Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade
Another bump.
FY 2016 MassDOT, MBTA draft CIPs have been released (see post in GLX thread for links). DMU implementation has been, maybe temporarily as it's just a one year plan, expunged. There's 300k for planning and that's it. Neither the pilot program nor the FY 2016 59mil someone optimistically assumed for the old CIPs are anywhere to be found - it's not like MassDOT or MBTA were holding true to the CIP anyways - certainly didn't outlay the 20mil planned for FY2015 as far as I can tell, but it's another few years tacked on if they ever want to get DMUs off the ground. SSX took a little hit too, but without any land to build on, it seems more a postponement than anything. SCR's been cut, but it's still dangling over our heads.
Slowdown on DMU's wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. They have to show a commitment to the service levels required to make the vehicles pay off, or else they end up being a far worse cost bleed on ops than if they never bought them at all. You simply can't make those things pay off without real Indigo frequencies, and the amount of backpedaling on the Indigo implementation and outright emperor-has-no-clothes refusal to answer a simple-ass question when pressed on whether those frequencies will ever happen is enough of a red flag to take a step back. The last statement they gave on it was using those vehicles for frickin' Foxboro service, which is just about the worst use for them you could ever dream up.
There is nothing preventing them from implementing the Fairmount-Indigo service levels with an F40 locomotive hauling 4 single-levels. Nothing whatsoever. It's inefficient in the long run, but FAR better to have the service levels scale up with existing equipment before plunking down for DMU's so there's actual evidence the new vehicles will run at frequencies that let them hit their efficiency point of payoff. Until we can prove they actually will go through with those service levels, I'm not sure we want to put cart before horse.
Also, I wonder if the ops assessment on the BCEC dinky truly has come back too unfavorable on traffic impacts around Southampton Yard and Widett Circle for that to be on the front-burner any longer. Because that's the one use for DMU's where there's no real preliminary 'scale-up' worth doing with push-pulls to establish the service levels like is prudent with Fairmount or Riverside. It's just too awkward and overkill to run a push-pull on Track 61. So chances are if the vehicle purchase has been punted off, so has BCEC passenger service. And there's probably a technical reason behind that.
Not the end of the world. They can always reissue the RFP to see what the DMU market looks like in a few years. The FRA will be releasing their new crashworthiness specs (scheduled this year, but we're on "federal bureaucracy" clock time so next year is a likelier bet), which are supposed to allow for wider shopping selection of less-customized foreign stock. So this ongoing RFP due to have its bids collected in August is still on the current regs, will be out-of-date, and should be held for reissue anyway after the new regs are released since it'll open up the options a bit better and probably lower the unit cost. Waiting might be better.
Besides, they have a truly frightening number of commuter rail procurements coming up for FY2020-22 that need to be funded, or else we go right back into the old-equipment uptime nightmares they're just clawing their way out of. All 201 Pullman and Bombardier single-level coaches hit end-of-life in 2020, and they already had to pass on putting a 75-car dent in that tally because the "Brokem" purchase was such an unmitigated (and still ongoing) debacle that they had to pass on the option order. Those single-levels have to be replaced, not rehabbed, because with Metro North and NJ Transit announcing phase-out of their respective 200-car and 500+-car single-level fleets by 2025 the rebuild economics for "Comet"-class flats (which the T's are) are no longer favorable vs. buying new.
And then throw on top of that 4 dozen more locomotives--all of the 1988- and 1993-vintage F40PH's and all GP40MC's that don't get retired by the tail end of the HSP-46 order--are also up for retirement in the exact same FY2020-22 period and...good God, that's a terrifyingly large series of procurements. Almost as expensive as the much-delayed Red and Orange cars. Non-optional. No funding sources identified...and they have to be within 2 years if the procurements are to happen on-time. And needed whether they buy DMU's or not, because not one single piece of push-pull equipment will be displaced by a DMU. They are purely additional.
It would be a much worse outcome to buy the DMU's but leave the cycled replacements of the main fleet unfunded because the DMU's cannibalized too much of that funding. A literal repeat of this winter's CR service reliability meltdown in another 7-8 years if they don't act. So...tabling the DMU's until a funding source is allocated for the bread-and-butter cycled replacements is prudent. And then when they pick that back up under the new crashworthiness regs they'll likely be able to buy cheaper DMU's anyway. The timing works, even if today it looks like a retreat (and may well be given their track record on retreating).
