General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Here's a 2006 press release from when the policy was implemented. It does appear to be inbound only. I assume that is to allow ticket checks to take place on outbound trains immediately after departing South Station.
 
The EGE said:
Here's a 2006 press release from when the policy was implemented. It does appear to be inbound only. I assume that is to allow ticket checks to take place on outbound trains immediately after departing South Station.
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As I mentioned previously, outbound checks arent done until after BBY anyway, and thats always been the case, because theyre both in the same zone.

The press release was just clarifying that train staff didnt have to pay attention to who got on at BBY
 
sm89 said:
New story on West Station:
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/pollack-defends-2040-date-west-station/

How is it that so many MBTA and MassDOT board members and elected officials are all for this, but apparently it can't happen. Don't they have that power?
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The only plausible defense for the delay that I can see has to do with the fact that the planned neighborhood has yet to be built. And with a local DMU already in place, it seems silly to build a commuter rail station without including other future Red/Blue/Green/MRT line extensions.

Trust me, I want West Station to be built as well. But I'm not going to go Don Quixote on this delay. Has to be done right though. Even if I do feel that 2040 might be a bit silly.
 
Layman’s question: Wouldn't that station be far more useful if we had EMUs (or DMUs), given how close together all these commuter rail stations would be? Between Yawkey and Brighton, it seems like a lot of stop and go in a short distance. Not a problem for trains designed for that, but a real pain for full locomotives.

Not to mention that those layover problems would be ameliorated by NSRL...
 
Yeah West Station would be much more useful with Indigo/NSRL given how close B is to it.
 
Cool.


(But why does anyone pay more to take CR instead of subway on a regular day?)
 
CSTH said:
Cool.


(But why does anyone pay more to take CR instead of subway on a regular day?)
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DominusNovus said:
I cant think of a good reason myself.
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The TransitMatters Regional Rail plan will call for the rationalization of fare zones. It makes no sense why it costs $6.25 to ride from Quincy Center to South Sta and $6.75 to ride from Braintree to South Station on Commuter Rail, compared to flat $2.75/$2.25 on the Red Line.
 
datadyne007 said:
The TransitMatters Regional Rail plan will call for the rationalization of fare zones. It makes no sense why it costs $6.25 to ride from Quincy Center to South Sta and $6.75 to ride from Braintree to South Station on Commuter Rail, compared to flat $2.75/$2.25 on the Red Line.
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Such a tease. PS, do you guys have any plans to refresh your website? There's some out of date stuff all over the place.
 
datadyne007 said:
The TransitMatters Regional Rail plan will call for the rationalization of fare zones. It makes no sense why it costs $6.25 to ride from Quincy Center to South Sta and $6.75 to ride from Braintree to South Station on Commuter Rail, compared to flat $2.75/$2.25 on the Red Line.
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I've been asking about that for years...found a post from 4 years ago I made, concerning this same exact observation/scenario: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=153143&p=1223615#p1223615
 
Re: EMUs

DominusNovus said:
Layman’s question: Wouldn't that station be far more useful if we had EMUs (or DMUs), given how close together all these commuter rail stations would be? Between Yawkey and Brighton, it seems like a lot of stop and go in a short distance. Not a problem for trains designed for that, but a real pain for full locomotives.

Not to mention that those layover problems would be ameliorated by NSRL...
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Wouldn't it be great if Tesla would build trucks that you could drop any existing unpowered commuter rail coach onto, that had some approximation of a Tesla Roadster 2020 drivetrain hooked up to each axle and the battery pack mounted in the truck so that all you have to do after that is hook up the brake lines and MU control cables?

https://www.tesla.com/roadster reports a 1.9s 0-60 time, which is better than 30 mph/s; I think some Metro North EMUs and some US streetcar specs list 3 mph/s, and if F=ma, if you're willing to have 1/10th the acceleration, you should be able to accelerate 10 times the weight. If the Roadster ends up weighing 4000 pounds (the weight isn't public AFAIK, but it does seem to have quite a large battery pack which probably isn't light), then each Roadster drivetrain ought to be able to accelerate 40,000 pounds, so four of them would be able to handle 160,000 pounds, and http://www.kawasakirailcar.com/CT_MBTA claims the heavier of the Kawasaki bi-levels are only 131,000 pounds, which leaves some room for the battery packs to add a bit to the weight of the train.

There might be a need to improve the cooling and adjust the gear ratio in adapting the Roadster powertrain to commuter rail.

Edit: an alternate way to look at this is that the Tesla Semi claims 20 second 0-60 with 80,000 pounds and four motors (the 2020 Roadster has 3 of the same motors); perhaps a fourth motor per train axle would be needed to do 10 second 0-60 for 40,000 pounds per axle.
 
Re: Orange Line bustitution

Apparently the Orange Line was bustituted today due to a broken rail on the bridge over the Mystic.

What I'm curious about is why the express track wasn't used to avoid the broken rail. Perhaps that would have meant no northbound trains would have stopped at Assembly, but wouldn't getting off at Assembly by changing to a southbound train at Wellington or heading from Assembly to stops north of the Mystic by changing at Sullivan have been less of a pain than bustitution?
 
Re: Orange Line bustitution

Joel N. Weber II said:
Apparently the Orange Line was bustituted today due to a broken rail on the bridge over the Mystic.

What I'm curious about is why the express track wasn't used to avoid the broken rail. Perhaps that would have meant no northbound trains would have stopped at Assembly, but wouldn't getting off at Assembly by changing to a southbound train at Wellington or heading from Assembly to stops north of the Mystic by changing at Sullivan have been less of a pain than bustitution?
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You mean the test track? It's an active construction site right now and it's missing the third rail between Sullivan Square and Community College.
 
I'm sure that there will be lawsuits resulting from this incident!
 
My B line ride today was:

Board B line train at Park Street
Driver kicks everyone off at Kenmore
Board next B line train
Driver makes announcement that it will be standing by due to train at platform ahead (the very same train they kicked us off of)
Few stops later, driver makes announcement that it will be standing by due to a schedule adjustment
Train on standby for more the 8 minutes
Decides to get off the train and walk home
Walks to the next stop to see train sitting there with passengers, the very same train that I got kicked off of
Train had kicked passengers off at Kenmore for no reason
This occurred 2 hours after a disabled train at Sunderland Road. 2 hrs and there's still "moderate residual delays"

This is why I'm a bitter Bostonian
 
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