New Red and Orange Line Cars

I have not heard that they were in service yet. Last I heard was that they were in testing.
 
HenryAlan said:
I kind of stopped paying attention, but just saw this on New Trains in Boston. Is this true, there is a new Red Line train operating on revenue trackage?

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The tracker picks up pings from the RFID tags onboard the lead car on the train, and doesn't differentiate between revenue and non-revenue moves because it can't. Once it leaves the Wellington test track or Cabot leads it's being pinged on the mainline and picked up by the tracker same as Orange and GL Type 9 test trains have been lighting up the tracker all year. You have to cross-ref them with the NETransit active rosters to filter the car numbers that haven't been accepted, and that still doesn't tell you the difference when it's a revenue-accepted set that just happens to be doing a non-revenue test extra.

This means, at minimum, that the RFID tags have been activated on the Red test sets where for the first few months after delivery they were not. That 4-car set DOES test on revenue trackage overnight or on the far off-peak, just like the Orange test sets can and do deadhead on the mainline at any time between revenue runs when traffic's light enough. I guess the only way to really differentiate is that an Orange mainline test lighting up the tracker is probably going in/out of service every time at Wellington, while the Red set lighting up the tracker is probably going in/out of service at JFK every time.
 
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Poftak: "I'm disappointed to announce there are further delays in the procurement of the new Red and Orange line trains..." no real details beyond that.

One of the board members pushed for more details, this is basically the response:

"COVID 19 has made this challenging, we are working with CRRC to come up with a new schedule." "We do not currently have a schedule for the rollout."

"We expect to get a third car in service on the Orange Line this month. The first two cars are back in full service."

No mention of the fact they were massively delayed before COVID, no mention of real dates or number of cars at various stages of production. No mention of the Red Line. For context the third trainset that may be entering service within the next month has been on property for months now, and Poftak referenced delays with CRRC in both China and Springfield as to why there were no more cars in the testing pipeline.
 
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Looks like the new trains will never be on time with production, testing & being put into service. This is just ridiculous!:mad:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
Looks like the new trains will never be on time with production, testing & being put into service. This is just ridiculous!:mad:
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I don't think any rail vehicle procurement for the MBTA has ever been "on time". Though, from what I understand, this one might be the closest to 'on-time'. As crazy as that sounds.
 
ra84970 said:
I don't think any rail vehicle procurement for the MBTA has ever been "on time". Though, from what I understand, this one might be the closest to 'on-time'. As crazy as that sounds.
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Remembrances of the Red 01800's '94-95 rollout on RR.net threads relating to this procurement say that's not crazy at all. Being 1st-gen AC traction product, the Bombers were torturously slow to roll out and the choo-choo boards back in the day on AOL dial-up were aflame with laments that they'll never get rid of those 01400 "rustbuckets". But the Bombers ended up swarming on the back half of acceptances and have held up just super in their 25th year of service.


Short attention-span theatre IS the universal constant.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Short attention-span theatre IS the universal constant.
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At the 90,000 foot level, I also blame the federal government for keeping us an island of practice, technology, and policy. This Anglo-American island mentality stuff has made it all quite difficult for the layperson to have a historical reference.
 
ra84970 said:
At the 90,000 foot level, I also blame the federal government for keeping us an island of practice, technology, and policy. This Anglo-American island mentality stuff has made it all quite difficult for the layperson to have a historical reference.
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Ra8 -- "would that it were" [John Kerry numerous times]
Unfortunately -- we are not that island -- we are critically dependent for many things on a country who's fundamental approach is opposed to our fundamental approach to economics and liberty and who manages the in/outs to benefit the Chinese Communist Party staying in power

If the shop in Springfield was dealing only with suppliers from the "Angloworld" -- more correctly the "West" including not just the British Commonwealth and the the EU and the Americas but the "extended West" of places like Japan, Korea, etc. -- we wouldn't be in the current situation
 
whighlander said:
Ra8 -- "would that it were" [John Kerry numerous times]
Unfortunately -- we are not that island -- we are critically dependent for many things on a country who's fundamental approach is opposed to our fundamental approach to economics and liberty and who manages the in/outs to benefit the Chinese Communist Party staying in power

If the shop in Springfield was dealing only with suppliers from the "Angloworld" -- more correctly the "West" including not just the British Commonwealth and the the EU and the Americas but the "extended West" of places like Japan, Korea, etc. -- we wouldn't be in the current situation
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Only in a world where uninformed hottakez are the authoritative voice would one assume that there's something distinctly un-"West" about the product to begin with.

You realize, Professor, that the bulk of assembly delays in Springfield has been because of EU component suppliers' COVID shutdowns, right? And that this is two-months' old news first reported long ago. There isn't a single bloody railcar in the world that's sole-supplied with guts from one region only, so that cuts all-ways. China can't on-time deliver China's railcars right this second when they have component supply chains in Angloworld, Euroworld, and Ugly 'Murcanworld upended by the pandemic.


I'd put more effort into searching for the PDF list of sub-contract component suppliers for the OL/RL cars that plainly illustrates, but there's little motivation to when you wouldn't read it to begin with before doubling-down on this same whiff-o'-xenophobia that got your last attempt at the subject emergency-excised to the "Please Stop" thread.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
Only in a world where uninformed hottakez are the authoritative voice would one assume that there's something distinctly un-"West" about the product to begin with.

You realize, Professor, that the bulk of assembly delays in Springfield has been because of EU component suppliers' COVID shutdowns, right? And that this is two-months' old news first reported long ago. There isn't a single bloody railcar in the world that's sole-supplied with guts from one region only, so that cuts all-ways. China can't on-time deliver China's railcars right this second when they have component supply chains in Angloworld, Euroworld, and Ugly 'Murcanworld upended by the pandemic.


I'd put more effort into searching for the PDF list of sub-contract component suppliers for the OL/RL cars that plainly illustrates, but there's little motivation to when wouldn't read it to begin with before doubling-down on this same whiff-o'-xenophobia that got your last attempt at the subject emergency-excised to the "Please Stop" thread.
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F-Line
here's the quote in question
Poftak referenced delays with CRRC in both China and Springfield as to why there were no more cars in the testing pipeline.
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I didn't make it up -- delays in China
Could there be legitimate reasons for the delays in China -- of course
Could there be "Big Power Politics" reasons -- you can't rule these out as -- China has been recently questioning meat imports from the US over transmission of the SARS-Cov-2 virus despite any evidence of transmission through that mechanism. Note that those imports were one of the features of the recent "Phase One Trade Agreement"
 
whighlander said:
I didn't make it up -- delays in China
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No...but you DID willfully omit the "...and Springfield". Springfield's the assembly plant for components. Half-finished chunks-o' car guts get waybilled there from all over the world. Assembly plants: how do they work?!?!

Could there be legitimate reasons for the delays in China -- of course
Could there be "Big Power Politics" reasons -- you can't rule these out as -- China has been recently questioning meat imports from the US over transmission of the SARS-Cov-2 virus despite any evidence of transmission through that mechanism. Note that those imports were one of the features of the recent "Phase One Trade Agreement"
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Not "ruling out" does not mean the barn door is wide open for ruling in anything-goes. Like you just did with...fucking meat imports. One kind of has to point to some evidence for the ruling-in part. Chicken gizzards are not a known railcar component, last I checked.

That's a requirement for anyone. You, of all people, need to tread doubly carefully around that specificity given that you've already been sanctioned once in the past 50 hours for site ToS violation for posting xenophobic tripe on this very subject.
 
netransit reports that 1428/1429 has been delivered and is in testing. That means we have 1400-1415 and 1426/1427 in service while 1416-1425 seem to have gone missing. Perhaps they got stranded by needing retrofits to the trucks to fix the "abnormal noise/wearing" issue from earlier this year, while the new built ones hopefully come with that already fitted.
 
Did you count the two that are parked over at Cabot Yard? They might still be there. :)
 
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BeeLine said:
Is this test track going to be used to test the new red line trains or is it another MBTA boondoggle????. I think I heard that they are running some of the new RL cars on the regular tracks at night (?).

by Bos Beeline, on Flickr

by Bos Beeline, on Flickr

by Bos Beeline, on Flickr

by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
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My eyes might be failing me, but compared with your same-angle pics from May the railhead on the switch frog looks **ever so slightly less rusted**. Which may mean something has been through there in the last 3 months. Once. Definitely in excess of several weeks ago, and not consisting of too many wheels. Maybe a piece of MOW equipment.

Or the recent rain washed some of the most superficial rust off and nothing's been down there since this winter's publicity-shot T tweet of a powered-up 01800 set further up the line.


Yeah, no...it doesn't look like they're using this thing for shit and are getting all their teething done on the regular Cabot leads + mainline at night + now occasional mainline on off-peak.
 
What (other) uses could this "outbuilding" have? Is it too "sidetracked" to be in the ordinary flow of inspection?

Are there isolated / off-line functions that would use it? Like "first stop upon acceptance" or "warranty service" or "on-site overhaul" that'd normally be sent off-site?
 
Arlington said:
What (other) uses could this "outbuilding" have? Is it too "sidetracked" to be in the ordinary flow of inspection?

Are there isolated / off-line functions that would use it? Like "first stop upon acceptance" or "warranty service" or "on-site overhaul" that'd normally be sent off-site?
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They'll need to prove all of the new trains as they come in, yes? Not just the first set?
 
Arlington said:
What (other) uses could this "outbuilding" have? Is it too "sidetracked" to be in the ordinary flow of inspection?

Are there isolated / off-line functions that would use it? Like "first stop upon acceptance" or "warranty service" or "on-site overhaul" that'd normally be sent off-site?
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Yeah, sure...maybe. But the most intensive work always goes on the first cars, and those would be (1) the identical-in-all-but-dimension ones on Orange, and (2) the Red pilot cars.

A whole set of borrowed Orange cars came and went at Cabot without ever using it, the Red pilots will apparently see first revenue service this fall without ever using it, and the Orange sets have gone through an extended spring/summer of social-distancing teething at Wellington while COVID slowed deliveries and haven't reported any new problems in a long time. I can't imagine now that this shed is going to be full-tilt occupied when the main thrust of Red deliveries come. The FCMB presentations all led us to believe that this was a critical need during the double-barrel portion of testing and that they were in hurry-up to finish it. Well...now kind of is the double-barrel portion of testing. If the rust on the railhead hasn't even been kicked off in months, I'm not sure how much 'full' the future utilization is ever really going to get.
 
On the plus side, between all the track/roadbed the T rebuilt that's never been used...all the track/roadbed BCEC rebuilt 20 years ago that's never been used...and all track/roadbed through the Design Center parking lot that was rebuilt 15 years ago that's never been used...Massport is going to have pristine infrastructure to run over when it's time to lift the FRA out-of-service designation on this adventure.

And you know what that means, right? More flying-unicorn Track 61 dinky vaporware for the Globe to breathlessly editorialize about! YAY!!! 🦄


Somewhat seriously, though...they can recoup *some* of the misspent priorities here just doing something with those freight plans for Marine Terminal that are sitting in a file cabinet or convincing Coastal Cement on the pier to switch back to rail. Disconnect the third rail and run the rail grinder through to change the wheel profile from rapid transit to RR and all they basically have to do is replace the Cypher St. grade crossing and replace 1 block of nasty old track between Pumphouse and Drydock crossings and they're in business. Maybe a few off-shifts' work for a single track gang. That's way easier than the kind of thorough rehab they otherwise have been looking at for a reactivation for port freight (or pax unicorns) given how thoroughly shot the railbed subsurface was before this job. It wouldn't take very many weekly carloads of sand to Coastal on the overnight shift to justify lifting the OOS embargo in short order and getting at least a few nickels of active revenue collection for their troubles.

Future shed usage? I dunno...commuter rail work equipment shop like Alewife MOW? The weedy yard in front of BCEC across Cypher is 1500 ft. x 3 tracks, so they could do quite a lot of makeshift MOW storage if it were temp-reactivated only for that and had 24/7 security cams on the yard from across the street at the staffed shed. Enough to temp tide them over until they figure out all the ins and outs of the Readville expansion site plan. With Readville, of course, they are currently bent back into disaster-planning for banking more pure layover space because of the local politics dumpster fires with the land at Beacon Park and Widett...which means they don't know yet if there'll be any room on the main site for a southside Maintenance of Way yard or if that's something they have to target for the recycling center easement next door. BCEC might not exactly adore having a hi-rail and track critter parking lot on its west side (then again, they don't have a say in the matter) but that yard on Cypher can easily do a 10-year temp stint for non-revenue track gang miscellany while they settle first priorities for southside revenue storage and figure out how far they'll ultimately need to fan out towards riverbank @ Readville for a consolidated work facility.

So...fungible enough to never be totally useless. But based on lack of usage vs. supposed urgency we were sold on via RLT presentations to the Board...yeah probably some degree of salvage job now searching for new justifications of the sunk cost since it ain't being used for the critical-most Orange + Red testing overlap that's happening now. Any which way testing of the CRRC cars was supposed to be happening in earnest there by now, and is now far enough along for the most invasive onsite warranty mods for the combo order that they're going to be unable to invent enough chores for that site in '21-22 to make the large-size funding dump for constructing it look like a wise resource allocation. There's already a large and widening discrepancy in the schedule and ops urgency the Board was sold on for approving that build.
 
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