New Red and Orange Line Cars

Took the T today for the first time in what I think is 5 or so years. Lucky me, I got the new train at Malden. My thoughts on it... The seats aren't that bad, and I didn't slide around on it. The chimes are annoying at first, and the number of announcements seemed to be every 15 seconds, but by Community College, I had tuned them out. I'm sure that isn't the expected behavior that the T had in mind when setting this up. The ride is smoother but still bouncy but that is because of the tracks. Overall, I like it, and most thankful for the fact that I can see if there is shit (literally) on the seats.
 
jarvismj said:
Took the T today for the first time in what I think is 5 or so years. Lucky me, I got the new train at Malden. My thoughts on it... The seats aren't that bad, and I didn't slide around on it. The chimes are annoying at first, and the number of announcements seemed to be every 15 seconds, but by Community College, I had tuned them out. I'm sure that isn't the expected behavior that the T had in mind when setting this up. The ride is smoother but still bouncy but that is because of the tracks. Overall, I like it, and most thankful for the fact that I can see if there is shit (literally) on the seats.
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The seats, while not what I would call comfortable, at least aren't slippery. The Blue Line seats are shiny smooth plastic and very slippery, and at least that aspect of plastic seating didn't get carried over to the CRRC cars. I'm intrigued by your comments on the announcements; on the handful of times I rode the new cars I didn't find the announcements excessive, even though they were more verbose (or maybe just more intelligible) than the old Orange Line cars. (I did notice weird pauses and lags in the automatic announcements, so they may have changed things since last I rode them.) In my personal experience the Blue Line announcements are excessively talkative; I found the Orange Line ones less so (though still more annoying than the Green Line).

The ability to tell if the seats are clean is really quite an underrated benefit...which says something kind of depressing about the state of the system if you think about it.
 
Brattle Loop said:
The seats, while not what I would call comfortable, at least aren't slippery. The Blue Line seats are shiny smooth plastic and very slippery, and at least that aspect of plastic seating didn't get carried over to the CRRC cars. I'm intrigued by your comments on the announcements; on the handful of times, I rode the new cars I didn't find the announcements excessive, even though they were more verbose (or maybe just more intelligible) than the old Orange Line cars. (I did notice weird pauses and lags in the automatic announcements, so they may have changed things since last I rode them.) In my personal experience, the Blue Line announcements are excessively talkative; I found the Orange Line ones less so (though still more annoying than the Green Line).

The ability to tell if the seats are clean is really quite an underrated benefit...which says something kind of depressing about the state of the system if you think about it.
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The best way I've used to describe the Orange line to friends in Germany was to show them the photo of the dude getting a blowie at State St.
And I'm not going to lie, I missed riding it. Yeah, the Munich U-Bahn is so clean and sterile that it's just there. At least with the T, there is stuff to talk about and experiences. Oh, there are experiences that I still remember 15-20 years later.
 
jarvismj said:
The best way I've used to describe the Orange line to friends in Germany was to show them the photo of the dude getting a blowie at State St.
And I'm not going to lie, I missed riding it. Yeah, the Munich U-Bahn is so clean and sterile that it's just there. At least with the T, there is stuff to talk about and experiences. Oh, there are experiences that I still remember 15-20 years later.
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Especially if you're the guy getting a blowie at State St.
 
Lrfox said:
Especially if you're the guy getting a blowie at State St.
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Does your grandmother need to see some guy getting his falafel hummused while she's trying to get home to Malden?
I'd rather have our collective blowies given in clean friggin' trains, though I suppose the LEDs will discourage any low rent behavior you may be looking forward to.
If it looks like a 70's porno set -- and the Orange Line does -- it'll be treated like one.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Does your grandmother need to see some guy getting his falafel hummused while she's trying to get home to Malden?
I'd rather have our collective blowies given in clean friggin' trains, though I suppose the LEDs will discourage any low rent behavior you may be looking forward to.
If it looks like a 70's porno set -- and the Orange Line does -- it'll be treated like one.
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You know, I'd like to think the new LED lighting will put a stop to such shenanigans. And if you want a blowie, go to the Papa Genos in Brockton. I think they hand them out behind the pinball machine.
 
The windows on the new CRRC trains look larger than on the old trains!! :)
 
I noticed this morning that newtrains.today shows a new red line train last seen 7 hours ago...for those with more knowledge than me, could this be a sign that the new red line train is finally coming back into service (my initial thought was testing)? Or maybe just a fluke with the tracking/maybe it was just being relocated?

As someone eagerly awaiting new red line trains, this got my hopes up this morning but I want to know if I should be tempering them!
 
One bit of info from the accessibility report: 52 cars delivered so far for the Orange Line, current pace is 2 per month (or a new train every 3 months) EDIT: 4 cars per month, my bad. 100 new cars still to be delivered, so hopefully they pick up the pace soon.
Nothing about new cars for the red line beyond the one pilot train annoyingly
D808E03F-B437-435E-B411-42F0D18FA4FB.jpeg
 
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thepianoperson said:
One bit of info from the accessibility report: 52 cars delivered so far for the Orange Line, current pace is 2 per month (or a new train every 3 months). 100 new cars still to be delivered, so hopefully they pick up the pace soon.
Nothing about new cars for the red line beyond the one pilot train annoyingly
View attachment 19467
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the attachment it sounds like two married pairs per month, i.e. four cars, or two trains every three months rather than one.

Also, what's the source you grabbed this from? I'm not familiar with this accessibility report
 
notthemonthaugust said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the attachment it sounds like two married pairs per month, i.e. four cars, or two trains every three months rather than one.

Also, what's the source you grabbed this from? I'm not familiar with this accessibility report
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You‘re right, I misread. The report is at Link, has a lot of info about various projects going on.
 
I too rode the Orange Line for the first time in maybe two years last weekend. Old trains both coming and going. Is there a rough count of what fraction (quarter, third, half?) of the operating trains are old vs new right now?
 
kjdonovan said:
I too rode the Orange Line for the first time in maybe two years last weekend. Old trains both coming and going. Is there a rough count of what fraction (quarter, third, half?) of the operating trains are old vs new right now?
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I'm not sure on the proportion, but I use here or here to see what's currently in use and where. So far I haven't seen more than three (maybe four but I might be misremembering) new trains in operation at a time right now.
 
Looks like the MBTA has a lot of things on its plate. There has been no derailment with the new RL cars that I know of. It's good that they are finally getting back on track. The first new RL train that was introduced into service was supposed to be put back into service before or by the end of this year. Don't know what the holdup is. Hopefully, those problems that have plagued the new OL trains are gone now.

The most encouraging news is that they are still persuing the new Type 10 procurement, eventually replacing the Type 7 & Type 8 LRV's. This work should take the T well into the next few years & help it to be a much better transit agency that commuters will love to ride! Still dying to at least SEE what the new Type 10 will look like! Should be killer giant-size LRV'S THAT WOULD PUTS OTHERS TO SHAME! :)
 
kjdonovan said:
I too rode the Orange Line for the first time in maybe two years last weekend. Old trains both coming and going. Is there a rough count of what fraction (quarter, third, half?) of the operating trains are old vs new right now?
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Frequent Orange Line rider here: this is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I'd estimate about 20-30% of Orange Line trains I ride are new trains, nowadays.
 
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