New Red and Orange Line Cars

737900er said:
Seems as though no new cars have run on Orange or Red since the service reductions were implemented yesterday. Any idea if that is unrelated or to decrease the complexity of the service?
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The T's website should have something. I read that they are using 8-cars trains with some of the new cars. How, when all the platforms accept 6-car trains?!! :unsure:
 
TrolleybusFoaming said:
mass.streetsblog.org

T Sidelines New Orange Line Trains As Service Cuts Take Effect

Since the T’s subway service cuts took effect on Monday, there have been zero new trains running on the Orange or Red Lines.
mass.streetsblog.org
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I'm so sick of this crap!! There They go again, yanking the new trains off again because of something that's their own fault! Stop this BS & get with the program!! They are forever teasing us with this crap!! This makes the damn 6th time they did this. I hope that the Feds object to this & make them put some of them back on!! Those old rust buckets will NEVER be put out to pasture if they keep on doing this!! :mad: :mad:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
I hope that the Feds object to this & make them put some of them back on!!
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The Feds, whose contribution to this mess has been to wake up from their usual stasis in order to intervene because the T's become so abominably bad and unsafe, is going to, what, tell the MBTA to ignore actual or feared safety concerns and make them return equipment even they (the agency now under Federal babysitting because of its safety, financial, and operational misadventures) aren't sure is appropriately safe?!?!?!?

No. Enough of this nonsense, please. They're new equipment, with all the teething problems that entails. Whether they're actually worse-made or have a higher rate of (significant) issues than other new equipment purchases is a question I will leave to people with more data (and better memories). Even if they are crap, that's on the last administration for signing the contract with the untried (in North America, anyway) manufacturer at least as much as it is with the T now.

I wouldn't be surprised if the damn things are back on the rails by the end of the week. For all we know, it could be nothing significant. "It's probably nothing" isn't a great attitude when it comes to safety concerns to begin with, and it's downright suicidal when the agency in question is literally under Federal supervision for its safety practices! The Feds will take one look at this and more likely than not say, "finally you're doing something right for a change" in making sure your equipment isn't defective rather than taking a risk in order to keep the shiny things in service.

No one needs to be happy about this happening, but annoyance at both the troubled EIS of the new cars and the depressing condition of the old ones is not reason to suggest that they should skimp on making sure the damn things are properly safe, let alone imagine for a second that the Feds would be the ones to force them to do so!
 
Brattle Loop said:
The Feds, whose contribution to this mess has been to wake up from their usual stasis in order to intervene because the T's become so abominably bad and unsafe, is going to, what, tell the MBTA to ignore actual or feared safety concerns and make them return equipment even they (the agency now under Federal babysitting because of its safety, financial, and operational misadventures) aren't sure is appropriately safe?!?!?!?

No. Enough of this nonsense, please. They're new equipment, with all the teething problems that entails. Whether they're actually worse-made or have a higher rate of (significant) issues than other new equipment purchases is a question I will leave to people with more data (and better memories). Even if they are crap, that's on the last administration for signing the contract with the untried (in North America, anyway) manufacturer at least as much as it is with the T now.

I wouldn't be surprised if the damn things are back on the rails by the end of the week. For all we know, it could be nothing significant. "It's probably nothing" isn't a great attitude when it comes to safety concerns to begin with, and it's downright suicidal when the agency in question is literally under Federal supervision for its safety practices! The Feds will take one look at this and more likely than not say, "finally you're doing something right for a change" in making sure your equipment isn't defective rather than taking a risk in order to keep the shiny things in service.

No one needs to be happy about this happening, but annoyance at both the troubled EIS of the new cars and the depressing condition of the old ones is not reason to suggest that they should skimp on making sure the damn things are properly safe, let alone imagine for a second that the Feds would be the ones to force them to do so!
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I generally take the: expect the worse and you will always be pleasantly surprised (or at least expected the worse if it does happen) approach. Here's hoping with all of the live testing that it will result in pretty solid rolling stock long-term, and that the Red rollout will be much faster with a lot of these things taken care of.
 
I think that the T caused most or all of these problems. It knew that in order to make things better, that it had to get itself in gear. It had to upgrade, or should've know that it had to upgrade the tracks well ahead, since it anticipated that new trains were coming. It's motto sems to be, "Wait until it comes or, Cross that bridge when we come to it." That, to me, is backward thinking. :unsure:
 
Jahvon09 said:
I think that the T caused most or all of these problems. It knew that in order to make things better, that it had to get itself in gear. It had to upgrade, or should've know that it had to upgrade the tracks well ahead, since it anticipated that new trains were coming. It's motto sems to be, "Wait until it comes or, Cross that bridge when we come to it." That, to me, is backward thinking. :unsure:
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Mmmmm I think it has to a lot more to do with money, or the lack thereof...yes it's that
 
Jahvon09 said:
I think that the T caused most or all of these problems. It knew that in order to make things better, that it had to get itself in gear. It had to upgrade, or should've know that it had to upgrade the tracks well ahead, since it anticipated that new trains were coming. It's motto sems to be, "Wait until it comes or, Cross that bridge when we come to it." That, to me, is backward thinking. :unsure:
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How did upgraded/un-upgraded tracks cause a battery fault in the yard? What exactly was the mismanaged opportunity here?
 
HelloBostonHi said:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/06...ure-was-likely-battery-explosion-no-answer-t/ battery explosion even
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Yeah, my guess would be a lithium ion fire or something along those lines. Which - let's be honest happens on everything from cell phones, to hover boards to Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Hopefully they check them all out and up the acceptance testing/criteria. If it is something like that, maybe also ensure the batteries are put in fire proof enclosures to mitigate risks.
 
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bakgwailo said:
Boing 787 Dreamliners
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Heck, one of the 787s with the exploding batteries that got that whole type grounded circa 2013 even self-immolated in Boston. I'd have thought after that some attention might be paid to "what happens if the batteries explode" in equipment designing (though to be fair I'd have thought Boeing would have considered whether they had any other safety-related misjudgments, though they clearly thought...differently).
 
One thing to keep in mind about the repeated pulling from service of these new cars, is that the 'T has enough old trains to be able to pull the entire new fleet. For this reason, I think that's the default safety protocol whenever something happens that requires investigation. It's quite possible that these issues would involve different safety protocols if the fleet were now exclusively 1400s. How much will we notice if one car has a problem in the future, resulting in slightly modified operating procedures? But because they are still breaking in the new cars, it all seems extra dramatic.
 
HenryAlan said:
One thing to keep in mind about the repeated pulling from service of these new cars, is that the 'T has enough old trains to be able to pull the entire new fleet. For this reason, I think that's the default safety protocol whenever something happens that requires investigation. It's quite possible that these issues would involve different safety protocols if the fleet were now exclusively 1400s. How much will we notice if one car has a problem in the future, resulting in slightly modified operating procedures? But because they are still breaking in the new cars, it all seems extra dramatic.
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Orange is really starting to be on the fence. 22 of the 01200s are retired and that leaves them with 16 trains and 2 extra cars. 15-16 trains are normally used at peak. If they didn't have the unrelated service reductions, there would probably be a reduction anyway because of a car shortage.
 
KentXie said:
Mmmmm I think it has to a lot more to do with money, or the lack thereof...yes it's that
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Then if that's the case, & it probably is, then they need to stop this foolishness with yanking the new trains off the tracks & seek help in finding out what's REALLY wrong. Which BTW, there is NOTHING wrong with them this time. They just want to be jerks & keep on finding every excuse in the book to pull them off. Commuters need to be riding comfortably in new trains, not ones that have been around since the early '80's that are so old & tired looking & breaking down so damn often. It's really a shame that we still have to look at these ugly things! :mad:
 
737900er said:
Orange is really starting to be on the fence. 22 of the 01200s are retired and that leaves them with 16 trains and 2 extra cars. 15-16 trains are normally used at peak. If they didn't have the unrelated service reductions, there would probably be a reduction anyway because of a car shortage.
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That‘s the main reason I’m fine with them pulling trains now, while they still can without major disruptions, though I didn’t realize we‘re almost at that point already with the Orange line. Ideally fixing all of this now means we don’t have a disaster like the 7000 cars being pulled in DC while making up well over half the fleet and tanking headways - it’s been 9 months since that happened and they’re just now starting to return those to service.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Then if that's the case, & it probably is, then they need to stop this foolishness with yanking the new trains off the tracks & seek help in finding out what's REALLY wrong. Which BTW, there is NOTHING wrong with them this time. They just want to be jerks & keep on finding every excuse in the book to pull them off. Commuters need to be riding comfortably in new trains, not ones that have been around since the early '80's that are so old & tired looking & breaking down so damn often. It's really a shame that we still have to look at these ugly things! :mad:
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Nope. Nothing wrong. Just EXPLODING BATTERIES.


Jesus Christ, this thread.
 
www.nbcboston.com

New Orange Line, Red Line Trains Pulled From Service Again

For the second time in just over a month, the MBTA has taken its new Orange Line and Red Line trains off the tracks. This time, the cars were pulled due to a “battery failure,” the MBTA said in a statement Tuesday. The trains in question were last removed from service on May 19 over a braking...
www.nbcboston.com www.nbcboston.com
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This is ridiculous! Why must they always kill the entire fleet of new cars when just one of them has a problem? Why can't they just keep the rest of the cars in service until they find it necessary to be able to fix them? :unsure:
 
Jahvon09 said:
This is ridiculous! Why must they always kill the entire fleet of new cars when just one of them has a problem? Why can't they just keep the rest of the cars in service until they find it necessary to be able to fix them? :unsure:
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Because if the problem is a battery exploding and they all have batteries (which they do) then it's possible for any of the batteries on any of the cars to explode. If they take all the cars out of service to investigate and address the problem, the only downside is that the rustbuckets run a little more (and given the FTA-triggered service reductions, the actual impact on service levels from pulling the 01400s is thankfully minimal). On the other hand, if they decide "oh, this was just a one-off" and another battery explodes, say this time on a train full of passengers, there's a name for that level of stupid: criminal negligence. The MBTA is many things, but even they aren't stupid enough to play Russian roulette with exploding batteries while the FTA is literally breathing down their necks!
 
Jahvon09 said:
Then if that's the case, & it probably is, then they need to stop this foolishness with yanking the new trains off the tracks & seek help in finding out what's REALLY wrong. Which BTW, there is NOTHING wrong with them this time. They just want to be jerks & keep on finding every excuse in the book to pull them off. Commuters need to be riding comfortably in new trains, not ones that have been around since the early '80's that are so old & tired looking & breaking down so damn often. It's really a shame that we still have to look at these ugly things! :mad:
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I think you misunderstood. It's the lack of funding that likely contributed to the fact that they didn't buy new vehicles to replace their current fleet that is over 40 years old earlier. As a result, a battery explodes and now you have this bruhaha over having to run vehicles on their last legs.

LA is replacing their current fleet which are all under 30 years old. This gives them more leeway to test and troubleshoot their new rolling stock because their current stock is still serviceable and there's less pressure to immediately take them out of service.

My point is, there is a lot of things the MBTA is at fault for. This isn't one of them. You can blame the shitty ass elected officials and the folks from central and western mass who do not want their taxes going into public transit
 
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