MBTA may go All-electric With Commuter Rail.

Jahvon09

Jahvon09

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This new electric bus would add a new style to the bus line! :)
New MBTA electric bus..jpg
 
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Yeah, I thought that it may be modified, possibly to suit the needs of the MBTA. Time will tell. :unsure:
 
You'd think that they would either wait for electrification of the commuter rail to begin, or maybe set up a test track with an overhead wire so that they can begin testing the trains when they are made & delivered. :unsure:
 
Yup! Like I said, time will tell. But I think that they should work on things at hand, such as getting the new trains on the Red & Orange Lines & for the Green Lines, or they'll have too many irons in the fire. :unsure:
 
The way that the doors are, looks like this train could be used either way.
electrozoom.jpg
 
Jahvon09 said:
The way that the doors are, looks like this train could be used either way.View attachment 18484
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I'm not sure why there are two threads on this, but I'm happy to reiterate the gist of my post from the other thread where this was discussed for anyone who missed it. That's a Stadler KISS, specifically a lightly-photoshopped (into MBTA colors) rendering of the version being built for Caltrain. The California trains have the weird double sets of doors because they need to work with a.) California's standard 8" low platforms and b.) California HSR's unicorn 50" high platforms. Our high platforms are 48", and per the T's own RFI presentation the California KISS is not as-designed compatible with our platforms. The lower doors are irrelevant for our discussions because they can't be used at high-level platforms including the downtown terminals; without high-level doors compatible with our platforms the cars won't work at all. Presumably Stadler could modify the design for 48" platforms (I don't know if that'd include adding traps for the low platforms, or just keeping the low-level doors), but the word from on high is that it is not possible to just import California-spec KISSes because they're not compatible.

(And with respect to what would seem like a straightforward modification, there's the question of whether it's as straightforward as it seems like it should be, and, not necessarily relatedly, whether Stadler will do it, and do it at a price point to make these competitive with other options that are native-compatible with our platforms. Probably yes, but we'll have to wait and see.)
 
Brattle Loop said:
I'm not sure why there are two threads on this, but I'm happy to reiterate the gist of my post from the other thread where this was discussed for anyone who missed it. That's a Stadler KISS, specifically a lightly-photoshopped (into MBTA colors) rendering of the version being built for Caltrain. The California trains have the weird double sets of doors because they need to work with a.) California's standard 8" low platforms and b.) California HSR's unicorn 50" high platforms. Our high platforms are 48", and per the T's own RFI presentation the California KISS is not as-designed compatible with our platforms. The lower doors are irrelevant for our discussions because they can't be used at high-level platforms including the downtown terminals; without high-level doors compatible with our platforms the cars won't work at all. Presumably Stadler could modify the design for 48" platforms (I don't know if that'd include adding traps for the low platforms, or just keeping the low-level doors), but the word from on high is that it is not possible to just import California-spec KISSes because they're not compatible.

(And with respect to what would seem like a straightforward modification, there's the question of whether it's as straightforward as it seems like it should be, and, not necessarily relatedly, whether Stadler will do it, and do it at a price point to make these competitive with other options that are native-compatible with our platforms. Probably yes, but we'll have to wait and see.)
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Well, all I know is that the MBTA has both high & low-level platforms for stations I don't think that they are going to raise the low-levels to high. They are not going to spend extra dough for that. So I think that they would have to come up with something. Amtrak has the same thing, but their trains can use both levels. Their cars have stairs that can be let down for low levels. Also, the new Siemans passenger cars (which they might get to replace the Amfleet 1's) can also do the same thing. But those cars have different ammenities & they are for long-distance traveling, either out west or on the Eastern Seaboard. But I'm pretty certain that they'll figure it all out. :unsure:
 
Jahvon09 said:
Well, all I know is that the MBTA has both high & low-level platforms for stations I don't think that they are going to raise the low-levels to high. They are not going to spend extra dough for that. So I think that they would have to come up with something. Amtrak has the same thing, but their trains can use both levels. Their cars have stairs that can be let down for low levels. Also, the new Siemans passenger cars (which they might get to replace the Amfleet 1's) can also do the same thing. But those cars have different ammenities & they are for long-distance traveling, either out west or on the Eastern Seaboard. But I'm pretty certain that they'll figure it all out. :unsure:
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Amtrak's single-level fleet (with the exception of the Acelas) and all of the MBTA's equipment is equipped for 48" high platforms as well as low platforms (via the stairs and trap doors). There's basically no chance that the T is going to raise all of the platforms to full-high anytime soon (at the pace they've taken with the CR, it could be decades) but certainly not before the next order of cars, meaning that compatibility with low platforms is mandatory.

The T, I should make clear, understands this. The reason the T's own presentations marked the California KISS as incompatible was because the high-level doors were designed for higher platforms than our 48" platforms. There's no rocket science involved here, just technical discussions of whether and how certain vehicles meet the requirements. The unanswered question for the California KISS at this stage is how easily it could be adapted to our platforms; it'd have to have one of either 48" platform doors with traps and steps (this is what all the T's current equipment has) or a combination of low and high doors (which is what the California KISS already has, just that the high doors are a few inches too high). It could be as simple as slightly lowering the high doors to make them compatible, we simply don't know because the process hasn't got that far.
 
New proposed MBTA electric commuter rail..jpg
Could the new possibly-proposed MBTA electric commuter rail look something like this?
 
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Jahvon09 said:
View attachment 19680Could the new proposed MBTA electric commuter rail look something like this?
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That's a Bombardier-built British Rail class 345, photoshopped into MBTA colors.

No particular reason that we couldn't get a streamlined EMU bearing some degree of visual similarity to that (though I personally find the Class 345 rather ugly, though the livery doesn't help).

The problem with streamlined EMUs is that you generally don't get pass-through doors in them, which makes them somewhat inflexible. Not sure whether or not that would be a deal-breaker for the T.
 
Like with the Red Line trains at Park Street Under. You can pass through the train from either side platform to the middle one, if you don't want to go up the stairs to the Green line. The intercom tells you to exit the train to the middle platform if you want to use the elevator.
 
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I assume by passthrough, we're talking about connections between trains rather than across them?
 
notthemonthaugust said:
I assume by passthrough, we're talking about connections between trains rather than across them?
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I was talking about the fact that a lot of streamlined EMUs like the one in the picture above have full-width cabs, meaning that you can't walk through from car to car if they're in the middle of a train. It's not a big deal if you're using them in long enough sets, but some of the proposals the T has received for EMUs have them as individual cars, and it'd be somewhere between annoying and problematic to have, say, an eight-car train divided into four two-car sections that can't be accessed from inside each other (or else they'd just have to jettison the notion of having a bathroom on every train).
 
notthemonthaugust said:
I assume by passthrough, we're talking about connections between trains rather than across them?
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I think these are two different scenarios. One, which Jahvon mentioned is what we use at Park or wherever there is a "Spanish Solution." I've done that many times, waiting for a train to come in so I can get to the other platform. I did that all the time in Munich because the elevator was in the center platform at Hbf and the escalators were at the outside platforms. Given that I'm now disabled and have a bad history of falling down most stairs, I tend to know the easiest way to get somewhere. The second that was mentioned I think is akin to the open gangway concept like most trains everywhere but here in the USA use.
 
jarvismj said:
The second that was mentioned I think is akin to the open gangway concept like most trains everywhere but here in the USA use.
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The one I mentioned was internal to trains, but not quite the same as open gangways. The Class 345s (the trains that photoshop is based on) have open gangways between cars and side entry doors directly into the 'cabin', like a subway car. The MBTA's coaches (and a lot of single-level US passenger stock, for that matter) have side entry doors into vestibules, and typically also have gangways between vestibules to pass between cars, but the vestibules (and thus the doors and gangways) are typically closed off from the 'cabin'.

The exact form doesn't matter to my point, which was that streamlined EMUs that lack passages of any kind through the cab (including the Class 345s) can't have cab cars mid-train without preventing passage through to the adjacent car. That's fine if they're running as either individual sets or combined sets that have no need for passengers to pass through, but a problem if there is going to be some reason that passengers need to pass through. (Under current practice, all CR trains are supposed to run with a coach equipped with a bathroom; anyone not seated in that coach has to pass through others to get to it if they need the facilities.) For flexibility purposes, it might make better sense to have non-streamlined cabs if you're going to be running variable-length, variable-mix consists (kind of like the EMU MLV Bombardier is building for NJ Transit and proposed for the MBTA)
 
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