MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

There's a >1 year long design review period, which does suggest some specs-tinkering:
That's terrifying. Their HSP-46 specs-tinkering a decade-plus ago included utterly insane minutiae like individual specs for placement of the knobs on the locomotive control stand because they hated the layout of their fellow MPI product MP36PH standard controls. There's literally no bottom to what this agency will overcustomize if given the chance...and it looks like they're giving themselves more-than-ample chance with these project management allowances.
 
We have slides for the 10 battery + 10 diesel locomotive order, posted online for the MBTA Audit and Finance Subcommittee meeting tomorrow (October 15th):

Unsurprisingly, it's going to Siemens, for $310.4 million, with $63.4 million in other costs.

Edit: fixed link

Wow I had no idea the mbta was getting brand new diesel locos, somehow I missed that. The alc 42 looks pretty good in mbta colors imo. They actually look fairly close to the hsp46’s too with the rounded front. I know the hsp46’s get a bad wrap mechanically, but I always liked the way they look. Its also cool to have something thats different and you can only find on the mbta in an age where theres not that many different types of locomotives anymore especially for passenger rail and its consolidating even more now with the chargers being used on everything. (I know with freight locos theres technically lots of different models out there but theres only 2 competing companies and they both use the comfort cab so they all pretty much look the same now on the main lines compared to a few decades ago when there were was a mix of comfort cabs and standard cabs and with standard cabs you also had high hoods, low hoods, snoot nose…etc.

Also didnt the mbta just get a few refurbished f40s from rolling stock solutions? How do those fit into the picture? Its nice to see f40s still chugging along in 2026, hopefully its a while before theyre all gone.
 
Also didnt the mbta just get a few refurbished f40s from rolling stock solutions? How do those fit into the picture? Its nice to see f40s still chugging along in 2026, hopefully its a while before theyre all gone.
The F40 rentals will be subbing for the locos that are out for rebuild. 3 pilot HSP-46's are in the program not due to return until 2028 (at which point 3-6 units will be rotated out at any given point), and both MP36PH-3C's are still being held in limbo as the T attempts so-far without any luck to trade those fleet oddballs in for something (more F40PH-3C's?) with more internal maintenance commonality. The GP40MC's--save for the few heritage-paint units that Rochester shops recently rehabbed--are also fading fast, so there's a deepening need for outside reinforcements until the Chargers arrive.

The F40's are in good enough condition soon after their overhauls that they won't need to be retired until 2035. The Siemens contract has a greater-than-decade-out deadline on tapping the option orders, so while they will need to immediately drain some options past the 10 base-order straight diesels to knock out the Geeps the trailing options are probably going to be timed well out to replace the F40's only when their rated life is done. This order may well come in batches spread close to a decade apart from initial units to final units.
 
The F40 rentals will be subbing for the locos that are out for rebuild. 3 pilot HSP-46's are in the program not due to return until 2028 (at which point 3-6 units will be rotated out at any given point), and both MP36PH-3C's are still being held in limbo as the T attempts so-far without any luck to trade those fleet oddballs in for something (more F40PH-3C's?) with more internal maintenance commonality. The GP40MC's--save for the few heritage-paint units that Rochester shops recently rehabbed--are also fading fast, so there's a deepening need for outside reinforcements until the Chargers arrive.

The F40's are in good enough condition soon after their overhauls that they won't need to be retired until 2035. The Siemens contract has a greater-than-decade-out deadline on tapping the option orders, so while they will need to immediately drain some options past the 10 base-order straight diesels to knock out the Geeps the trailing options are probably going to be timed well out to replace the F40's only when their rated life is done. This order may well come in batches spread close to a decade apart from initial units to final units.
That makes sense. It seems like chargers are going to eventually be the only diesel passenger locos out there. That plus a few rebuilds kickin around.

-I completely forgot the mbta has a couple mp-36’s, I dont believe I’ve ever actually seen one in person before in mbta service.
 
That makes sense. It seems like chargers are going to eventually be the only diesel passenger locos out there. That plus a few rebuilds kickin around.
There's very little interest in the domestic passenger loco market because passenger systems are so sparse in North America that the unit quantities suck for developing any kind of manufacturing scale. All of the big rolling stock vendors (Siemens, Alstom, Stadler, etc.) have Euro diesel, electric, and dual-mode locomotive families that could be adapted for the North American market. Siemens, with the Vectron family (which the Charger was derived from) was the only one that actually tried to break it here. And they got lucky, winning the huge Amtrak order to establish some manufacturing scale and then perpetuated it with enough follow-on orders to keep their factory constantly going. Stadler just won a large battery-diesel hybrid contract with VIA Rail that'll set up a Canadian manufacturing plant, so they're sort-of in the game now (albeit not at Buy America-compliance). But unless they immediately offer a straight-diesel version I can't see them getting any follow-on orders, because their battery-diesel hybrid make is as stupidly expensive as the Siemens B+AC batt locos while still having diesel emissions. I guess the Bombardier/Alstom ALP-45DP dual-mode is also still around as a new-buy option, although only NJ Transit seems to like that one; the manufacturer also never bothered to market a domestic straight-diesel version. The rest of the worldwide vendors have sort of held their nose at it. And two huge American vendors that dominate the worldwide freight market, Wabtec (ex-GE) and Progress Rail (ex-EMD), don't make any passenger locos whatsoever because the economics of it suck so much compared to just pumping out hundreds of freight units per year. They instead subcontracted their technology to third parties to develop passenger makes: which resulted in the extremely unreliable F125 (EMD-Caterpillar-Vossloh joint venture) only bought by Metrolink and the HSP-46 (MPI-GE joint venture) only bought by the T. Both have been withdrawn from the market (with the HSP never advanced for Tier 4 emissions), despite using prime movers that are in widespread use in literally thousands of freight units in America.

It's not like the Chargers are perfect, either. They have problems in snowy weather with the fans inhaling snow into the engines, which is why VIA Rail went with the Stadler hybrids for its long-distance procurement. And the Amtrak Midwest SC-44 Chargers took an unusually long teething period to work most of their bugs out, and are still somewhat hated by Amtrak engineers on RR.net because of their finicky computers. Something with higher incumbent reliability would definitely get fairly considered by buyers here. But nobody wants to build for such small and intermittent unit quantities when that makes equipping a Buy America factory a futile venture. There used to be a robust rebuilding market for older power, which is why the F40PH lasted almost 5 decades as the continent's #1 most ubiquitous passenger power. But rebuilds top out at Tier 0+ emissions compliance, while most federal grants sources will only pay for Tier 4's that can only be bought new. Hence, the Charger becomes the literal only practical buying option. The situation is not likely to change soon with so few non-Charger users left who have an identified need to buy new units in any sizeable quantity.


Much like bus-land being whittled down to somewhat checkered-reputation New Flyer and just a couple others for Buy America-compliant builders of any scale, it's a sign of a deeply dysfunctional domestic market meeting deeply dysfunctional regulations (i.e. Buy America being an utterly failed program) that you simply can't get the product over here. The product exists! Hell, it's being built in America by American companies every damn day for freight use! But the economics are so uniquely fucked that no one except Siemens...and only because they captured lightning in a bottle...is building the passenger versions here.
 
There's very little interest in the domestic passenger loco market because passenger systems are so sparse in North America that the unit quantities suck for developing any kind of manufacturing scale. All of the big rolling stock vendors (Siemens, Alstom, Stadler, etc.) have Euro diesel, electric, and dual-mode locomotive families that could be adapted for the North American market. Siemens, with the Vectron family (which the Charger was derived from) was the only one that actually tried to break it here. And they got lucky, winning the huge Amtrak order to establish some manufacturing scale and then perpetuated it with enough follow-on orders to keep their factory constantly going. Stadler just won a large battery-diesel hybrid contract with VIA Rail that'll set up a Canadian manufacturing plant, so they're sort-of in the game now (albeit not at Buy America-compliance). But unless they immediately offer a straight-diesel version I can't see them getting any follow-on orders, because their battery-diesel hybrid make is as stupidly expensive as the Siemens B+AC batt locos while still having diesel emissions. I guess the Bombardier/Alstom ALP-45DP dual-mode is also still around as a new-buy option, although only NJ Transit seems to like that one; the manufacturer also never bothered to market a domestic straight-diesel version. The rest of the worldwide vendors have sort of held their nose at it. And two huge American vendors that dominate the worldwide freight market, Wabtec (ex-GE) and Progress Rail (ex-EMD), don't make any passenger locos whatsoever because the economics of it suck so much compared to just pumping out hundreds of freight units per year. They instead subcontracted their technology to third parties to develop passenger makes: which resulted in the extremely unreliable F125 (EMD-Caterpillar-Vossloh joint venture) only bought by Metrolink and the HSP-46 (MPI-GE joint venture) only bought by the T. Both have been withdrawn from the market (with the HSP never advanced for Tier 4 emissions), despite using prime movers that are in widespread use in literally thousands of freight units in America.

It's not like the Chargers are perfect, either. They have problems in snowy weather with the fans inhaling snow into the engines, which is why VIA Rail went with the Stadler hybrids for its long-distance procurement. And the Amtrak Midwest SC-44 Chargers took an unusually long teething period to work most of their bugs out, and are still somewhat hated by Amtrak engineers on RR.net because of their finicky computers. Something with higher incumbent reliability would definitely get fairly considered by buyers here. But nobody wants to build for such small and intermittent unit quantities when that makes equipping a Buy America factory a futile venture. There used to be a robust rebuilding market for older power, which is why the F40PH lasted almost 5 decades as the continent's #1 most ubiquitous passenger power. But rebuilds top out at Tier 0+ emissions compliance, while most federal grants sources will only pay for Tier 4's that can only be bought new. Hence, the Charger becomes the literal only practical buying option. The situation is not likely to change soon with so few non-Charger users left who have an identified need to buy new units in any sizeable quantity.


Much like bus-land being whittled down to somewhat checkered-reputation New Flyer and just a couple others for Buy America-compliant builders of any scale, it's a sign of a deeply dysfunctional domestic market meeting deeply dysfunctional regulations (i.e. Buy America being an utterly failed program) that you simply can't get the product over here. The product exists! Hell, it's being built in America by American companies every damn day for freight use! But the economics are so uniquely fucked that no one except Siemens...and only because they captured lightning in a bottle...is building the passenger versions here.

I had no idea about the via rail stadler locos for long distance trains, very cool!

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Was looking over documents from Thursday's MBTA board meeting and updated "parking management" came up multiple times when discussing the new CR contract. Does anyone know what this might entail? I'm all for the CR operator making the most out of the T's parking lots/garages. But if the contract is structured poorly, it's very easy to see this becoming an obstacle to developing housing on underutilized lots.
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Was looking over documents from Thursday's MBTA board meeting and updated "parking management" came up multiple times when discussing the new CR contract. Does anyone know what this might entail? I'm all for the CR operator making the most out of the T's parking lots/garages. But if the contract is structured poorly, it's very easy to see this becoming an obstacle to developing housing on underutilized lots.
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Keolis happens to also already be the incumbent parking operator - realistically, there's probably a mechanism in there for the MBTA to adjust via change order what MBTA lots they manage and in what form; they definitely had a mechanism to add the SCR station lots to their responsibility and what not. Plus, during the previous contract the T had already taken the Quincy garages out of commission, and during the keolis term already advanced Riverside, Alewife and Lynn redevelopments - I'd be shocked if they didn't bake in a mechanism.

As far as I read into it, I think they just saw benefits in bundling it with the CR vs separating the contract out to separate companies.

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2022-02/6. Parking Facilities Management 2.24.22.pdf
 
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Mini-high platform construction at Wyoming Hill station on October 22. Note that the existing platforms have been cut into - the MBTA's claim that these are freestanding platforms that do not require changes to the existing platforms (and thus skirt state law) are visibly false. The former canopies, which dated to 1900, have been demolished apparently without any historic review.
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Mini-high platform construction at Wyoming Hill station on October 22. Note that the existing platforms have been cut into - the MBTA's claim that these are freestanding platforms that do not require changes to the existing platforms (and thus skirt state law) are visibly false. The former canopies, which dated to 1900, have been demolished apparently without any historic review.
Without having seen the canopies or knowing their history, I'm pretty sympathetic to the T here. The state has a tendency to protect sufficiently old structures with little regard for how significant or "historic" they may be. And historic preservation reviews bring out some of the worst NIMBYs. Going through one is a sure fire way to delay construction and add millions to the project budget. There needs to be good reason to incur that cost, and many "historic" buildings are nowhere near important enough in my eyes.

Skirting around the ADA is not great, but it's hard to be too upset when the station will clearly be more accessible once construction finishes. The bigger gripe is that a normal high-level should just be built, and shouldn't cost near as much as the T spends on one. That would fully take care of any accessibility concerns and not require a rebuild in around 10 years. But until the MBTA gets capital costs under control, we're stuck with more mini-highs.
 

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