New Red and Orange Line Cars

[tocoto]

Could be a dumb point because I don't know whether red and orange cars are interchangeable...

Assuming they are interchangeable, it might be better to have a basically silver colored car using LED lights - either orange or red - to designate the line so that the cars can be moved between lines as needed with a simple click of a switch to designate orange or red

 

[George_Apley]

Could be a dumb point because I don't know whether red and orange cars are interchangeable...

Assuming they are interchangeable, it might be better to have a basically silver colored car using LED lights - either orange or red - to designate the line so that the cars can be moved between lines as needed with a simple click of a switch to designate orange or red

They aren't interchangeable. Their dimensions are different due to variances in the tunnels. There are also zero connections between the Red and Orange lines. They're totally independent of one another.

 

[datadyne007]

They aren't interchangeable. Their dimensions are different due to variances in the tunnels. There are also zero connections between the Red and Orange lines. They're totally independent of one another.

From Reddit:
RED LINE: Cars are 69 feet long and 10 feet 3 inches wide; station height is 4 feet 1 inch from rails to platform.

ORANGE LINE: Cars are 65 feet long and 9 feet 3 inches wide; station height is 3 feet 9 inches from rails to platform.

BLUE LINE: Cars are 48 feet long and 9 feet 3 inches wide; station height is 3 feet 5 ½ inches from rails to platform.

 

[Jahvon09]

They've had to repair a number of stations on the Orange Line at the platform where you get on the escalators. Seems that years & years being exposed to the winter weather has allowed water to seep under the landings, freeze up and swell those areas.

They've bee lagging behind on normal maintenance of the station platforms, which has lead to slow deteriorization of the platforms, especially in the vicinity of the yellow lines.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Given the concerns with long dwell times on the Red Line at Park St and Downtown Crossing, why aren't the new Red Line cars being planned to have more doors than the 1800 series cars?

 

[CantabAmager]

Given the concerns with long dwell times on the Red Line at Park St and Downtown Crossing, why aren't the new Red Line cars being planned to have more doors than the 1800 series cars?

The egress will be wider on the new series. Neither the # of doors, nor their width, nor even a widespread "stand to side, out-before-in" etiquette campaign is going to do much to the downtown dwells, unfortunately. MBTA needs to look to dispersal projects and/or signal upgrades to start to hack away at that problem.

 

[citylover94]

Can you safely add more doors to the red line cars would it effect how safe they are?

In NYC the cars have four doors per side like the red line and similar dimensions and they seem to work. What is the difference?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Does NYC have major transfer points where two lines share each platform track that have the same level of passenger turnover Boston sees at Park St and Downtown Crossing? (My experience actually riding the New York City subway is extremely limited, so I don't know the answer to this. I bet South Ferry has higher turnover than Park St, but IIRC South Ferry is also on a branch and doesn't see as many trains per hour as some of the other stations. I also seem to recall reading that NYC has some express stations with a center island platform and side platforms for the local tracks because they don't want people changing between express and local at those stations, presumably because high turnover would kill the dwell times with their limited door capacity (or maybe the only issue is amount of storage space on the platforms while people wait for the next train?))

I thought I saw something claiming the new Red Line cars will have wider doors than the existing 1500/1600/1700 series cars, but same width as the 1800 series cars. Has the MBTA published anywhere the width of the 1800 cars' doors and the width of the future cars' doors?

I certainly agree that door quantity and width is not going to magically fix the entire capacity issue by itself, but it also wouldn't surprise me if 1800 series cars with crush loads and Park St turnover require longer than 30 second dwell times even if you had infinitely large platforms and connecting passageways to the Green Line, and I'd like to see a bit more data on whether the T is doing everything possible to make sure door width on the new cars isn't unnecessarily contributing to the overall problem.

 

[citylover94]

Oh just to make this more clear I do not live in NYC and have not traveled in NYC very often during rush hour so I do not know what dwell times at rush look like.

Possibly Times Square might equal it or Grand Central on the Lexington Avenue subway I remember that being very crowded at times...

 

[Jahvon09]

Given the concerns with long dwell times on the Red Line at Park St and Downtown Crossing, why aren't the new Red Line cars being planned to have more doors than the 1800 series cars?

I think that the same length of the cars and the width of the doors, as well as the number of doors has been that way for many, many, many years All the way back to the time when the Red Line began revenue passenger service in the very early 19th century.

The standard configuration has always been 4 doors on each side for the Red Line cars, 3 doors on each side for the Orange Line cars and two doors on each side for the Blue Line cars.

That will not change, mainly because of the length of the cars and the length of the platforms.

 

[CantabAmager]

Does NYC have major transfer points where two lines share each platform track that have the same level of passenger turnover Boston sees at Park St and Downtown Crossing? (My experience actually riding the New York City subway is extremely limited, so I don't know the answer to this. I bet South Ferry has higher turnover than Park St, but IIRC South Ferry is also on a branch and doesn't see as many trains per hour as some of the other stations. I also seem to recall reading that NYC has some express stations with a center island platform and side platforms for the local tracks because they don't want people changing between express and local at those stations, presumably because high turnover would kill the dwell times with their limited door capacity (or maybe the only issue is amount of storage space on the platforms while people wait for the next train?))

I thought I saw something claiming the new Red Line cars will have wider doors than the existing 1500/1600/1700 series cars, but same width as the 1800 series cars. Has the MBTA published anywhere the width of the 1800 cars' doors and the width of the future cars' doors?

I certainly agree that door quantity and width is not going to magically fix the entire capacity issue by itself, but it also wouldn't surprise me if 1800 series cars with crush loads and Park St turnover require longer than 30 second dwell times even if you had infinitely large platforms and connecting passageways to the Green Line, and I'd like to see a bit more data on whether the T is doing everything possible to make sure door width on the new cars isn't unnecessarily contributing to the overall problem.

You're right about the new RL series door widths, the new Oranges will have wider doors, not the Red as I said.

The platform limitations are working against more vs. less doors per car (as are seating requirements, more doors = less seats). DTX and Park won't receive station capacity upgrades - it's close to planning capacity as it is, and we'll blow right by in the next decade. More doors are going to create more bottlenecks at those stations and it's unlikely to do much to mitigate platform congestion. Other stations, sure I can see the benefit - and I don't know the specific reasons (ops, technical reasons) for the MBTA's insistence on 4 doors. But dwell times are going to be an issue as long as the major transfer clearing stations have the lowest capacities. I imagine NYC has more, but Park + DTX + SS is more crucial to the rapid transit system than any similar concentration of stops in The City. It's really beyond time the MBTA began forging ahead with some dispersal projects - Seaport's going to drag people through the transfers, Kendall is going to continue to do the same for northbounds, Gov Center reopening might help some, but that's temporary.

 

[citylover94]

Would it be possible to add tracks to the red line downtown to increase capacity or is that impossible (as I suspect)?

 

[ant8904]

Well, while you're right that adding more tracks would be extremely prohibitive (not impossible, just absurdly and unjustifiably expensive), the current tracks are not used to its fullest potential. The current red line tracks are being held back by its signal system. Ironically, the old signal system worked better, it shouldn't had happened, but they screwed up the installation and so far they have put the funds to redo it.

 

[Arlington]

One option for the North South Rail Link is to allocate 2 tracks heavy rail transit (take a southern Red leg, run to Aquarium & North Stations and then out one of the Orange or GLX branches (and the other two to Amtrak/Commuter Rail. But let's discuss that in the NSRL thread,

 

[winstonoboogie]

You're right about the new RL series door widths, the new Oranges will have wider doors, not the Red as I said.

The doors will be 64 inches wide, 32 inches per leaf. that width allows a wheelchair to pass through one leaf, even if the opposite leaf is closed. The Red Line cars will have more doors than the cars they are replacing: the #1 and #2 01500/01600/01700 cars; those cars only have three doors per side. The #1 and #2 cars usually have longer not shorter dwell times at Park and Downtown Crossing vs. the four-door #3 01800 cars.

 

[Semass]

It's really beyond time the MBTA began forging ahead with some dispersal projects - Seaport's going to drag people through the transfers, Kendall is going to continue to do the same for northbounds, Gov Center reopening might help some, but that's temporary.

Red-Blue connector at Charles is ready to roll. just need the money and the will to do it.

 

[whighlander]

Red-Blue connector at Charles is ready to roll. just need the money and the will to do it.

Semass -- that one is not on anyone's list to be done anytime before the Olympic sites are transitioned to the civilian economy

Er -- Nevermind!

 

[CantabAmager]

Red-Blue connector at Charles is ready to roll. just need the money and the will to do it.

Should move this over to Red-Blue thread, but MassDOT needs the goddamn motivation more than anything. Final design process has been halted, the efforts have been focused instead on removing it from the SIP - and the Mass DEP has approved the request (as it's not an "emissions mitigation" project), MassDOT is just waiting on the Feds to get around to killing the requirement for good. There's no reason to expect they won't do just that - request for a SIP amendment will pass, 99% sure.

So it's back to square 1, or somewhere near square 1, because we at least got an alternatives analysis and basic design work done.

 

[Semass]

Yep. All I am noting is that dwell times can only be reduced so much with new trains, control systems, and wider doors. Ultimately, you need to get riders out of the Park/DTX/South Station congestion. Red-Blue provides some relief to that overwhelmed core. There was something like a 40% contingency slapped on this budget taking it up to near $750MM. That was used to justify dropping from SIP.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

The doors will be 64 inches wide, 32 inches per leaf. that width allows a wheelchair to pass through one leaf, even if the opposite leaf is closed. The Red Line cars will have more doors than the cars they are replacing: the #1 and #2 01500/01600/01700 cars; those cars only have three doors per side. The #1 and #2 cars usually have longer not shorter dwell times at Park and Downtown Crossing vs. the four-door #3 01800 cars.

I was on an 1800 series Red Line car today, and was looking at one leaf of the door next to the length of my shoe, and it looks like the width of one door leaf on an 1800 series car is probably 25" or 26" or 27" or 28". If the new cars really do end up being 32" per leaf, that's probably slightly wider than we have now, but it probably won't have a huge impact on dwell times.