F-Line to Dudley
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- Nov 2, 2010
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos
Nope...no easy answers. The rebuild program to send 24 Blue cars into Orange service proved too expensive because there were too few un-corroded carbodies left after 30 years in the salt air, so that didn't happen. And the 18 they kept on lease in storage and work duty at Orient Heights for interim considerations proved too far shot to continue operating at all. For the same reason as this week's issues: cold + ice + motionless traction motors sitting in a yard = death on a cold start. Only in this case it wasn't just 1 cold night, but days and weeks of cold nights without moving. Or 18 straight hours without moving on the cars that were still being taken out for work duty.
Basically, short of rotating them out all night in "zombie" shifts one at a time to keep the motors loose--and hoping that doesn't crap something else out in the process--there's nothing more they can do. And nothing they could've done with those 18 Blue cars to buy time to figure out whether any more could get squeezed out of them for Orange. Old cars are old. They act their age. And there's no dialing back the clock unless you're replacing the oldest, most brittle, and most weather-susceptible-with-age components in a a major rebuild program. This is already the shop staff that's pioneered the use of hairnets...bulk-purchase food service hairnets...to keep snow from getting sucked into the motors and crapping them out. We're way past duct tape solutions here.
First thing they're replacing on the Type 7's that are in rebuild is the propulsion system. Short of taking the OLD Orange and Red cars offline for months at a time to do the similar scope of component replacement...there's nothing that'll improve their reliability before the new cars arrive. Either way you're buying half-or-more a new car, and can't move fast enough to stave off the next winter on the calendar.
This is their bed. They made it by not making these vehicle procurements in timely fashion, and now they're sleeping in it. The only thing that matters from here forward is not delaying that car purchase any longer, and stepping up their PR and customer service game for dealing with the fallout. Because they'll need it. This winter and the next three.
Nope...no easy answers. The rebuild program to send 24 Blue cars into Orange service proved too expensive because there were too few un-corroded carbodies left after 30 years in the salt air, so that didn't happen. And the 18 they kept on lease in storage and work duty at Orient Heights for interim considerations proved too far shot to continue operating at all. For the same reason as this week's issues: cold + ice + motionless traction motors sitting in a yard = death on a cold start. Only in this case it wasn't just 1 cold night, but days and weeks of cold nights without moving. Or 18 straight hours without moving on the cars that were still being taken out for work duty.
Basically, short of rotating them out all night in "zombie" shifts one at a time to keep the motors loose--and hoping that doesn't crap something else out in the process--there's nothing more they can do. And nothing they could've done with those 18 Blue cars to buy time to figure out whether any more could get squeezed out of them for Orange. Old cars are old. They act their age. And there's no dialing back the clock unless you're replacing the oldest, most brittle, and most weather-susceptible-with-age components in a a major rebuild program. This is already the shop staff that's pioneered the use of hairnets...bulk-purchase food service hairnets...to keep snow from getting sucked into the motors and crapping them out. We're way past duct tape solutions here.
First thing they're replacing on the Type 7's that are in rebuild is the propulsion system. Short of taking the OLD Orange and Red cars offline for months at a time to do the similar scope of component replacement...there's nothing that'll improve their reliability before the new cars arrive. Either way you're buying half-or-more a new car, and can't move fast enough to stave off the next winter on the calendar.
This is their bed. They made it by not making these vehicle procurements in timely fashion, and now they're sleeping in it. The only thing that matters from here forward is not delaying that car purchase any longer, and stepping up their PR and customer service game for dealing with the fallout. Because they'll need it. This winter and the next three.
