New Red and Orange Line Cars

Matthew said:
Yes, it's a scandal that idiotic protectionism requirements are allowed to bilk the taxpayer.

But the argument I'm pointing out doesn't affect "Buy America" (the WTO would have to object for that to happen). It affects "Buy <insert state>".

The point of the Commerce Clause originally was to give the Federal government a tool to break down barriers to trade between states. What is "Buy Massachusetts" but a barrier to trade between states?
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But so is "Buy New York", and since Bombardier/Alstom/Kawasaki have made the investments in New York state and benefit from that, they probably won't make that argument. If the other bidders don't, who would?
 
choo said:
The state seems to be saving $200 million on this order than what they budgeted. Is there any idea what those funds will be used for? Be great if they could put it into upgrading the signals and tracks.

Also, any idea what will be done at the red and orange yards they mention?
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I mentioned before, but there have been rumors that the MBTA might exercise the option with Rotem to buy 75 more commuter rail cars. Despite the ongoing warranty/modification issues with the existing Rotem cars, the primary reason the have not exercised the option is they did not have funds identified to pay for it. Note that in the presentation to the Board of Director's for the Red/Orange order Dr. Scott reviewed the scores of the bidders. They found Rotem to be "Acceptable" for their technical, manufacturing, quality assurance, and overall proposal for Red/Orange, and found them "Potential to Become Acceptable" for past performance. They could have found them "Unacceptable" for past performance, so they must feel progress has been made. They also could have rated them "Good" in all of those categories, but there weren't very many "Good" ratings for any sections of the five proposals reviewed. Bombardier got one "Good" for technical proposal, CNR (the winner) got two "Goods" for manufacturing and M/WBE participation, and Kawasaki got one good for M/WBE participation as well. The only unacceptable scores were all for CSR (the other bidder from China), which got "Unacceptable" scores for Technical, Manufacturing, and Quality Assurance.

The MBTA's annual CIP process should be starting soon, they might use that opportunity to formalize ideas for spending the money.

The work in the yards includes replacing ties/rail/power systems. There has been very little work done at Cabot or Wellington since those yards were built in the 1970s.
 
davem said:
Jahvon09, you can't just post an entire article like that. It violates copyright and could get the whole forum in trouble. (See the issue with Banker and Tradesman) You need to at least provide a link to the original article, cite where it's from (I'm guessing the Globe, but you didn't say) and really should only post a brief "fair use" quote of a paragraph or two, with a link to click through for those who want to read the whole article.

You can not just copy/paste text someone else wrote without giving credit. As someone who's had my work used without permission or acknowledgement, this is seriously, 100%, not at all okay to do.

Besides that, we knew this news days ago and have been talking about it for the past few pages, you're not posting any new information.
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Hello!

Haven't you heard of www.mbta.com?

That is where I saw it. And since when is it a crime to copy and paste it? I don't see anyone else complaining about it but YOU.

And if you knew it, so what. And if the admin thinks that it might be a violation, then he can delete it.

Until he does, oh well. Deal with it. :rolleyes:
 
It is an issue because of copyright laws and if it was on the MBTA website then they had to of gotten permission to post it. It is part of international and US copyright laws that you have to give credit and for a newspaper like The Globe they will get upset about people posting whole articles because the idea is that to access all their content you buy a subscription.

If you find something on the MBTA website they produced it is their intellectual property and you must credit them and should probably just link back to their page and people can read it if they want to.

I'm in college currently and all my professors constantly talk about citing sources and how important it is not to plagiarize so yes it is a big issue.

The rule of thumb is if you didn't write it or produce the image give credit to whoever did.
 
BostonObserver said:
Whats to stop CNR from closing the plant after the cars are built to move to the next 'build in in my state contract' and putting all these worker on unemployment?
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Nothing I suppose, other than wanting to get a return on their investment. I think the idea is that hopefully they are bidding on this to get their first US order under their belt, which should open the door to other US orders for them based on what kind of reputation they earn from this order. If they were to win future orders, they could still use this plant, unless other future orders also specified that they were built in [x] state.
 
Deetroyt said:
Nothing I suppose, other than wanting to get a return on their investment. I think the idea is that hopefully they are bidding on this to get their first US order under their belt, which should open the door to other US orders for them based on what kind of reputation they earn from this order. If they were to win future orders, they could still use this plant, unless other future orders also specified that they were built in [x] state.
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I read somewhere the intent is, that if they were to win future orders, even if they had to build in that state, MA would serve as the factory that would supply the majority of the parts. Who know's what will actually transpire.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Usually, and at the bottom of the page below a story, the word Copyright would be seen.

I saw no such word there. :mad:
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Since 1978, it is not necessary for the word copyright or the (C) symbol to appear in order for the work to be copyrighted.

All work post-1978 is presumed copyrighted unless otherwise stated.

You can get additional protections by registering with the Library of Congress, but it is not necessary.
 
choo said:
The state seems to be saving $200 million on this order than what they budgeted. Is there any idea what those funds will be used for? Be great if they could put it into upgrading the signals and tracks.

Also, any idea what will be done at the red and orange yards they mention?
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Exercise the option orders up-front so they get all the extra cars. On a higher bid they would have had to go fishing for more funding to pad the rosters, so one of the (several) reasons for doing a base + option order is because of the uncertainty in what the final bids will be. Now that they know they're going to immediately exercise the +58 option on the Red Line cars so they get every single one of them.

Will provide ample padding for when the 01800 cars have to get rotated out for their 25-year midlife overhauls, since believe it or not 2014 is their 20th anniversary in service. Now they can comfortably do that work on-time instead of pushing their luck. Then when the 18's are done with rebuild all 58 of the 01700 cars can get retired. Those are finishing up their midlife rebuild this Fall (16 units left to go), but since they will be the last old-car tech left on the system the parts are going to be very scarce in 10 years and make the day-to-day maint costs precipitously skyrocket...even if they're still in good running condition in the year 2020. So tapping the options gives them a definitive cutoff point for the 17's they can plan around without needing to stockpile parts or plan for the yearly maint budget to escalate.



As for yards, it's customary with any car order to do misc. upgrades on the equipment to get them up-to-spec for maintaining the new vehicles. Wellington's probably also going to need extra storage tracks laid on the currently empty far west end, since this car order is increasing the fleet by +32. In this case they're also using it as an excuse to stuff funding into long overdue carhouse and yard track rebuild on both lines because the yards are starting to suffer under too much deferred maintenance. Orient Heights got a major overhaul funded through some of the back-end payments on the Blue cars to get it back up to state-of-repair, so new cars is a convenient excuse for beating the drum on oft-ignored funding needs at the major maint facilities.



So any savings they get are pretty much going to get pumped right back into Red and Orange vehicle reliability since there's so many unfunded projects which directly impact the ability to serve the new cars. So it's not exactly found money for cool stuff.
 
Did I read in one of those links that the new rail cars for the Red & Orange Lines are going to be slightly longer than the current existing fleets of the older cars?

Well, how can that be, when all of the platforms for the new cars in a six-car configuration would seem too short for the new ones? :eek:
 
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Because of that emoji, I can't help but imagine Jahvon09 walks through life with that expression.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Did I read in one of those links that the new cars for the Red & Orange Lines are going to be slightly longer than the current existing fleet of the older cars?

Well, how can that be, when all of the platforms for the new cars in a six-car configuration would seem too short for the new ones? :eek:
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Nope. Exactly the same length as the current cars, right down to the inch.

Specs here if you want to read all the technical gobbledygook: https://www.mbta.com/business_cente...O Technical Specification October 22 2013.pdf. Car dimensions on p. 38.
 
F-line, this question is more of your opinion than any facts, but do you expect all of these cars to be delivered on time? You've talked in other posts about this Chinese company pumping money into this order because its their first US one, and they won't mind losing a bit of money if it gets them established and allows them to recoup on future orders to other cities. But if they've got to build a whole facility, hire and train employees, test everything, etc., I know this is all planned for, but what is your expectation for the dates being met?
 
I just hope that there are no problems, and if there are, then hopefully, they can all be worked out where EVERYONE is happy! :cool:
 
CNR must be really happy right now. If Boston gets the Olympics in 2024 then everyone will be whisked around on brand new CNR trains. Advertising you can't buy.
 
Mongo said:
CNR must be really happy right now. If Boston gets the Olympics in 2024 then everyone will be whisked around on brand new CNR trains. Advertising you can't buy.
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Oh, they bought it. They gave the T a huge discount vs. the other bidders. I doubt the Olympics factored into that though, especially since Beijing will likely host two years earlier.
 
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