General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

stick n move said:
Whoa....

“Senate wants an outside review of MBTA Retirement Fund”

“The measure, which senators passed, 38-1, on Thursday as part of their $42.7 billion budget bill, would require the MBTA to hire an outside auditor or actuary to perform an analysis of the $1.5 billion fund’s “sustainability.”

The pension system is carrying a $1.4 billion unfunded liability and has relied on ever-increasing payments from the MBTA itself, which T officials say could rise from $103 million this year to as much as $137 million within three years, depending on how the fund performs.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/05/24/senate-wants-outside-review-mbta-retirement-fund/nbZXcUxRUNd3YH1rfSX1OJ/story.html%3foutputType=amp
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Yah an audit is nice, but it doesn't mean any action will be taken.
 
Seen on Twitter, GL 3847 had a derailment at Kenmore today, causing chaos on a parade day of course.
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Just a couple other pics dug up from Twitter, looks like a bit more than your standard low speed derailment.
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Derailed on the crossover. Train was in the C/D tunnel exiting Kenmore, and reached the at-grade junction where the C and D routes diverge. It's a typical two-bore tunnel with center divider until you get to the point of the split where it briefly becomes an open-cavern segment (the transition from separate bores to cavern easily seen on the accident photos). On the outbound side only there's a long crossover that flings D-Outbound off of the C-Outbound track, sends it cutting across C-Inbound, and throws it over to the far wall next to D-Inbound for where the tunnels split. Car 3847 is on the outbound crossover to the D alignment, sitting on top of the C-Inbound track and the switch frog.

Location suggests that one of the car's trucks may have snagged the switch or frog, which has been a longstanding risk point for the derailment problems on these enormous pieces of crap. The fact that the derailment location appears to be clear of the actual switch suggests it was not a split switch. There are no speed restrictions at the junction or throughout this relatively straight portion of tunnel, so it's not a particularly high-risk area for leadfoot operators going too fast. Unless it was a seriously flagrant overspeed, that's probably not going to cause this.
 
whittle said:
What percent of green line derailments are type 8s?
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There's no comprehensive running list, only data subsets from various FCMB items on derailments.

"A real lot" is the closest we have to a Breda vs. Kinki head-to-head count. The pronounced skew towards Type 8's is indeed borne out in the statistical subsets that have been released from time to time.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Location suggests that one of the car's trucks may have snagged the switch or frog, which has been a longstanding risk point for the derailment problems on these enormous pieces of crap. The fact that the derailment location appears to be clear of the actual switch suggests it was not a split switch. There are no speed restrictions at the junction or throughout this relatively straight portion of tunnel, so it's not a particularly high-risk area for leadfoot operators going too fast. Unless it was a seriously flagrant overspeed, that's probably not going to cause this.
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I think it's notable that riders reported the train was going "really fast." While everyone has a different threshold of "really fast," it still indicates that the train may have been going at a fast enough rate of speed for passengers to notice something was up before they all went flying.
 
datadyne007 said:
I think it's notable that riders reported the train was going "really fast." While everyone has a different threshold of "really fast," it still indicates that the train may have been going at a fast enough rate of speed for passengers to notice something was up before they all went flying.
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It's a high-speed crossover that is pretty lengthy from start to finish, with no discernible speed dropoff ahead of the switch because of the 1500 ft. straightway it's on under Beacon St. The split happens between Maitland and Miner Sts. (little closer to Miner) >1700 ft. past the Kenmore platforms and <800 ft. from the C portal. The D does a little S-curve through what's now that surface parking lot to get on-alignment for the Fenway portal, but that curve doesn't start until crossing over through the open-cavern portion of tunnel. I don't know if there's a permanent yellow signal or not; outbound is the only place you'd ever notice it because inbound this switch is too close to the portals to get going fast enough. In general this is zippy tunnel because the C portal is straight and long while the D junction is "modern" 1958 construction on geometry.

Riders felt the car strike the tunnel wall, and the strike point is clearly visible on the center truck. Rear truck stayed railed on the crossover making it to a stop at the C-Inbound track's frogs. Center truck derailed. And the photo of the front truck sitting in the divider-wall portion of tunnel is too grainy for me to see if it's completely on the tracks, or just mostly. The problematic center section moved the most laterally, though it didn't have to be the one to come off the tracks to jackknife like that.

T rules out any mechanical fault with the track structure or junction switch, so we're down to: (A) car, (B) human error, (C) fluke as potential causes.
 
F-Line,

Do you have a beat on the likely, next 2~3 MBTA projects after the GLX?
 
odurandina said:
F-Line,

Do you have a beat on the likely, next 2~3 MBTA projects after the GLX?
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Check out the FY20-24 Capital Investment Plan (CIP). The final Fiscal Management Control Board (FMCB) CIP vote is scheduled to happen today.

Any large project is first budgeted in the CIP.

There are many large projects that are in progress now. The two largest are:


If you are strictly talking about expansion projects, the two projects with dedicated funding for completion:


After that, there are four expansion projects that are named in the CIP as "Expansion Project Development"

The advancement of project development efforts, which may include environmental permitting, project feasibility, conceptual design, alternatives analysis or project design
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The named projects are:

 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's a high-speed crossover that is pretty lengthy from start to finish, with no discernible speed dropoff ahead of the switch because of the 1500 ft. straightway it's on under Beacon St. The split happens between Maitland and Miner Sts. (little closer to Miner) >1700 ft. past the Kenmore platforms and <800 ft. from the C portal. The D does a little S-curve through what's now that surface parking lot to get on-alignment for the Fenway portal, but that curve doesn't start until crossing over through the open-cavern portion of tunnel. I don't know if there's a permanent yellow signal or not; outbound is the only place you'd ever notice it because inbound this switch is too close to the portals to get going fast enough. In general this is zippy tunnel because the C portal is straight and long while the D junction is "modern" 1958 construction on geometry.

Riders felt the car strike the tunnel wall, and the strike point is clearly visible on the center truck. Rear truck stayed railed on the crossover making it to a stop at the C-Inbound track's frogs. Center truck derailed. And the photo of the front truck sitting in the divider-wall portion of tunnel is too grainy for me to see if it's completely on the tracks, or just mostly. The problematic center section moved the most laterally, though it didn't have to be the one to come off the tracks to jackknife like that.

T rules out any mechanical fault with the track structure or junction switch, so we're down to: (A) car, (B) human error, (C) fluke as potential causes.
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At today's FMCB meeting they said they've ruled out infrastructure and the vehicle and are investigating into the driver.
 
WCVB 5 story / FMCB Coverage:
Green Line operator suspended; MBTA says derailment was 'operator-related'

"Findings suggest the cause of the Green Line derailment that injured 10 people Saturday is operator-related, MBTA officials announced. The operator of the train has been suspended."

“We have ruled out both the vehicle and the infrastructure as a cause of this incident,” [eff Gonneville, MBTA deputy general manager] said. “At this point in time it does appear to be operator-related.”
 
Well that sucks.

2mph speed limits at switches for all!
 
Why is there no videos of any red line trains running? Even before the orange cars came over to the US there were videos of them on the test track in China. Whats the deal?

Im soo excited to see how they look on the track. Idk about you guys but I 100% think these new cars are the best looking subway trains in America. Actually I cant think of any heavy rail metro cars anywhere that look better, maybe some trams are close but as far as heavy rail theres nothing I think is close. With the badass lights on the all black front, the color scheme, and tinted windows they look amazing. I used to think the orange line was ugly as hellll, but it looks badass with these cars. I liked the newer red line cars with the black stripe on the front and with the new cars its going to look even better. I really wanna see some red cars in action. I honestly think that just by people seeing and riding on these new cars their impression of the T will go way up because it will look modern to go with the many improvements.

When we have all of the red/orange cars in operation, the type 10 green line trainsets, along with the recently new commuter rail locos, and finally the new Acela Aveila Liberty trains all in service were going to have an absolutely badass fleet of trains in the city.

red-line-4edit.jpg

orange-line-china-1.jpg

*TBD
tram-barcelona-8998.jpg

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It is my personal belief that the red line cars aren't running yet in China... Can I back up that belief? Not really but the last photo they provided of the pilot car didn't look very ready to roll to me: https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/fmcb-meeting-docs/2019/05-may/2019-05-20/2019-05-20-fmcb-joint-21-red-line-orange-line-update.pdf

The rather dark image on page 9. Also of everything was going according to original plans then the red line pilot car should already be on MBTA property and testing, which it clearly isn't. I know the test track has been delayed but I suspect the car has an equal delay. On the plus side they have specifically stated that red like production car bodies are being produced at CRCC now, I don't think they're at the scale of OL quite yet though. But yeah with the OL even CRCC and Chinese media were quick to post videos of it running tests there.
 
At least some of the riders had the option of taking the commuter rail.

This is one of those days where you should just WFH, if you can of course. Saw a picture of what looked like a ton of people standing in the rain for the shuttles.
 
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