section of the Green Line.

The Green Line Train Protection System, or GLTPS — designed to prevent train-on-train collisions and enforce speeding — has already been installed in other parts of the line. But the T needs to complete the project systemwide.

“We have to get into those areas to tie all of the segments together,” Coholan said.

The T could have broken the projects into shorter segments, but officials calculated that doing so would have been a greater disruption for the public, Eng said.

Packing the repairs into two weeks “allows us to do all this work in this one period and be done and get out,” he said.

Pulling off these repairs requires complicated planning to move materials, equipment and maintenance crews into the tunnels under Boston.

“That’s a huge part of all the work,” Coholan said. “So you stack the work up, you get the full load of materials in, you capitalize on that one opportunity.”

“Is it less impact?” he added. “We believe it is.”

The Green Line transported 55,000 riders on average each weekday over the last month, according to data from TransitMatters, a public transportation advocacy organization.

Many of the line’s busiest stations in Downtown Boston will be affected, including Government Center, Park Street, Copley and North Station.

Riders traveling to and from the TD Garden, home of the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics, pass through North Station, which is located beneath the arena.

The Celtics play at home twice during the closure — and potentially a third time depending on their performance in the NBA Cup in-season tournament. The Bruins play four home games during the closure.

“For a planned shutdown, this is huge,” Brian Kane, the executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, said Tuesday. “That’s the entire trunk [of the Green Line], basically. That’s major.”

“It sounds like it’s necessary. Clearly, we can’t rely on 1897 infrastructure,” Kane said. “But this is big.”

With Green Line service closed, the T will direct riders to fare-free shuttle buses, the Orange Line, which also runs through Downtown Boston, public buses and the commuter rail. Full details on alternate modes of transportation during the closure can be found on the MBTA’s website.

The T will also use the shutdown to replace tracks in the area, clean and repair the stations and complete other maintenance projects.

“It really is getting a lot of work done,” Eng said. “And I understand every diversion we do impacts the public and our riders. At the same time, this is going to give them a lot longer-term reliability.”

The trough is still there after 130 years as “the result of deferred investment,” Eng said. “It’s a result of the need to take care of things more timely, and we’re committed to doing that.”

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