General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[stick n move]

I was thinking about something this morning. How is it that the Commuter rail which has just as extensive of a rail network if not more expansive than the subway, does not have all of these track issues?

I listened to the radio Boston podcast yesterday with Brian Kane the executive director of the MBTA advisory board and he basically summed it up as they deferred routine maintenance for over 30 years so it got to the point now where they have to rip entire sections out and redo them, where if they had been doing the routine maintenance required you can fix the small issues as they come before they compound into major issues. He estimated that we have 4 years until the MBTA is back into a “new” normal state of repair where there aren’t slow zones or large shut downs.

 

[jklo]

And it's a lot easier to do maintenance on CR since ridership on weekends is so low it's NBD if you take it out of service to do work then.

 

[RandomWalk]

Subways have to contend with confined spaces, electrified infrastructure, and limited access points for equipment and materials. Those all lead to shoving work to off hours.

I would like to see the board grill the leadership on timing for repairs and whether the T can keep things working well. They should ask “What is required for this section/line/station to get to a SOGR? How long would this section/line/station need to be closed to get to a SOGR? What about if work ran 24/7? What is the cost? How much work is required to maintain SOGR? Can it be completed in the routine down time?”

 

[JeffDowntown]

I listened to the radio Boston podcast yesterday with Brian Kane the executive director of the MBTA advisory board and he basically summed it up as they deferred routine maintenance for over 30 years so it got to the point now where they have to rip entire sections out and redo them, where if they had been doing the routine maintenance required you can fix the small issues as they come before they compound into major issues. He estimated that we have 4 years until the MBTA is back into a “new” normal state of repair where there aren’t slow zones or large shut downs.

This is a really sad but unfortunately not surprising state of affairs. Defer maintenance long enough, and you end up with a total rebuild.

 

[Justbuildit]

For me it's the double gut punch of having unreasonably short service hours on one hand, and then failing to use this long down time to make the necessary repairs on the other. It's something like 4 or 5 hours per night, every night, on every line in the system where this maintenance work could be done. And just...nothing.

 

[stefal]

I was thinking about something this morning. How is it that the Commuter rail which has just as extensive of a rail network if not more expansive than the subway, does not have all of these track issues?

Another element in addition to what everyone else has mentioned:
I think CR can easily single-track operations without having a negative impact on service due to its frequencies, so you can pretty much have work ongoing in sections without anyone noticing, apart from the occasional boarding-trains-on-a-different-platform-than-usual detour. I suspect they've been doing this a bit on the Lowell Line the past few years.

 

[Highwayguy]

Do we know CR doesn't have issues that are simply undiscovered? If you don't look you don't see the problems.

Or is it because CR is under FRA regulations, perhaps making inspection and repair (or speed restriction) more rigorously enforced?

Inner Haverhill line is closing for a month starting Saturday…

 

[bakgwailo]

For me it's the double gut punch of having unreasonably short service hours on one hand, and then failing to use this long down time to make the necessary repairs on the other. It's something like 4 or 5 hours per night, every night, on every line in the system where this maintenance work could be done. And just...nothing.

Going to have to disagree with unreasonably short service hours - the MBTA's rail service is pretty in line with most other systems in the world. I would, agree, however that the MBTA's supposed argument for not extending rail service at all (even on weekends) that those are crucial maintenance windows is pretty suspect given the state of disrepair.

I guess the question really is: were they just not utilizing/maximizing these maintenance windows, or that the windows themselves are not long enough for meaningful work.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Going to have to disagree with unreasonably short service hours - the MBTA's rail service is pretty in line with most other systems in the world. I would, agree, however that the MBTA's supposed argument for not extending rail service at all (even on weekends) that those are crucial maintenance windows is pretty suspect given the state of disrepair.

I guess the question really is: were they just not utilizing/maximizing these maintenance windows, or that the windows themselves are not long enough for meaningful work.

It is interesting that in subway tunnel and right-of-way design there appears to be zero forethought for maintainability.

Having enough space to safely single track a line (and work on the other track with a safety barricade), and cut power to one track only for maintenance, would seem to be basic maintainability design concepts that are completely missing from our transit implementation.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Don't take this as more than vague speculation but:

- I don't think the wear is anywhere near as significant on most of it - wider radius curves + far less volume on much of it.

It's a LOT fewer train movements per day. A real lot. The tracks on the CR network aren't taking a pounding every 6-12 minutes each direction. And we really don't have much freight at all. All of the freight tonnage for the region is wadded up into a few monster trains per day spread across the outer Worcester Line, outer Fitchburg Line, and outer Haverhill Line...then just small-to-modest size single locals per day on portions of 5 other lines.

- I believe Keolis does a lot of the work/a lot of the work is done through Keolis, their name is on a lot of work announcements. Are they facing the same staffing issues the MBTA is? I feel like I haven't seen reports of CR trains getting canceled for lack of crews - while that doesn't mean their track crews are also well staffed, it's notably different from the MBTA.

They are not facing the same staffing issues. The hiring pool for passenger RR crews includes the freight RR world, so the T and Amtrak liberally hire away from CSX, the former Pan Am, Norfolk Southern, the Genessee & Wyoming lines, and other area shortlines. The T has had particular success of late hiring away jumping Pan Am crewmembers ahead of their job reassignments with CSX and G&W (ex-Pan Am and Pan Am Southern territory is hurting real real bad for crews right now because of the mass exodus to passenger-land). It's a very competitive job market in New England, and they right now are feasting on it because of the recent upheavals (mergers, labor strife) in the freight world.

I don't know how the shop positions have been faring lately. There was an acute shortage a few years ago, but Keolis is a large global employer so they may have been on top of it.

- I certainly don't have a number, but I feel like there have been a lot of different trackwork projects over the past 10-15 years or so all over the place and like I've seen lots of different announcements go by regarding them. (plus basically every line getting a new/majorly upgraded signal system) They also often seem to be at larger scales than we often see for subway track work - for example, the Haverhill Line got about 30 track-miles replaced in 2021 and you can find a project in of that kind of scope in many years.

Don't forget the Fitchburg Line improvements project within the last decade, major work (rail distressing to allow 80 MPH speeds) on the outer Worcester Line, complete Old Colony tie replacement, major replacement/rehab projects at two Rockburyport drawbridges. Plus all the signal work for the PTC mandate, which renewed a lot of the lines that were most oft-plagued by signal issues.

Then there's the rolling stock. The HSP-46 locomotive order completed in the last 9 years, the F40PH-3C rebuild program now winding its way to completion (all of the non-rebuilds are gone), repairs of a bunch of out-of-service GP40MC's. Then the bi-level fleet getting mid-life overhauled, and the troubled first order of Rotem coaches getting warranty-repaired enough that their reliability is now good. Now the second-batch Rotem order replacing all the single-level cab cars. Loco and cab car uptime (the ones that count for running the train because they have all the controls and signal hardware) hasn't been this good in decades. The only really dodgy rolling stock left on the roster are some of the old single-level trailers...and trailers don't fail often enough to KO a whole train schedule because of their overall simplicity (the worst you'll get is HVAC issues like a hot car, or jammed doors). So the Purple Line fleet has basically never been in this good a shape in 50 years, which is something you CAN'T say for rapid transit who are running rolling ruins (Red), continuing lemons (Green Type 8's), or buggy new tech (Orange).

And it's a lot easier to do maintenance on CR since ridership on weekends is so low it's NBD if you take it out of service to do work then.

Somewhat true. The PTC signal work involved a lot of weekend bustitutions. But most of the time the lighter weekend schedules simply allow for exclusive single-tracking, so you can have 1 track down for the count for an entire weekend without it causing any schedule disruptions. And, on a lot of lines, single-tracking on the weeknight off-peak at no peril to schedules.

If we implement full Regional Rail frequencies some of that extra flexibility may go away, but right now the starkness of the peak vs. off-peak divide makes for very large maintenance windows where single-track ops are possible.

Inner Haverhill line is closing for a month starting Saturday…

That's the last line segment on the whole system that still needs cab signals installed. And it's last because the old ABS signal system is ancient and needs complete cabling replacement. The only other line that was in as decayed a signal state as Reading was the Rockport Branch, and that too had liberal amounts of bustitution (some of it wadded up with the Gloucester drawbridge replacement).

 

[dhawkins]

So did anyone nominate a fellow aB patron to Mayor Wu for MBTA guru?

" Instead of selecting someone from a list of candidates assembled privately by the mayor or her staff, Wu is inviting members of the public to recommend someone for the volunteer position or recommend themselves by submitting a resume."

Commonwealth Magazine

 

[TallIsGood]

At what point could the T have HRT lines be without drivers? Would that help the personnel shortages?

 

[RandomWalk]

The Red Line southbound is slower than molasses in January this morning. From Alewife to Kendall, the only spots that were vaguely close to normal were a short stretch departing Porter and a little bit departing the Harvard curve to Central. Otherwise, the train was riding the brakes the whole way.

 

[sneijder]

The Red Line southbound is slower than molasses in January this morning. From Alewife to Kendall, the only spots that were vaguely close to normal were a short stretch departing Porter and a little bit departing the Harvard curve to Central. Otherwise, the train was riding the brakes the whole way.

At least Cambridge has been aggressive in deploying their cycling safety ordinance, giving a great alternative for local trips. Hampshire St separated bike lanes were just completed. I'd imagine the Alewife park-n-ride ridership is abysmal right now, though making the entire fresh pond parkway corridor really hostile for residents.

 

[#bancars]

At least Cambridge has been aggressive in deploying their cycling safety ordinance, giving a great alternative for local trips. Hampshire St separated bike lanes were just completed. I'd imagine the Alewife park-n-ride ridership is abysmal right now, though making the entire fresh pond parkway corridor really hostile for residents.

This--we very rarely use transit within Cambridge (or even to go to most of Somerville)--biking is almost always much faster and it is getting more comfortable at a very fast pace, in large part to the CSO.

 

[FK4]

Orange Line tonight was slow as fuck. Must have been moving under 10 mph all the way from Tufts to Forest Hills. I’m so done with the T. I hate driving to work but between waiting 20 minutes for a train and the trip taking twice as long, it’s not worth it at all.

 

[nbcoram]

Orange Line tonight was slow as fuck. Must have been moving under 10 mph all the way from Tufts to Forest Hills. I’m so done with the T. I hate driving to work but between waiting 20 minutes for a train and the trip taking twice as long, it’s not worth it at all.

Not quite 10 mi/h the whole way, but a good portion of that route is covered by 10 mi/h restrictions on the southbound. Tufts-FH took 13 minutes three years ago but takes 20 now. Not great, to say the least...

(note: forest hills data is wacky on TM dashboard lately, but 20 minutes is in line with what I saw yesterday)
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In good Orange Line slow zone news, the monster slow zone from Sullivan to Community College seems to have been lifted in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. The modest Assembly-Sullivan slow zone is also gone.

Unfortunately, no relief on the northbound from Community College to Sullivan Square (which had gotten reduced from ~5 minutes to ~3 minutes travel time) quite yet.

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In other news, Red Line service delivery has been nothing short of trash the last few days. 83% of scheduled runs on average have been delivered in the last month, but that number has been around 70% the last few days and was around 75% for a few days last week. And remember, this is compared to the schedule, which is already significantly lower frequency than it was a year and a half ago and especially compared to pre-pandemic. (Blue and Orange Lines are both delivering on average 96% of scheduled service over the last month, for comparison; Green Line is 68% over the last month but this is higher than the 66% for the 4 years leading up to the pandemic, albeit with fewer scheduled runs than pre-covid.)

I seriously wonder how long it will be until Red Line service is anywhere near acceptable. The speed restrictions are probably going to take a long time, there have been no new Red Line deliveries from CRRC in over 14 months (they have also not delivered anything for 3 out of the last 4 months on the Orange Line) and the fleets of old cars are very clearly showing their age (in particular the older 15/16 and 1700 series cars), the new signals are delayed, and they haven't posted the Heavy Rail Operator position since before the new deal with the union (they *will* get far more applications when they do; they got a surge of Light Rail Operator and Bus Operator applicants when the deal was struck). Despite the T running more train sets at peak on the Red Line vs. a year ago (18-20 now, 14-16 a year ago), headways have gotten *worse* due to the speed restrictions. This is going to take a long, long time to fix.... and this doesn't account for the fact that the MBTA has other things to maintain besides Red.

And oh yeah, speaking of the headways, this bad service is made worse by the very unstable headways. You'll get a few trains bunched together 5 minutes or less apart, but miss the last of the bunched ones and you're waiting 15-20 minutes. Want to get somewhere on the branches? Good luck!

 

[ant8904]

MBTA track department workers didnât do their jobs and missed critical problems, new report says - The Boston Globe

General manager Phillip Eng said no one at the T will face discipline or termination for the failure.

www.bostonglobe.com

Globe reports of the result of the investigation from Carlson Transport Consulting hired by the MBTA is out. The GM is doing a conference of the results. My current takeways (based on the news article, I don't have a livestream of the conference or the 18 page report) are:

• Find roles and responsibilities have been too spread out between workers
• Does not name names and nobody is getting fired
• Blames systemic issues that it fails to train or hire people with enough experience
• One example I see in the article for the hiring aspect is Maintenance of Way laborers should have 2 years of experience in track work, but some worker's experience in has been dealing with landscaping aspect in maintaining right of way but it counted towards track work.
• Recommends creating "Standard Operating Procedures" for inspections, more qualifications for hiring, training, changing criteria for track defect testing, and staffing for track inspectors. Also make a long term plan

The portion that talks about how responsibility is too spread out reminds me of the the adage "if everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible". The recommendation about SOPs sounds like it's trying to resolve it having clear processes and procedures so it makes it clear certain persons are explicitly responsible and there's certain things certain roles have to do (like make sure X step is done in track inspections and it's documented so there's data to actually gauge).

This does make me wonder how more functional systems been doing this. How did things work in past decades when tracks was not so full of defects that slowzones has to be done (omitted speculation made on this website before that perhaps the danger are over stated)? Was it just a bunch of unwritten procedures that workers been doing that has been lost or insufficient the entire time? Or has there been a loss of formal institutional knowledge and procedures?

And there's there also our past discussion on this board - the observations about sloppiness and inattention to detail like the whole GLX map discussions. Roles and responsibilities that does not explicitly assign to a position but everyone in general is bad. But the other side of the coin is lack of formal assignment can still work if workers leans to more taking initiative to get stuff done versus "not my job" that this also implies.

Finally, my understanding of the report does seem to read that it is ultimately setting blame to the rank-and-file workers - though as a collective and created by the system failing to give clear direction. But is there also a willful ignorance encouraging and enabling to defer or even ignore issues? To me, that helps explain the lack of SOPs and the systemic over-dispersion of responsibilities that feels more akin of a brand new system with everything learned on the fly versus an institution that can trace its history for over a century.

Typically I tend to follow discussions before I start saying anything (if at all) as a lot of discussions helps formulate my thoughts and right now I'm still processing. But hopefully what I wrote above doesn't miss any marks too egregiously.


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Edit:
Here's the full report:

https://htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com/files/mbta-track-inspection-evaluation-final-pdf-64fa103e39d9b.pdf

 

[Stlin]

For the sake of completeness, the MBTA's internal safety review was also published here:

https://htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com/files/fy23-sr01-speed-restriction-report-final-083023-64fa103e40dc5.pdf

 

[FK4]

Not quite 10 mi/h the whole way, but a good portion of that route is covered by 10 mi/h restrictions on the southbound. Tufts-FH took 13 minutes three years ago but takes 20 now. Not great, to say the least...
View attachment 42509View attachment 42510View attachment 42511
(note: forest hills data is wacky on TM dashboard lately, but 20 minutes is in line with what I saw yesterday)
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Wow. Thanks for sharing this info. I had not ridden the Orange for a few weeks and it was definitely slower last night than it had been in early August. Really blows my mind how opaque the T has been about what it will take to fix these problems. Anyone on here have a sense of whether the slow zones on the south side of the OL are things that will require years of isolated micro projects or whether there are big chunks that might be taken care of soon?