New Red and Orange Line Cars

[Jahvon09]

I didn't ask for you to cite past experiences, I meant this particular ones.

I'm not too sure what point you're trying to make by using repetition like that, all I was asking for was some clarity on where this issue came from, not past issues. We get it, the old trains stink. But when something does go wrong, I'd like to know what went wrong now and not months ago.

You wanted me to point out some of the bad things about the trains. I gave it to you. Nothing has happened recently that I know of. What more do you want? Whatever happened in the past still adds up.

 

[Jahvon09]

Was this the result of the age of the trains, or are trains of any age susceptible to components falling off (and, if they fall on the wrong places, triggering electrical fires) if they're, for instance, improperly fastened?



This one is at least directly connectable to the age of (and wear on) the cars, as well as the difficulty of maintaining aging equipment. Wet seats are unpleasant, but not a safety issue. (Now back in the day of the black fake leather seats, the moisture didn't sink into the seats so was less problematic.)



Track fires are not related to the age of the cars. Smoke ingress would only be prevented if the cars were pressurized and/or hermetically sealed (both of which are ludicrous in a vehicle that needs to open doors that big that frequently).



These cars have had problems with fine particle snow for pretty much their entire lives. As I recall at one point it was found that hairnets over the intakes helped ameliorate the problem. That said, in a winter as historically bad as that, it's not the cars fault if the conditions are extreme beyond reasonableness. (The intake susceptibility is a design issue, and a little bit of an odd one for a Canadian company, but it's nothing to do with the age of the cars, and it's also unclear from this whether past practice for dealing with it was followed and ineffective due to extreme conditions or not followed, which would be an agency screw up not on the cars.)



That's not an incident or a specific. Everyone on this board knows that equipment reliability worsens as the cars age, and that rebuilds like the ones these cars never had is how you turn back that clock.



Zash is entirely right here. Blame was placed on the cars, and specifically their age and deteriorated condition. No evidence was proffered for the initial assertion, and the response was a list of grievances at the cars in which only one of the specific complaints (the wasted roofs leaking water) was directly tied to the cars' ages and deteriorating conditions, and none of which constituted arguments let alone evidence of why the cars should be blamed for the specific incident which they were being blamed for.

No one here will seriously contest that the #12 cars are in significant decline despite the best efforts of the maintenance workers to keep them rolling. The fleet is 40+ without a rebuild, struggling through the bumpy EIS of its replacement. It's understandable to be upset at their end-of-life pains, but it's of no meaningful value to this discussion to just gripe about them, especially when those gripes turn into inaccurate allegations about their responsibility for incidents in which there is no evidence to suggest their responsibility. Difference of opinion is fine, it's the lifeblood of a board like this, but can we please try at least to agree on what are actual facts and what are not? Disliking the cars does not mean they are responsible for all of the bad things that happen on the Orange Line. (The same goes for the #14 cars, which have faced their own version of this argument in earlier pages of this thread, similarly unhelpfully.)

Regardless of how anyone feels about the old cars, they still have to be replaced, as the T is trying to do. But I guess that it has to make sure that the new CRRC cars will work properly before letting any of the old cars on both the Red & Orange Lines go. This could end up being a long slow dragged out process, but eventually, it'll get done.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Regardless how anyone feels about the old cars, they still have to be replaced, as the T is trying to do. But I guess that it has to make sure that the new CRRC cars will work properly before letting any of the old cars on both the Red & Orange Lines go. This could end up being a long slow dragged out process, but eventually, it'll get done.

Exactly. Their history warns them that this is exactly what they have to do. They started retiring PCCs and letting them rot as the Boeings came online, only to find themselves with a serious car shortage and needing to crash-rebuild several dozen PCCs just to maintain service when the Boeing lemons started breaking down en masse. Thus far they've done an excellent job holding off the collapse of the #12 fleet (Red Line's in a different boat because everything but the #3s have been rebuilt, and the #3s are considerably younger than the Orange Line's #12 cars) to give the CRRC cars breathing room to have their teething problems worked out.

 

[Jahvon09]

Exactly. Their history warns them that this is exactly what they have to do. They started retiring PCCs and letting them rot as the Boeings came online, only to find themselves with a serious car shortage and needing to crash-rebuild several dozen PCCs just to maintain service when the Boeing lemons started breaking down en masse. Thus far they've done an excellent job holding off the collapse of the #12 fleet (Red Line's in a different boat because everything but the #3s have been rebuilt, and the #3s are considerably younger than the Orange Line's #12 cars) to give the CRRC cars breathing room to have their teething problems worked out.

Yeah, & they ARE rebuilding some of the PCC's from the Mattapan Line, simply beacause they have no other new trolleys to put on the line. To try to bring the trolleys back up to at least 10 operating ones. Residents are complaining, saying that the program is taking too long to complete.

MBTA Delay: $8 Million Trolley Refurbishment Two Years Behind Schedule

The MBTA invested millions of taxpayer dollars to bring historic trolleys up to speed in one of Boston’s most transit-dependent communities. However, the NBC10 Investigators discovered the project is years behind schedule. Instead of refurbished 1940s era trolleys rolling along the...

www.nbcboston.com

 

[Brattle Loop]

Yeah, & thyey ARE rebuilding some of the PCC's from the Mattapan Line, simply beacause they have no other new trolleys to put on the line. To try to bring the trolleys back up to at least 10 operating ones.

MBTA Delay: $8 Million Trolley Refurbishment Two Years Behind Schedule

The MBTA invested millions of taxpayer dollars to bring historic trolleys up to speed in one of Boston’s most transit-dependent communities. However, the NBC10 Investigators discovered the project is years behind schedule. Instead of refurbished 1940s era trolleys rolling along the...

www.nbcboston.com

Oh, well, yes, actually that is a good example of the fact that equipment doesn't last forever, though based on your response I realized I wasn't clear that the incident with the unexpected need to rebuild when the Boeings turned out to be crap was in the 70s. The T, to their credit, did learn not to retire equipment before the replacements were burned in better. (Didn't stop them from buying crap again though, as the Bredas attest.)

 

[Jahvon09]

Oh, well, yes, actually that is a good example of the fact that equipment doesn't last forever, though based on your response I realized I wasn't clear that the incident with the unexpected need to rebuild when the Boeings turned out to be crap was in the 70s. The T, to their credit, did learn not to retire equipment before the replacements were burned in better. (Didn't stop them from buying crap again though, as the Bredas attest.)

Yeah, there ARE lessons to be learned from their habits of buying crappy things. The Bredas were constantly derailing pittifully. The Boeings fell apart immensely. So far, only the Kinki's were rehabbed. And I think that the Bredas are slated to be replaced, but right now, they are the only trolleys on the entire Green Line that are ADA-accessible.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Yeah, there ARE lessons to be learned from their habits of buying crappy things. The Bredas were constantly derailing pittifully. The Boeings fell apart imensely. So far, only the Kinki's were rehabbed. And I think that the Bredas are slated to be replaced, but right now, they are the only trolleys on the entire Green Line that are ADA-accessible.

To be (mildly) fair to them, the Boeings were foisted on them and MUNI by the feds. The Bredas were the unfortunate product of giving an inexperienced (but presumably "cheaper") manufacturer the task of building a low-floor street car compatible with the Central Subway's quirks (the tight turns and overall-cramped design obviously didn't envision LRVs). That led to the, ah, temperamental center trucks that were the problem causing the derailments (though I've heard persistent whispers that the rail profile specifications the T gave Breda in the design phase were not reflected in reality and that the derailments decreased significantly once the rail was ground back into the proper profile, but I've yet to see actual confirmation of that allegation, so take it as you will). Whatever their own foibles (like not being to go past Brigham Circle on the E) the Type 9s are ADA-accessible and low-floor in the same manner of the Bredas, but with a more-mature center truck design that has not demonstrated the same tendency to derail. (As for the GL's future, the current long-term plan is for the Type 10 monster trains to replace the T7s and T8s and eventually the T9s, some of which will get sent to Mattapan if that line hasn't turned into a bus route by then.)

I'd say the new Orange and Red cars are more like the Type 9s (or, switching modes, the Rotem bilevels) than the Bredas or, God forbid, the Boeings, at this point. They have had some significant teething problems which have pulled them out of service, but the most prominent of them, the derailment, was apparently a combination of a specific component (the side bearer pads in the trucks wearing out faster than expected) and outdated (and since replaced) track infrastructure. I've yet to see an answer to whether the truck problem requires any redesign whatsoever, or if it's acceptably solvable simply by replacing the bearer pads more frequently, but until and unless that's deemed a fatal problem, this isn't a Breda-style design flaw where the immature design led to repeated problems, it's just a moderately-severe teething problem that happened to have particularly dramatic consequences (some of which was the result of social media amping up the awareness and discussion). And nothing has come close to the Boeings. When they start towing brand-new cars into the subway under cover of night to hide the fact that they've been cannibalized for parts in a desperate attempt to keep anything running, then it'll be time for hyperbole about the new cars (or the old cars, for that matter). I think it's often forgotten, sometimes even around here, how ugly the Breda debacle got, with the order being cancelled, then reinstated in modified form. That was a disaster, the CRRC stuff is a speed bump. The T has (sometimes shakily) demonstrated that they've learned from history, some perspective from history can be helpful here, too. The Green Line's 70s meltdown and 90s-00s debacle is a good example to refer to indeed.

 

[Jahvon09]

To be (mildly) fair to them, the Boeings were foisted on them and MUNI by the feds. The Bredas were the unfortunate product of giving an inexperienced (but presumably "cheaper") manufacturer the task of building a low-floor street car compatible with the Central Subway's quirks (the tight turns and overall-cramped design obviously didn't envision LRVs). That led to the, ah, temperamental center trucks that were the problem causing the derailments (though I've heard persistent whispers that the rail profile specifications the T gave Breda in the design phase were not reflected in reality and that the derailments decreased significantly once the rail was ground back into the proper profile, but I've yet to see actual confirmation of that allegation, so take it as you will). Whatever their own foibles (like not being to go past Brigham Circle on the E) the Type 9s are ADA-accessible and low-floor in the same manner of the Bredas, but with a more-mature center truck design that has not demonstrated the same tendency to derail. (As for the GL's future, the current long-term plan is for the Type 10 monster trains to replace the T7s and T8s and eventually the T9s, some of which will get sent to Mattapan if that line hasn't turned into a bus route by then.)

I'd say the new Orange and Red cars are more like the Type 9s (or, switching modes, the Rotem bilevels) than the Bredas or, God forbid, the Boeings, at this point. They have had some significant teething problems which have pulled them out of service, but the most prominent of them, the derailment, was apparently a combination of a specific component (the side bearer pads in the trucks wearing out faster than expected) and outdated (and since replaced) track infrastructure. I've yet to see an answer to whether the truck problem requires any redesign whatsoever, or if it's acceptably solvable simply by replacing the bearer pads more frequently, but until and unless that's deemed a fatal problem, this isn't a Breda-style design flaw where the immature design led to repeated problems, it's just a moderately-severe teething problem that happened to have particularly dramatic consequences (some of which was the result of social media amping up the awareness and discussion). And nothing has come close to the Boeings. When they start towing brand-new cars into the subway under cover of night to hide the fact that they've been cannibalized for parts in a desperate attempt to keep anything running, then it'll be time for hyperbole about the new cars (or the old cars, for that matter). I think it's often forgotten, sometimes even around here, how ugly the Breda debacle got, with the order being cancelled, then reinstated in modified form. That was a disaster, the CRRC stuff is a speed bump. The T has (sometimes shakily) demonstrated that they've learned from history, some perspective from history can be helpful here, too. The Green Line's 70s meltdown and 90s-00s debacle is a good example to refer to indeed.

The Mattapan Line always seems to get "hand-me-downs". Never anything completely new. I wonder why that is.

 

[tysmith95]

The Mattapan Line always seems to get "hand-me-downs". Never anything completely new. I wonder why that is.

Sure it's technically mattapan, but the mattapan line serves wealthy neighborhoods in Milton just as much as it does Mattapan itself. It straddles the border between Boston and Milton.

 

[Jahvon09]

Sure it's technically mattapan, but the mattapan line serves wealthy neighborhoods in Milton just as much as it does Mattapan itself. It straddles the border between Boston and Milton.

Ok, but what does that have to do with it not getting completely new equipment?

 

[bakgwailo]

Sure it's technically mattapan, but the mattapan line serves wealthy neighborhoods in Milton just as much as it does Mattapan itself. It straddles the border between Boston and Milton.

The majority of the ridership, by far, is coming from Mattapan though. At least from the last time I checked adding in Dot and Mattapan boardings made up close to 80% of ridership. Milton riders, in general, seem to really only care about two things about the line: 1) It is not a bus (ever) and 2) It is not the actual red line (ever). Outside of that, they seem content with the PCCs forever (at least from community meetings over the PCC replacements).

I would have to agree, though, that the line sticks out the most when it comes to getting shafted on rolling stock - and I say this as a reasonable fan of the PCCs. It should be getting new rolling stock with the Type-10 order, even if the dimensions are modified/cut down ala the Red vs Orange orders.

 

[Brattle Loop]

The Mattapan Line always seems to get "hand-me-downs". Never anything completely new. I wonder why that is.

Mattapan's been running PCCs since the 1950s. The T didn't get anything newer than them until the Boeings in the 70s, so they weren't so much "hand-me-downs" when they originally arrived as that was the only offering on the menu.

The conventional wisdom is that the Mattapan Line is or was not capable of handling the weight of larger LRVs. Someone, not too long ago, it might have been F-Line but I can't find the post, said that the weak bridges were upgraded when the line was shut down to rebuild Ashmont station a decade-plus ago. If that's so, then the line can presumably now accept larger cars than before.

That said, the T does not have a surplus of LRVs. They probably don't have six-or-so spare T7s to permanently remove from the Green Line, they need the T9s for the GLX, and they can't pull the T8s because that'd knock T7s out of service because they can't run them without a low-floor car. The equipment pool doesn't have enough slack to reassign LRVs to Mattapan.

Theoretically, I suppose, they could have tacked on another six-to-eight T9s when they ordered them, though that's obviously not free, and there'd be a fairly-significant risk that GL operations just takes them for their own purposes to give the fleet some more slack as the T8s age. 20/20 hindsight it's a good thing they didn't do that, given the current plans to boot some of the T9s to Mattapan once the Type 10 monster trains take over the GL, we'd just have a useless surplus of moderately-used T9s.

Ordering new equipment, solely for Mattapan, might meet some notions of "equity" but it would be financially irresponsible given the minute size of the fleet. The PCCs stuck around because for a while they were the only things that can run there. That may well no longer be true, but for the moment there's no new equipment to spare, and hand-me-downs are a better option for a perennially cash-strapped agency than buying new "just because". (Now if some local politicians are unhappy with secondhand trolleys and would like to earmark specific new replacements in the state budget, that'd be fine.)

 

[Wash]

like not being to go past Brigham Circle on the E

I talked to an operator about that, actually. He said the reason that they can't run the type 9's past Brigham Circle is the plug doors. This seems like a fundamental issue, but it's actually remarkably fixable.

On the type 7's and 8's, one leaf of the "front" door on the cars folds out and displays a "STOP" sign to motorists trying to pass a stopped trolley on the right. See: this photo I found on the internet and marked up.

The plug doors on the type 9's will require a different solution, as the door doesn't fold open. Fortunately, streetcars aren't the only vehicle that are illegal to pass while stopped. The other vehicles that are have already demonstrated a cheap and effective solution to this problem that could give the type 9's the ability to run anywhere on the T's streetcar network:

Heck, the T could even cannibalize a few old school busses for parts.
(Sidenote: Does this potential modification horrify you because it destroys the clean lines of the streetcars? Then support a project to add boarding islands and a dedicated lane to South Huntington Avenue so that these stop signs aren't necessary).

 

[Brattle Loop]

I talked to an operator about that, actually. He said the reason that they can't run the type 9's past Brigham Circle is the plug doors. This seems like a fundamental issue, but it's actually remarkably fixable.

On the type 7's and 8's, one leaf of the "front" door on the cars folds out and displays a "STOP" sign to motorists trying to pass a stopped trolley on the right. See: this photo I found on the internet and marked up.
View attachment 17146

The plug doors on the type 9's will require a different solution, as the door doesn't fold open. Fortunately, streetcars aren't the only vehicle that are illegal to pass while stopped. The other vehicles that are have already demonstrated a cheap and effective solution to this problem that could give the type 9's the ability to run anywhere on the T's streetcar network:
View attachment 17148
Heck, the T could even cannibalize a few old school busses for parts.
(Sidenote: Does this potential modification horrify you because it destroys the clean lines of the streetcars? Then support a project to add boarding islands and a dedicated lane to South Huntington Avenue so that these stop signs aren't necessary).

Folding signs: a quick and easy solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place. I'd really like to know how the T managed to run an entire procurement to the point of delivery and EIS without anyone ever noticing that the vehicles would be barred from operating on the part of the system because of something so minor? (Unless their periodic hatred for street running made them think "hey, this is how we kill off service past Brigham Circle", but I'm not conspiracy-minded enough to think they were that 'clever'.)

More seriously, yes, something better than boarding in the street would be a marked improvement for the outer E-branch.

 

[bakgwailo]

Mattapan's been running PCCs since the 1950s. The T didn't get anything newer than them until the Boeings in the 70s, so they weren't so much "hand-me-downs" when they originally arrived as that was the only offering on the menu.

The conventional wisdom is that the Mattapan Line is or was not capable of handling the weight of larger LRVs. Someone, not too long ago, it might have been F-Line but I can't find the post, said that the weak bridges were upgraded when the line was shut down to rebuild Ashmont station a decade-plus ago. If that's so, then the line can presumably now accept larger cars than before.

That said, the T does not have a surplus of LRVs. They probably don't have six-or-so spare T7s to permanently remove from the Green Line, they need the T9s for the GLX, and they can't pull the T8s because that'd knock T7s out of service because they can't run them without a low-floor car. The equipment pool doesn't have enough slack to reassign LRVs to Mattapan.

Theoretically, I suppose, they could have tacked on another six-to-eight T9s when they ordered them, though that's obviously not free, and there'd be a fairly-significant risk that GL operations just takes them for their own purposes to give the fleet some more slack as the T8s age. 20/20 hindsight it's a good thing they didn't do that, given the current plans to boot some of the T9s to Mattapan once the Type 10 monster trains take over the GL, we'd just have a useless surplus of moderately-used T9s.

Ordering new equipment, solely for Mattapan, might meet some notions of "equity" but it would be financially irresponsible given the minute size of the fleet. The PCCs stuck around because for a while they were the only things that can run there. That may well no longer be true, but for the moment there's no new equipment to spare, and hand-me-downs are a better option for a perennially cash-strapped agency than buying new "just because". (Now if some local politicians are unhappy with secondhand trolleys and would like to earmark specific new replacements in the state budget, that'd be fine.)

The official plan under the Highspeed Line Transformation project is one last rebuild for the PCCs, and moving the Type-9s over to the line when the Type-10s start to rollout. So hand me down Type-9s (at least they are ADA complaint) instead of tacking onto the Type-10 order to get something standard across the entire fleet.

 

[Brattle Loop]

The official plan under the Highspeed Line Transformation project is one last rebuild for the PCCs, and moving the Type-9s over to the line when the Type-10s start to rollout. So hand me down Type-9s (at least they are ADA complaint) instead of tacking onto the Type-10 order to get something standard across the entire fleet.

The T9s should still have plenty of life left in them. Getting moved to Mattapan (with copious spares to keep the fleet healthy) is better than scrapping them early because the GL's moved to a different standard. T10s would be absurdly over-sized for that line; even the T9s are probably going to run at (mildly) longer headways because of the capacity jump over the PCCs.

 

[soundguise]

The T9s should still have plenty of life left in them. Getting moved to Mattapan (with copious spares to keep the fleet healthy) is better than scrapping them early because the GL's moved to a different standard. T10s would be absurdly over-sized for that line; even the T9s are probably going to run at (mildly) longer headways because of the capacity jump over the PCCs.

Aren't we all hoping that the AMHSL gets converted into a full Red Line extension anyway? That would mean this is only temporary (I know, famous last words).

 

[Brattle Loop]

Aren't we all hoping that the AMHSL gets converted into a full Red Line extension anyway? That would mean this is only temporary (I know, famous last words).

Spend enough time in the weird world of Boston transit and it becomes second nature to have a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" mindset. The level of controversy that a RL conversion would engender (some of it NIMBY, some of it very real concerns about station siting that don't have universally-pleasing answers) means that it's unlikely to become an agency priority anytime soon, or a political priority for that matter. (I suspect it gets done when the choice is straight "Red Line or buses".). So while I agree that most of us tend to see the Red Line ultimately extended to Mattapan, the timeframe for that is extremely hazy at best, and in the meantime we also don't want the line to a.) fall to pieces or b.) get converted to buses, hence the talk of what same-mode vehicles will ultimately replace the PCCs.

 

[soundguise]

Spend enough time in the weird world of Boston transit and it becomes second nature to have a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" mindset. The level of controversy that a RL conversion would engender (some of it NIMBY, some of it very real concerns about station siting that don't have universally-pleasing answers) means that it's unlikely to become an agency priority anytime soon, or a political priority for that matter. (I suspect it gets done when the choice is straight "Red Line or buses".). So while I agree that most of us tend to see the Red Line ultimately extended to Mattapan, the timeframe for that is extremely hazy at best, and in the meantime we also don't want the line to a.) fall to pieces or b.) get converted to buses, hence the talk of what same-mode vehicles will ultimately replace the PCCs.

Agreed! A bus conversion would be the worst outcome. Second, I suppose, to a rail to trail conversion with local bus substitution.

 

[bakgwailo]

The T9s should still have plenty of life left in them. Getting moved to Mattapan (with copious spares to keep the fleet healthy) is better than scrapping them early because the GL's moved to a different standard. T10s would be absurdly over-sized for that line; even the T9s are probably going to run at (mildly) longer headways because of the capacity jump over the PCCs.

Well, kind of the point, right? Just like the Red/Orange Line orders that are basically the exact same with different dimension shells - yeah, the Type-10s as-is would be ridiculously oversized for the Mattapan line, but, that doesn't mean they couldn't do an addon with smaller dimensions. Hell - a half length test fleet might be great as the first round to do burn in testing for the rest of the order.

Aren't we all hoping that the AMHSL gets converted into a full Red Line extension anyway? That would mean this is only temporary (I know, famous last words).

Never going to happen in the next few decades. At the community meetings if anyone so much as hinted at a full Red Line conversion the public was ready to string them up. The MBTA liason/head engineer also claimed there wasn't enough room in the ROW in Cedar Grove for a HRL conversion (lol).