General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Good thing that Brownsberger is a transit friendly voice in a transit unfriendly town.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Hey, they found a use for the concourse at Courthouse! It's perfect for line dancing!
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

As mitigation, they should require the 77 be made electric for a least 2 years
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

This is a late April Fool's Day joke, right? That Globe picture of the track shows the Convention Center Silver Line stop looming right fricking there.

Also...

-- Track faces wrong direction for BBY. Must pull a reverse move inside Southampton Yard to get there. They can reconfigure it for a straight shot onto the Fairmount and the Widett Circle loop (the plan for the terminal freights), but that loop is stuffed end-to-end with commuter rail layovers during the day BECAUSE THERE'S NO ROOM. And it still has to foul the Amtrak Yard to get around the horn.

-- Getting on the wye track from Southampton to BBY fouls all three NEC tracks while it has to cross over at 10 MPH to get on the side that's not blocking a train in the opposite direction.

-- Amtrak has total dispatching control over everything from Southampton to SS to BBY. And they are infamously tight-fisted with it. The T has to lay over on-platform at SS half the time because all those Widett Circle moves block Amtrak's path through their own yard. No one makes their crews have to hurry-up to restock for the next Regionals trip. Why do you think there has been no movement behind some of the various proposals to do an Allston-Fairmount pingback? Southampton Yard and Amtrak. They are not giving an inch on revenue moves until the T gets the hell out of Amtrak's yard and spends lots of $$$$ building its own elsewhere.

-- Unsignaled line, PTC mandate due in 2 years. Maybe they get a delay waiver for some existing lines, but there is no way in hell they get permission to build anything new that gets a free pass on it. Right now the PTC mandate allows for a maximum 6 passenger moves per day on an unsignaled line before it's gotta be equipped. 6 one-way moves....that's it. That's a Cape Flyer schedule.

-- DMU's for $4 million? Really? Have you seen the $6-9M unit cost every other buyer is paying for orders just placed and not yet manufactured? The price will not fall by a third in 2 years. Not even close. It may even cost more per unit if it's 1-2 cars only, because right now the production runs are so meager there is no manufacturer in existence pumping them out nonstop without a per-order premium for restarting the factory. Unless this DMU is going to be an antique Budd they rent from a museum.

-- Amtrak and the T infamously do not get along well. Amtrak does not like surprises. Amtrak does not like public pronouncements about things that directly inconvenience them without being consulted in advance. Amtrak holds all the cards here...and you would not like Amtrak angry at you when they hold all the cards. Notice the Rotem coaches haven't made many NEC appearances yet? Amtrak is angry at them right now. Mostly renewed hostilities over bogarting Southampton space.

-- Didn't we just spend a fortune on new bus shelters outside SS for SL5??? Run a friggin' express bus between the Convention Center and Back Bay if this is so important. It will beat the slow-ass train that has to crawl at 5 MPH and pause a half-dozen times while it meanders the scenic route around the single busiest passenger rail yard in New England. Seriously...go stand on Gilette side of the Channel and count how many trains are in simultaneous motion around Southampton. It'll take a dozen minutes to get between the corner of Dot Ave./Old Colony Ave. and Albany St. with how many pauses it has to make for revenue Old Colony and Fairmount trains, non-revenue Amtraks, non-revenue MBCR's...and then at the wye cutting across 3-5 tracks of every other revenue train on the southside. At peak hour that is no-joke 10-15 minutes total of sitting motionless at switch after switch waiting for something that has priority to clear. This routing is literally the highest number of conflicting active train movements you can theoretically cross at one time east of NYC. This is why the freights are banished from the area till after midnight.



Jesus...I thought the Berkshire Line was the nuttiest shrapnel Patrick buried in this Transportation Bill (that the Legislature didn't fund).
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I agree that trying to have this service cross all of the main lines into South Station during peak hours and change ends at Back Bay will be impossible and make the service impractical.

However a few comments in response to some of F-Line's points:
"Amtrak has total dispatching control over everything from Southampton to SS to BBY. And they are infamously tight-fisted with it. The T has to lay over on-platform at SS half the time because all those Widett Circle moves block Amtrak's path through their own yard. "

At the end of the day though, the MBTA owns the Northeast Corridor in MA, the MBTA owns South Station, and the MBTA let Amtrak continue dispatching the corridor after they lost the commuter rail contract, because Amtrak offered to do the dispatching for free. If the MBTA wanted to play hardball, as owner, the could takeover the dispatching, but it would cost them.

"DMU's for $4 million? Really? Have you seen the $6-9M unit cost every other buyer is paying for orders just placed and not yet manufactured"

As mentioned in another thread, the SMART/Toronto order with Nippon-Sharyo for FRA-compliant DMU's was $82.7 million for 27 cars, within $4 million per car.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/sonoma-marin-orders-commuter-dmu-cars.html

I would not be surprised if the MBTA has already had some serious discussions with builders about price quotes. Siemens also bid and lost on the SMART order, and might put in a competing bid for an MBTA order, which could get the price down from the SMART order costs.

"because right now the production runs are so meager there is no manufacturer in existence pumping them out nonstop without a per-order premium for restarting the factory"

Nippon-Sharyo has a new plant in Illinois and is expanding capacity there:

http://www.progressiverailroading.c...s-value-of-rail-investment-LaHood-says--36028

"Notice the Rotem coaches haven't made many NEC appearances yet? Amtrak is angry at them right now. Mostly renewed hostilities over bogarting Southampton space"

The Rotem cars are running on the southside but cannot be used as cab cars (1700s must lead the train). Since the DPU and FRA also have concern about cab signal issues on the Rotems with cab cars taking stop code hits for no reason, I don't think you can say its just Amtrak being petty.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

winstonoboogie said:
However a few comments in response to some of F-Line's points:
"Amtrak has total dispatching control over everything from Southampton to SS to BBY. And they are infamously tight-fisted with it. The T has to lay over on-platform at SS half the time because all those Widett Circle moves block Amtrak's path through their own yard. "

At the end of the day though, the MBTA owns the Northeast Corridor in MA, the MBTA owns South Station, and the MBTA let Amtrak continue dispatching the corridor after they lost the commuter rail contract, because Amtrak offered to do the dispatching for free. If the MBTA wanted to play hardball, as owner, the could takeover the dispatching, but it would cost them.
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Not true. Amtrak control pre-dates the MBTA's ownership. They got the full NEC ops package excepting the present-day Metro North New Haven Line on Day 1 of their existence in 1971 so bankrupt Penn Central could shed costs and staff. But for commuter rail, at the time federal law only allowed the private RR's to get public subsidy for the lines they had been granted permission to abandon. And Providence/Stoughton were the only 2 routes left in Boston that were still profitable and (by law) not receiving a penny of MBTA subsidy or involvement by the time Amtrak came in. The only parts of the takeover the T was a party to was dispatching agreements for Worcester, Franklin, and Needham...the only 3 other southside lines left by this point. There wasn't even a Lake Shore Limited running back then giving Amtrak and the state any overlap beyond SS-Readville.

So when the state bought the NEC ROW 2 years later it was land + stations only. And only because they bought ALL of the southside from Penn Central in one fell swoop including every abandoned line. Everywhere else those bankruptcy firesales were getting brokered between Amtrak and the states (such as with the Springfield Line), but this was such a windfall wad of hundreds of route miles they let the state do it.

Amtrak has full lifetime preememption by the Congressional fiat that created them over all ops it inherited on Day 1: they maintain every inch of track, every tie, every bridge and culvert, every signal, with their own crews. And dispatch everything up to the first interlockings on Worcester, Needham, Franklin, and (now) Stoughton after they split off...plus SS and Southampton/Widett. The only place on the NEC where this isn't true is the New Haven Line. Penn Central held onto total control of that in the Amtrak legislation because it was significantly profitable for them and they weren't getting out of bankruptcy without leveraging that asset. It stayed under private control all the way until 1983 before the MTA finally moved in. And thus that's the only part of the NEC not under Amtrak control.


Yes, this is real. Amtrak is the landlord. The state has no preemption whatsoever over it except for the taxes and fees it collects for land use and control over its own station facilities. And they routinely slap the T for getting in its way.


"DMU's for $4 million? Really? Have you seen the $6-9M unit cost every other buyer is paying for orders just placed and not yet manufactured"

As mentioned in another thread, the SMART/Toronto order with Nippon-Sharyo for FRA-compliant DMU's was $82.7 million for 27 cars, within $4 million per car.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/sonoma-marin-orders-commuter-dmu-cars.html
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Wrong. SMART ended up paying $6.6M per vehicle after cost overruns. That's a very dated article.

I would not be surprised if the MBTA has already had some serious discussions with builders about price quotes. Siemens also bid and lost on the SMART order, and might put in a competing bid for an MBTA order, which could get the price down from the SMART order costs.
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See above. The initial enthusiasm for SMART's supposed cost savings has taken on water with all their overruns. We've discussed this at length in various threads. Unfortunately, it always descends into shouting and mode-on-mode warfare. So, whatever...believe what you want to believe.

Nippon-Sharyo has a new plant in Illinois and is expanding capacity there:

http://www.progressiverailroading.c...s-value-of-rail-investment-LaHood-says--36028
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Wrong. That factory expansion is related to the $560M order Nippon has for Chicago Metra to build 160 EMU's, with state bond money for the plant: http://metrarail.com/content/dam/metra/documents/Bi_Level/OTBLJan2011..pdf. And will be used to build the bi-level coaches for the upcoming Michigan-Ann commuter rail. They are not building any DMU's there. The other large ongoing order they have right now is a +50 option order on new Virginia Railway Express bi-level coaches.

This is all the stuff Nippon has actively running in the U.S.: http://www.nipponsharyousa.com/products.htm. Over 100 previous-gen EMU's for Chicago...700 coaches for Metra, Caltrain, MARC, and VRE (not including ongoing orders)...all of the first-gen LRV's for L.A. Metro. They are a massive all-modes manufacturer...maybe #3 or #4 in the U.S. market after Bombardier and Kawasaki. A couple dozen ongoing FRA-compliant DMU's is a niche order compared to what else they're doing.

"Notice the Rotem coaches haven't made many NEC appearances yet? Amtrak is angry at them right now. Mostly renewed hostilities over bogarting Southampton space"

The Rotem cars are running on the southside but cannot be used as cab cars (1700s must lead the train). Since the DPU and FRA also have concern about cab signal issues on the Rotems with cab cars taking stop code hits for no reason, I don't think you can say its just Amtrak being petty.
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T employees on RR.net say otherwise. But I'm not an employee, so I can't corroborate.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

What became of the T using Beacon Park for layovers and OOS storage?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I have never seen evidence that Amtrak's dispatching is from some ancient perpetual rights dating back to the 1960s; every source I've seen claims that after the end of the 2003 contract MBTA and Amtrak made a separate agreement to maintain Amtrak maintenance and dispatching of the NEC at no (or limited?) cost to MBTA. Unfortunately I can't find more details of the 2003 agreement beyond one model railroad club newsletter that claims it was for 30 years; in any case it would almost certainly be very painful for MBTA to void.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

"Not true. Amtrak control pre-dates the MBTA's ownership. They got the full NEC ops package excepting the present-day Metro North New Haven Line on Day 1 of their existence in 1971 so bankrupt Penn Central could shed costs"

No F-Line, you got your dates wrong. Amtrak didn't takeover their part of the Northeast Corridor until April 1, 1976 when Conrail was created and the Penn Central went bye-bye. From 1971 to 1976 Amtrak owned locomotives and coaches but did not own any land or stations anywhere. Taking over their part of the corridor in 1976 was also the first time they were responsible for any direct operation of trains. Every train including the Northeast Corridor was run by contract by the private railroads for them from 1971 until that time. Penn Central ran and dispatched the trains until 1976.



"and staff. But for commuter rail, at the time federal law only allowed the private RR's to get public subsidy for the lines they had been granted permission to abandon. And Providence/Stoughton were the only 2 routes left in Boston that were still profitable and (by law) not receiving a penny of MBTA subsidy or involvement by the time Amtrak came in. "

The MBTA would not provide an operating subsidy for a service until the operator got permission from the ICC to discontinue a service, but the MBTA did buy the rights of way in 1973 (before Amtrak owned any right-of-way anywhere) and they have the rights to decide who dispatches it.

"Amtrak has full lifetime preememption by the Congressional fiat that created them over all ops it inherited on Day 1: they maintain every inch of track, every tie, every bridge and culvert, every signal, with their own crews. And dispatch everything up to the first interlockings on Worcester, Needham, Franklin, and (now) Stoughton after they split off...plus SS and Southampton/Widett. The only place on the NEC where this isn't true is the New Haven Line."

Amtrak offered to dispatch and maintain the line for free after they lost the commuter rail contract and the MBTA accepted. But the MBTA owns it and can decide to dispatch if they wanted to. If Amtrak is willing to do it for free, its obviously to the MBTA's advantage to keep it that way for now. But there is no "congressgional fiat" and Amtrak did not maintain or own any tracks until April 1, 1976, not May 1, 1971, and the MBTA already owned the tracks in MA since January 1973. Amtrak is not the landlord.

"Wrong. SMART ended up paying $6.6M per vehicle after cost overruns. That's a very dated article."

That's per pair, divide that by two to get the vehicle number They did change the order size.

http://trbsprc.blogspot.com/2011/01/smart-orders-18-fra-compliant-self.html


"So, whatever...believe what you want to believe"

Do you still believe the MBTA has no interest in DMUs? I think you were pretty specific about that in a post just a few weeks ago.

"Wrong. That factory expansion is related to the $560M order Nippon has for Chicago Metra to build 160 EMU's, with state bond money for the plant: http://metrarail.com/content/dam/met...BLJan2011..pdf. And will be used to build the bi-level coaches for the upcoming Michigan-Ann commuter rail. They are not building any DMU's there. The other large ongoing order they have right now is a +50 option order on new Virginia Railway Express bi-level coaches."

The initial SMART pair is being built in Japan, but Naperville will be working on the production units. Its a pretty big plant with the expansion, and Nippon-Sharyo has made it clear they are interested in finding more customers for the DMU.

"They are a massive all-modes manufacturer...maybe #3 or #4 in the U.S. market after Bombardier and Kawasaki. A couple dozen ongoing FRA-compliant DMU's is a niche order compared to what else they're doing"

So F-Line, if it is such small niche, why did they bother bidding on the SMART/Toronto contract to begin with? Why are they selling up the potential of the car to other operators? And why did Siemens put in a competing bid? These aren't some underfunded specialty builder like the defunct Colorado Railcar, these are two of the big players that bid on the SMART contract.

"T employees on RR.net say otherwise. But I'm not an employee, so I can't corroborate."

I looked at rr.net, looks like MBCR employees are hinting that there are problems but don't want to give specifics in a public forum. In fact, looking through rr.net, you seem to be the primary person saying the Rotems don't have problems.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

novitiate said:
I have never seen evidence that Amtrak's dispatching is from some ancient perpetual rights dating back to the 1960s; every source I've seen claims that after the end of the 2003 contract MBTA and Amtrak made a separate agreement to maintain Amtrak maintenance and dispatching of the NEC at no (or limited?) cost to MBTA. Unfortunately I can't find more details of the 2003 agreement beyond one model railroad club newsletter that claims it was for 30 years; in any case it would almost certainly be very painful for MBTA to void.
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Different. That's Amtrak's little side business picking up local commuter rail mercenary ops contracts. They were MBCR before MBCR was, just providing the middle and upper management for running the T-supplied equipment, services, and low-level staff. And before Amtrak was MBCR, Boston & Maine was MBCR (even on the southside, which was never their native territory).

The dispatching control is national Amtrak. That was conveyed to them upon their creation for running the nation's intercity network. Except for the New Haven Line they were given control of the entire end-to-end NEC to unify all the services and cut millions in bloat from local crews that were bleeding Penn Central and state subsidies dry. That's not a renewable contract...it's their charter.

Put it this way...if the states were the ones tasked with picking up the subsidy for control of each segment and the major terminals like SS, Penn, D.C. Union...the T would've had to abandon the Needham and Franklin lines immediately in 1971 and probably throw in the towel soon after on passenger service to Framingham/Worcester because keeping Providence going as intercity host with their own dispatching and track control sucked too much of the resources. This was explicitly intended as a way to save all the commuter rail branches that co-mingled with the NEC up and down the east coast...having Amtrak do 100% of the NEC track work and dispatching so the states could put all their attention on saving the remaining branchlines.

They would do it all over again in a heartbeat, because surviving those first few years with intact service was the only reason the district was able to expand and grow all the way out to 495 and beyond. They would do it all over again tomorrow because they get a constantly improving NEC they can make new money on (see Rhode Island service) for free with all the money Amtrak pours into the track. This isn't a noose around their necks. They are willing partners. The T just chafes a lot with their NEC landlord over a lot of little foot-in-mouth annoyances like pre-announcing too many of these pols' plaything proposals without doing their homework, the neverending Southampton/Widett storage crunch they were supposed to have had an action plan on soon after the Acela's debut, and testing dispatch's patience with too much buggy and/or wheezing deferred-maintenance equipment on their time.

It's not major stuff. It's not ugly-divorce stuff. But Amtrak as landlord is doing it to run a national railroad on its premier intercity corridor. It can't be bothered with little local-yokel annoyances getting in its way. Their patience for extracurricular is proportional to its relevance to the NEC. They are very supportive of the Providence Line and the thrust deep into RI because that develops the NEC. They're a little less enthused by the T's malingering on slow old unreliable diesels and high-dwell time low platforms, and would really like them to focus on that instead of which stations need more parking. They are considerably less enthused about T equipment blocking their storage in Southampton and the lack of urgency to address this. Especially since any train >6 cars is too long for the T's designated parking spots and has to share storage space with the Acelas and Regionals (those new Worcester schedules are really exacerbating this). They are going to be ripshit about this DMU plan forcing their dispatcher to thread the needle across every active track on a routing that isn't designed to ever handle revenue trains...AND at even more T equipment needing to be stored in the Acela parking spots to keep the normally stuffed loop clear.

They don't get paid to put up with this chintzy crap. And they don't put up with it.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

winstonoboogie said:
"Not true. Amtrak control pre-dates the MBTA's ownership. They got the full NEC ops package excepting the present-day Metro North New Haven Line on Day 1 of their existence in 1971 so bankrupt Penn Central could shed costs"

No F-Line, you got your dates wrong. Amtrak didn't takeover their part of the Northeast Corridor until April 1, 1976 when Conrail was created and the Penn Central went bye-bye. From 1971 to 1976 Amtrak owned locomotives and coaches but did not own any land or stations anywhere. Taking over their part of the corridor in 1976 was also the first time they were responsible for any direct operation of trains. Every train including the Northeast Corridor was run by contract by the private railroads for them from 1971 until that time. Penn Central ran and dispatched the trains until 1976.
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On 5/1/71 Amtrak took over crews, ops, and equipment to relieve the RR's. No land ownership or station ownership, but total divestiture of intercity ops. They took over NEC dispatching everywhere except the New Haven Line in that transaction.

The Regional Rail Reorganization Act of '73 was what created Conrail and allowed divestiture of all the remaining commuter rail lines (like Providence/Stoughton) that did not have permission to discontinue service. That was the kickoff of the state ownership era, as opposed to the subsidy spigot the T was limited to beforehand. That's when the lid got taken off Amtrak to acquire ROW's and stations and the states got to pick Penn Central's carcass clean of line purchase. MA was one of the first to act on that with it's '73 southside purchase. The RR Revitalization Act of '76 is what finalized Conrail's configuration, and funded Amtrak to explicitly buy out all remaining NEC property.

That's the timeline.


Penn Central...then transferred to Conrail...ran the southside as the MBCR-like mercenary operator for 3 years after these acts. Then Conrail got out and B&M came down from the northside to administer. Administer. Amtrak controlled the NEC dispatching from Day 1. That's what it got in its deal. It worked the same as it does today.

Look it up on frickin' Wikipedia. But I'm not rehashing this DMU debate any longer with you or Equilibria because it always goes down this same modal warfare evangelism wormhole and getting pissy at the poster, not the poster's point. This never goes anywhere. And we can go all day playing "gotcha!" with the fine print while never advancing the conversation.

If that's what you wanna do, go right ahead. But I am done with this waste of time.


"and staff. But for commuter rail, at the time federal law only allowed the private RR's to get public subsidy for the lines they had been granted permission to abandon. And Providence/Stoughton were the only 2 routes left in Boston that were still profitable and (by law) not receiving a penny of MBTA subsidy or involvement by the time Amtrak came in. "

The MBTA would not provide an operating subsidy for a service until the operator got permission from the ICC to discontinue a service, but the MBTA did buy the rights of way in 1973 (before Amtrak owned any right-of-way anywhere) and they have the rights to decide who dispatches it.
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No, they don't. See above. But believe what you want to believe.

"Amtrak has full lifetime preememption by the Congressional fiat that created them over all ops it inherited on Day 1: they maintain every inch of track, every tie, every bridge and culvert, every signal, with their own crews. And dispatch everything up to the first interlockings on Worcester, Needham, Franklin, and (now) Stoughton after they split off...plus SS and Southampton/Widett. The only place on the NEC where this isn't true is the New Haven Line."

Amtrak offered to dispatch and maintain the line for free after they lost the commuter rail contract and the MBTA accepted. But the MBTA owns it and can decide to dispatch if they wanted to. If Amtrak is willing to do it for free, its obviously to the MBTA's advantage to keep it that way for now. But there is no "congressgional fiat" and Amtrak did not maintain or own any tracks until April 1, 1976, not May 1, 1971, and the MBTA already owned the tracks in MA since January 1973. Amtrak is not the landlord.
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See above.

"Wrong. SMART ended up paying $6.6M per vehicle after cost overruns. That's a very dated article."

http://trbsprc.blogspot.com/2011/01/smart-orders-18-fra-compliant-self.html
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"Vehicle/unit" = "Pair". You can't order a half-DMU when it's a married pair. They are paying $6.6M per unit.


"So, whatever...believe what you want to believe"

Do you still believe the MBTA has no interest in DMUs? I think you were pretty specific about that in a post just a few weeks ago.
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And you can believe this is all about the poster and not the discussion. I am done clogging up ArchBoston's bandwidth encouraging more of that behavior. You do what you want.

"Wrong. That factory expansion is related to the $560M order Nippon has for Chicago Metra to build 160 EMU's, with state bond money for the plant: http://metrarail.com/content/dam/met...BLJan2011..pdf. And will be used to build the bi-level coaches for the upcoming Michigan-Ann commuter rail. They are not building any DMU's there. The other large ongoing order they have right now is a +50 option order on new Virginia Railway Express bi-level coaches."

The initial SMART pair is being built in Japan, but Naperville will be working on the production units. Its a pretty big plant with the expansion, and Nippon-Sharyo has made it clear they are interested in finding more customers for the DMU.
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"Finding more customers" being the operative term. They need to find more customers to lower the unit cost. Who are those customers?

That's the problem in a nutshell. The market isn't getting over that hump anywhere as fast as it was predicted to, and there isn't a momentum bump coming in the next 5 years of procurements being considered today that's going to get it out of neutral. Yes..."finding more customers" is what they're trying to do. Because there aren't very many.

"They are a massive all-modes manufacturer...maybe #3 or #4 in the U.S. market after Bombardier and Kawasaki. A couple dozen ongoing FRA-compliant DMU's is a niche order compared to what else they're doing"

So F-Line, if it is such small niche, why did they bother bidding on the SMART/Toronto contract to begin with? Why are they selling up the potential of the car to other operators? And why did Siemens put in a competing bid? These aren't some underfunded specialty builder like the defunct Colorado Railcar, these are two of the big players that bid on the SMART contract.
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Because it's a prospective market with lots of potential and they have a product for it. But that has nothing to do with what the market is bearing for it, now does it? People aren't buying them in more than a niche. That's not Nippon Sharyo's fault...they produced a viable product for the U.S. market that appears to be high-quality. Not enough buyers are finding themselves able to justify procurements. And the unit price isn't coming down because of those lack of orders.

Of course, you pitched this question in terms of the poster's credibility...not a substantive discussion of why the market is sluggish with actual shipping product available. There is lots of discussion as to why the DMU market in the U.S. is slow...rich, rich wide-open discussion not locked into any ideology. But you want to play rhetorical gotchas instead of talking about that.

Proceed.

"T employees on RR.net say otherwise. But I'm not an employee, so I can't corroborate."

I looked at rr.net, looks like MBCR employees are hinting that there are problems but don't want to give specifics in a public forum. In fact, looking through rr.net, you seem to be the primary person saying the Rotems don't have problems.
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And...that's a good enough quote for wrapping this. It's not about the discussion, it's about who's saying it. Ideology...you root for your home team's laundy, other guy roots for his. Whatever that's supposed to be.

Look, I am not so self-unaware that I don't realize I can come off as a crazed lunatic sometimes who can argue points a little too strong for his own good in the zeal for flooding the zone with info. Or...*gasp*...be wrong. Because I can only vacuum up and corroborrate so much conflicting information online from 'th Google and stream-of-conscious it into a written post in < 5 mins. without any insider connections. I appreciate that no one here seems to take offense to that. 5 guys with 5 different bullheaded viewpoints would be screaming "NO U!!!6!!" at this point and getting warned by the moderators if this place were RR.net.

But I have no interest whatsoever in wasting this place's time having a pissing match that's not really about the discussion, and is really just about discrediting the discussor for self-affirmation of one's belief.


So...yeah, you go and do what you want to do there. Up to and including searching 8 years worth of RR.net posts to find every single time I've ever been wrong, if that makes you feel special. I'm gonna move on and try to go where the discussion ain't stuck.:rolleyes:
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

davem said:
What became of the T using Beacon Park for layovers and OOS storage?
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They did a 2-year layover study evaluating 24 sites around the city. Readville, Beacon Park, and the BTD tow lot + cold storage business at Widett Circle (the warehouse is like inches from the Amtrak building) were the ones that made the cut. The BTD lot least costly because it's city property that can pretty reasonably be relocated to other city property, but it requires the city's full cooperation to do. The cold storage business not too costly, but requiring unknown amount of relocation cost for a private business and not-insignificant construction time leveling and clearing a building that abuts sensitively close to active tracks. Readville...easy because half the current yard is unused, but less desireable being 10 miles away from the terminal.


But it was weird...because the Beacon Park scenario, which looks on spec to be an easy grab, was on the mainline not engine yard. Like, I don't know how they could get proper onsite security for storing stuff there because it was going to be right out in the open like a big, fat graffiti canvas for every person who wants to scale the BU retaining wall or get in there from under the Pike via that grassy knoll next to BU Bridge. And then the blurb they wrote about the site ended with the disclaimer saying and no one's talked to Harvard about this so we have no flippin' clue what we can actually do! Well, that's...helpful.


If I had to guess they surveyed there instead of the engine yard because at the time CSX's ultimate plans for leaving the engine yard were still up in the air. That decision on a firm end-date vs. open-ended malingering didn't get made till this winter. But that doesn't explain why they didn't flesh out a hypothetical for that much better site like they did for some of the other 24 sites evaluated (which included some real random laughers like the Globe plant and Forest Hills next to the Arboretum).


They're actively searching, but no closer to deciding something than they were before the study. I mean, if they absolutely have to clear space this instant they can retain the 2 extra tracks through Beacon Park that stay on the T's...not Harvard's...easement and have ad hoc space for like 4 trainsets. But that's not really a layover, it's a parking spot. Like some freight siding out in the 'burbs. With no site security, and the staff needing to hop in a van to get there. So it's the barest of band-aids until they spend the actual money to build a true facility somewhere. With a staff breakroom and 24/7 security and full utilities and fencing and whatnot. Stuff you have to EIS and do a couple years of permitting for. Even at Readville which is already their open property...gotta EIS because of the abutting Neponset River. It's way too late to start filing permits and get that done in 2 years to free up the loop at Widett for this DMU. So open-access parking spots are pretty much all they've got to string together in the interim unless the Beacon engine house can get substituted. It seems dead-obvious it could and should, but that's not what's been reported.


You can see why Amtrak's not happy with them. Their action plan for the short-term storage crunch is not an action plan.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Weird. While I think Widett would be the best place for a permanent layover, as you mentioned getting the ball rolling on converting it is going to take some time. Its just seems to DUH obvious to use Beacon Park (the main yard or the engine yard) as a stopgap I cant understand why they aren't doing it right now, today.

Its an massive yard with light maintenance and refueling capacity that was active as of a month or two ago with direct access to North and South station. I'm pretty sure the switches are still powered, although I haven't been over the Cambridge St bridge at night in a while. Harvard has no plans whatsoever for the land for at least 50 years. Hell, I'm surprised they haven't called the T and made them an offer, getting free security and making money off their land while they build up the rest of their property sounds like a win-win to me.


To argue with you though, the two extra tracks extend from the pike viaduct to almost Market Street. At over 6000' you could fit something like 14 trains on those two leads.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

davem said:
Weird. While I think Widett would be the best place for a permanent layover, as you mentioned getting the ball rolling on converting it is going to take some time. Its just seems to DUH obvious to use Beacon Park (the main yard or the engine yard) as a stopgap I cant understand why they aren't doing it right now, today.

Its an massive yard with light maintenance and refueling capacity that was active as of a month or two ago with direct access to North and South station. I'm pretty sure the switches are still powered, although I haven't been over the Cambridge St bridge at night in a while. Harvard has no plans whatsoever for the land for at least 50 years. Hell, I'm surprised they haven't called the T and made them an offer, getting free security and making money off their land while they build up the rest of their property sounds like a win-win to me.


To argue with you though, the two extra tracks extend from the pike viaduct to almost Market Street. At over 6000' you could fit something like 14 trains on those two leads.
Click to expand...

The other problem is the need to keep the loop clear for this service. Right now, if there are any equipment deadheads coming off the Worcester Line (including Grand Junction) or Needham Line that don't have the opportunity to divert down Fairmount...once they go down that wye the locomotive is pointing in the wrong direction from South Station and it must loop in order to go into service. It also cannot come off the Worcester/Needham/Grand Junction and pass straight on through out to storage in Readville...because the loco's facing in the wrong direction for those plug-in pads that let them idle engine-off. With no place at Readville to turn it around. So those must loop too. As these kinds of moves happen during all shift changes...they really, really need that Beacon Park loop as a substitute if Widett's going to be in revenue service. Simply having a parking spot out there in no-man's land isn't enough even if it can store a lot, because the only way they can keep facing forward without using the Widett loop is...layover on platform at SS. Which as we know is half the reason why the terminal capacity here is so fucked.


Given the exhaustive number of sites they surveyed in the layover analysis, not one peep about the engine yard is...very strange: http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/25/Docs/efs/C-LayoverFacilityAlternativesAnalysisReport.pdf. The Beacon Park proposal is outlined on p. 52. It flat-out says the T's current easement is not enough for a full facility vs. parking spots, so they have to acquire additional easements from Harvard. And Harvard's requirements are such that if they exercise their rights to any of that easement land the state must equip on its own dime ventilation and fire protection for air rights to be built overhead as Harvard sees fit...and building pilings and driveways as Harvard sees fit.

So...caveat emptor at building a "permanent" facility on that supposedly free-for-taking land and signing a blank check for all the uncapped mitigation for office tower X that Harvard and the BRA cook up to plunk on top of it in 20 years. I think I'd rather pay the cold storage warehouse at Southampton a one-time check to go away than give Harvard a nebulously fat I.O.U. with no spending limit.


But still...why there and not the engine yard with the 7 existing storage tracks, turning loop, garage, fueling facility, and enclosed security fence that nobody can physically redevelop because there's no road access aside from the Doubletree driveway?

I don't know how they could secure this site: https://maps.google.com/. There's no fence at the top of the retaining wall with Nickerson Field. People can and do slip under the Pike Viaduct from here: http://goo.gl/maps/lm4xD. The chain-link fence separating the track from the entire BU Athletic backlots and the Ashford St. neighborhood is only like 6 ft. tall with no barbed wire topping and runs a full a half-mile long to Cambridge St. Hop over, cross 2 mainline tracks, and there's over $50M worth of idling equipment out there ready to play with and duck between to avoid detection. CSX at least was open for business 24/7 and never without a full-staffed night shift working loads throughout the yard, so trespassers were never going to get far before somebody saw them. I don't think Transit Police can possibly cover such a huge access point with just a night patrol.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

VERY int resting mention of the 132' MassDOT easement for "unrelated purposes" north of the MBTA easement. The pike, with shoulders, is about 130'. So it does look like realigning the pike through there is in the cards.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Here are some facts about Amtrak's ownership and history of dispatching the Northeast Corridor in Ma.

From Amtrak'sown website:
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am/Layout&cid=1246041980246

quoted from above:
"Northeast Corridor: The 363 miles of the 456-mile corridor connecting Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, the busiest passenger line in the country, with trains regularly reaching speeds of 125 - 150 mph (201 - 241 kph). Two sections are owned by others: 1) the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (10 miles) and Connecticut Department of Transportation (46 miles) own 56 miles on Metro North between New Rochelle, NY, and New Haven, CT; 2) the state of Massachusetts owns 38 miles between the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border and Boston that is operated and maintained by Amtrak".

and:
May 1, 1971, was the first day of Amtrak operations.
April 1, 1976, Amtrak acquired its Northeast Corridor property through the Conrail consolidation process.


And from Amtrak's 1976 annual report which can be found here:
http://michaelminn.net/america/railroads/amtrak-reports/

From page 2 of the Amtrak president's report in the 1976 annual report

"In 1976, Amtrak becam a full-fledged member of the railroad community when, on April 1, it took over direct control of trains and track forces, dispatching, signaling and maintenance of the high-speed Northeast Corridor from Washington D.c. to Boston Massachusetts. this acquisition from conrail, in accordance with the provisions of the public law, was the result of long planning and coordination preparation. Not only did this conveyance double the size of our organization but it added many responsibilities not previously the concern of Amtrak, including the management and direction of train operations-passenger, commuter, and freight-in the most complex railroad region in North America"

So I think I have more faith in Amtrak's own report than wikipedia that 1976 is when Amtrak took over dispatching and operations of the Northeast Corridor, three years after the MBTA had already purchased the Mass section.
When Amtrak was created in 1971, the private railroads were given a choice if they wanted to join or not. If they joined, Amtrak would take over the management and costs of each railroads long-distance passenger service. But in exchange, Amtrak would have the right to operate trains on any line owned by a member railroad. But the right to operate trains is not the same as the right to dispatch trains, which I think you are confusing. 1976 was the first time Amtrak directly operated any trains. In later years, Amtrak took over direct responsibility of operating all trains including those over freight railroad tracks not owned by them. But it didn't start out that way. and going back to where this all started, I think it should be clear that the MBTA owns the corridor in MA, and they could choose to dispatch it themselves if they wanted. They would not have the right to kick Amtrak off of the route (nor would they want to) but if they wanted to take on the added costs, as owner of the track, they could take control of the dispatching. Amtrak does own the electrification, they do own their Southampton facility, and they own the track used in Rhode Island. Obviously, both sides have an incentive to play nice, but at the end of the day, ownership gives the MBTA the upper hand if they want to play hardball.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The MBTA has opened up public voting for the MBTA Map Redesign Contest.

Link

Surprise, they are all terrible!
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Well, that's what happens when you ask people to design your maps for free, instead of hiring people who do this for a living.

#3 is not a good final product, but it has some elements - especially indicating the different routes on the Red and Green Lines - that are intriguing.
 
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