Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

king_vibe said:
It’s been six months and every single metric has gotten worse.
Click to expand...

What is most frustrating to me about the MBTA under Eng is that:

a.) They don't seem to be in a particular hurry to implement repairs to reduce slow zones...

MBTA GM's measured approach to spending: 'It's important I spend it in the right place'
https://www.wcvb.com/article/mbta-g...aring-spending-money-system-repairs/44350922#

After a series of accidents and breakdowns, including a Green Line trolley derailment just two weeks ago, lawmakers wanted to know why out of the $378 million they've approved for improvements to the T, less than 30% has been spent so far.

"As important as it is to spend it all quickly, it's important that I make sure that I spend in the right places," Eng said. "So that's one of the reasons that we're taking a measured approach in how we do this."
Click to expand...

and b.) There is no answer, not even a very general ballpark, when asked for a timeline when the slow zones will be eliminated or at least substantially reduced...

'Little by little': MBTA GM Phil Eng talks hiring sprees, slow zones and beer
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/08/0...f-attrition-radio-boston-interview-newsletter

“Each time we go in, we’re tackling different components,” he said of the upcoming diversions on the Red Line, declining to give a timeline on when all speed restrictions there would be eliminated. Instead, he said they’re being lifted “little by little.”
Click to expand...

MBTA slow zones remain a 'moving target,' general manager says
www.wgbh.org

MBTA slow zones remain a 'moving target,' general manager says

Slow zones have been a big complaint among riders.
www.wgbh.org www.wgbh.org

Speaking on Boston Public Radio, MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said the transit agency has a general idea of when they'll be "tackling things," but he was reluctant to share a timeline as to when the speed restrictions might lift.
Click to expand...

Clearly the T has the attention of Beacon Hill with all of the recent bad headlines. Tell them what it's going to cost to fix this, and how long, with a certain amount of funds, it will take to fix them. It doesn't have to be a specific date, but by now they should have some idea of the extent of the problem and the resources/funds needed to address it. If the MBTA said it would take a billion dollars and five years, then we can at least start to have a conversation. We can't even discuss this in any kind of informed way based on the lack of any coherent answers from the T.
 
Smuttynose said:
Tell them what it's going to cost to fix this, and how long, with a certain amount of funds, it will take to fix them. It doesn't have to be a specific date, but by now they should have some idea of the extent of the problem and the resources/funds needed to address it. If the MBTA said it would take a billion dollars and five years, then we can at least start to have a conversation. We can't even discuss this in any kind of informed way based on the lack of any coherent answers from the T.
Click to expand...

I have the vague impression that the MBTA's problems in the divisions needed to actually resolve these issues aren't a thing that can necessarily be rushed. If you've lost a lot of your institutional knowledge + experienced skilled workers, I don't know that there's some way to shortcut that. There are only so many people the remaining competent staff you have can provide on the job training/supervision to at once - especially if you still need them to get productive work done. And potentially a very long time before those new people are skilled enough to really trust their work, and even longer before they know enough to train people themselves and grow your capacity to onboard.

And when you're at the beginning of that rebuilding process, I don't know how you put a time estimate on it - you likely haven't even had one successful crop of new employees really make it to that end stage of being competent enough to become trainers themselves, so all you've got is a vague guess. You also probably don't really know what attrition/failure rates are going to be - or how much you can improve them over time with refinements to training, work rules, compensation, etc.

You can't always solve for time with throwing money/people at it. 9 women don't make a baby in a month.

--------

With that said I 100% agree that the lack of clear communication from the MBTA doesn't help. Even stating what they aren't sure about and why is more informative to both the public and decisionmakers than just not saying anything.

I am also making the assumption that the work environment here is sufficiently different from freight rail that attempting to poach staff from the broader rail world is not that much of a shortcut - 50% less training time maybe than no experience, but not 90%.
 
IMG_3888.jpeg

Nature is healing. I assume that Middlesex has abandoned this excavator and billed the T for it.
 
Did they use Chinese Steel or something and GLX is already falling apart? I could see the Red Line being in bad shape in parts but not GLX.
 
jklo said:
Did they use Chinese Steel or something and GLX is already falling apart? I could see the Red Line being in bad shape in parts but not GLX.
Click to expand...

Do you have a specific reason to call out Chinese metallurgy or are you just being racist? (yeah yeah CRRC blows, but so did Hyundai, Breda and Boeing)
 
The GLX had been shut down from August 22 2022 to Sept 19, 2022, to enable connection to the Medford Branch and some more work on the Union Branch. I feel that the odds that they'd ran a geometry train then are good, and we're almost exactly one year from the relauch of services after that shutdown. I feel like the reasons that all the GLX slow zones are popping up right now is that a new annual inspection / geometry revealed it, somethings not being evident until you go looking for it. Those defects probably developed in the first year of actual in-service use, so I'd say we're likely just seeing the consequences of fully loaded rush hour trains vs empty test trains etc making themselves known - I wouldn't necessarily chalk it up to poor construction yet, just teething pain, settling etc and wear.
 
Stlin said:
The GLX had been shut down from August 22 2022 to Sept 19, 2022, to enable connection to the Medford Branch and some more work on the Union Branch. I feel that the odds that they'd ran a geometry train then are good, and we're almost exactly one year from the relauch of services after that shutdown. I feel like the reasons that all the GLX slow zones are popping up right now is that a new annual inspection / geometry revealed it, somethings not being evident until you go looking for it. Those defects probably developed in the first year of actual in-service use, so I'd say we're likely just seeing the consequences of fully loaded rush hour trains vs empty test trains etc making themselves known - I wouldn't necessarily chalk it up to poor construction yet, just teething pain, settling etc and wear.
Click to expand...
The Medford branch hasn't been in passenger service for a full year, though. I guess it's still possible that they conveniently scheduled the inspection for the Medford branch together with the Union Sq branch.

Either way, the fact that one year of full-load passenger service is enough to trigger 3 mph slow zones should be extremely alarming.

My current hope is that since the slow zones are 3 mph - lower than the vast majority of other Green Line slow zones - they may be just suspicions pending confirmation, instead of confirmed track problems to be fixed. Of course, that's most likely wishful thinking.
 
I observed that trains ride the brakes between East Somerville and the base of the incline to the flying junction. That happens to be where all the leads to the VMF join the mainline. Did the trains mess up the points by traveling at line speed?
 
I was trying to find a comparison but there really isn’t one. Even the Angel’s Flight funicular in Los Angeles is slightly faster than 3mph. I cannot believe this this is considered acceptable.
 
weird watching the E line slow to an absolute crawl to cross the Washington st. Bridge. What was even weirder was watching the heavier, bigger, older diesel commuter rail train go across the same bridge in the opposite direction at normal speed.
Both new tracks, laid at roughly the same time, next to each other, by the same company and the CR can use them no bother!
 
Charlie_mta said:
When I was a kid and in my teens back in the 1960s and 70s, I rode the T system extensively, and don't recall seeing or hearing about any slow zones. All the HRT lines and the Green Line moved along fine. I don't see why that cannot be the case today
Click to expand...

Everybody that maintained that system learned from their superiors and have retired. The recent 3rd party report indicates very little knowledge transfer occurred, and leadership in the department left. The T is left with a department starting from scratch essentially, in terms of methods and procedures, with no leadership. There's a new Director of Maintenance of Way as of Friday, a position that has been vacant since last year(!!!!) (among other new positions/shifts in leadership), so here's to hoping for progress.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top