New Red and Orange Line Cars

How are the new Trump tariffs going to impact the MBTA’s order for new Orange and Red line cars? Will CRRC no longer be willing to finish the order after the new tariffs go into effect? Will the T be stuck with 130 OL cars and 28 RL cars? If CRRC wants more funding from the T to finish the order, will the MBTA be able to pony up extra cash after the fiscal cliff?

It’s really bad since the Red Line fleet is in a dire state and needs to go, but we only have 4 new trainsets on the Red Line. If CRRC can’t complete the order, or the MBTA can’t pony up additional funding for the replacement cars, the T’s Red Line is going to be screwed.
 
Restarting the procurement would probably cost more than the tariff itself. And who knows, maybe a deal can be cut with the GOP for train imports, as long as someone gets paid the right money.
 
Longfellow said:
Restarting the procurement would probably cost more than the tariff itself. And who knows, maybe a deal can be cut with the GOP for train imports, as long as someone gets paid the right money.
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In that case wouldn’t that mean that CRRC would demand more money from the T to cover the new Trump tariffs? The T is going to have to blow up the cost of the new rail cars and pony up extra cash to finish the Red Line order even with the fiscal cliff.

Also, do we even have any domestic passenger train production by domestic US companies at all? If the answer is no, then the tariffs are just one way for Agenda 47 to get rid of transit from the US altogether.
 
Delvin4519 said:
In that case wouldn’t that mean that CRRC would demand more money from the T to cover the new Trump tariffs? The T is going to have to blow up the cost of the new rail cars and pony up extra cash to finish the Red Line order even with the fiscal cliff.
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$55M of the $148M increase in the last CRRC contract revision from May was already a tariffs adjustment. This isn't a new thing in the slightest. To even establish bounds for a future increase, you first have to determine how many cars are paid for by January 20 at the earliest (or considerably later...since tariffs aren't going to be a Day 1 thing with the jurisdiction of how much an Admin. can act alone without Congress being a thorough legal/logistical mess largely untested at the scope of these theoretical tariffs). Not how many cars are accepted for service, not how many are delivered on MBTA property...how many are paid for. They could be paying for them midpoint in assembly or in installments before the cars are even shipped from China, for all we know. Unless you can cite the payment schedule from the contract fine print, you don't know how much of an issue this really is.
Delvin4519 said:
Also, do we even have any domestic passenger train production by domestic US companies at all? If the answer is no, then the tariffs are just one way for Agenda 47 to get rid of transit from the US altogether.
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Brookville Equipment Corp. is the last solely U.S.-based rolling stock company, and they only do small orders of LRV's and locomotives. Wabtec is also here if you're strictly talking diesel locomotives, as they're the overwhelming worldwide market leader there. All HRT/metro cars are foreign-sourced. But the tariffs are being targeted at the Chinese...so CRRC being the only Chinese rolling stock maker with active U.S. contracts is the literal only one in the crosshairs, and they're almost done with their other two active U.S. orders and well on their way to exiting the domestic market after all their delivery failures. It's a real reach to conclude that this is somehow a credible vector to "get rid of transit", because it's basically not going to disrupt anyone's buying plans but the MBTA's. Purely theoretically. Again...depending on whether the legal authority even exists to unilaterally impose those intended tariffs without the input of a Congress that intends (per Sen. McConnell today) to still have an intact Senate filibuster.


Delvin...I know given your posting history that you physically can't help yourself with the incessant doomscrolling. But is this really a productive endeavor to be heaping it all over aB today when you don't have anywhere close to enough of the pertinent facts handy to foretell the doom? Breathe, damnit.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Delvin...I know given your posting history that you physically can't help yourself with the incessant doomscrolling. But is this really a productive endeavor to be heaping it all over aB today when you don't have anywhere close to enough of the pertinent facts handy to foretell the doom? Breathe, damnit.
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Wise words.
 
New Red Line trains (from u/ChemStack on Reddit)
redline.jpeg
 
mass.streetsblog.org

T Things to Be Thankful For This Thanksgiving - Streetsblog Massachusetts

It’s the season of thanks, and here in Massachusetts public transit, there is much to be thankful for. As someone who watches their TrainTrakr with remorse at how few trains have been on the move recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see a fully-lit board this morning. No more slow zones After...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo told StreetsblogMASS that "32 new Red Line cars have been delivered to date, 20 of which are currently available for service. The other 12 are in varying stages of the inspection, testing and acceptance process.”
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32 RL cars delivered, 20 in service now, per an article from StreetsBLOG Mass.
 
Word is out that the MBTA has recently said that there's another 500-foot long slow zone on the Red Line just days after having previously said that the line was slow-zone free!! What gives?!! :mad: :mad:
 
Someone had recently posted this pic on Facebook. I thought that the old Red Line Pullmans were gone several years ago!!!! :eek: :eek:
Old Red Line Pullmans..jpg
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The four 01400 work cars were stored at Codman Yard out-of-service for close to a decade, then were recently moved to Cabot Yard to be prepped for scrap. They'll be gone very soon.
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Thanks. But it's a downright shame & so stupid how the MBTA keeps dinosaur equipment around for so long, knowing that far better & up-to-date tecnology can be gained with new equipment. Sad. So sad. :(
 
Jahvon09 said:
Thanks. But it's a downright shame & so stupid how the MBTA keeps dinosaur equipment around for so long, knowing that far better & up-to-date tecnology can be gained with new equipment. Sad. So sad. :(
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Dude...they were work cars. They went around on the overnight picking up trash and transporting track gangs and their equipment. Dirty work. You don't use state-of-the-art revenue equipment for jobs like that. You use retired old beaters, because they're gonna get beat up doing dirty work.
 
They did get a cameo in Good Will Hunting, shortly after they were retired from revenue service.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Dude...they were work cars. They went around on the overnight picking up trash and transporting track gangs and their equipment. Dirty work. You don't use state-of-the-art revenue equipment for jobs like that. You use retired old beaters, because they're gonna get beat up doing dirty work.
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Speaking of work cars ... The T ordered several purpose built sets of work cars in 2021 - one "crane train" each for Red, Orange, & Blue as well as a pair of wire trains for Green and Blue. Per NE transit, they were supposed to be on property by now - the crane cars in 2023-24, and wire cars 24-25. One would tend to assume that they'd have been very helpful in getting, and now keeping the system slow zone free.

Are delays in getting these affecting the Ts ability to maintain the system? The 1400 works motors are scrapheap bound, they didn't keep a single pair of OL 1200s and given that the GL wire car had been out of service for a while by the time the FTA came knocking in 2022... I assume the rest of the existing work car fleet isn't far behind in decrepitude, especially since they'd ordered the new ones even before the FTA SMI. Presumably the T was relying on contractors and their HiRails during this year's track improvement project, but going into next year does the T have enough of their own HiRails / tools to do the job of "keep up" without relying on contractor equipment?
 
Stlin said:
Speaking of work cars ... The T ordered several purpose built sets of work cars in 2021 - one "crane train" each for Red, Orange, & Blue as well as a pair of wire trains for Green and Blue. Per NE transit, they were supposed to be on property by now - the crane cars in 2023-24, and wire cars 24-25. One would tend to assume that they'd have been very helpful in getting, and now keeping the system slow zone free.

Are delays in getting these affecting the Ts ability to maintain the system? The 1400 works motors are scrapheap bound, they didn't keep a single pair of OL 1200s and given that the GL wire car had been out of service for a while by the time the FTA came knocking in 2022... I assume the rest of the existing work car fleet isn't far behind in decrepitude, especially since they'd ordered the new ones even before the FTA SMI. Presumably the T was relying on contractors and their HiRails during this year's track improvement project, but going into next year does the T have enough of their own HiRails / tools to do the job of "keep up" without relying on contractor equipment?
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Green Line just got 3 Type 7 conversion work cars added to the roster: Maintenance of Way car 3615, Re-railer car 3669, and Track Geometry car 3680. They aren't officially in-service yet, but just came out of the shop from their conversions. They replace 3 Boeings of same work roles that were scrapped a few years ago after rotting out-of-service for awhile. It matters a lot how maintainable they are. The GL Boeing work cars were maintenance nightmares because the whole Boeing platform was a maintenance nightmare, and parts weren't available for years so whenever something broke they had to scavenge one extra donor-body Boeing they kept lying around. Didn't end up being enough to keep them running. The MOW car was out-of-service for over 10 years. The re-railer car had shot propulsion and had to be dead-towed around by a Type 7 from the revenue fleet in its final years. Both the MOW car and the re-railer never underwent midlife rebuild like the rest of the fleet...they were converted instead of being rebuilt. And the Geo car only lasted a handful of years after its post-retirement conversion because its propulsion too broke down and the parts were gone. The Type 7's all have freshly rebuilt systems, and a parts warehouse that's stocked full...so the new converts should be good for 20+ years of work service.

Orange really couldn't keep any 01200's for work duty because they were so heavily worn out they'd be running on fumes right from the rip. Not a recipe for keeping them in work service for a number of years, especially with parts availability becoming a problem with the rest of the fleet and the near-identical (and also pretty far shot at the end) Blue 0600's all being scrapped. By comparison the Red 01400's when they were converted to work duty in 1994 were only 10 years removed from their midlife overhaul, making them much fresher at revenue retirement than the 01200's ever were. Using that lesson, the Red Line has better choices currently available on its roster. The 01700's were rebuilt in the last 8-12 years and still have fresh parts sources available (they're pretty much the only old Red cars still getting actively repaired when they break); they'd probably be an even better choice for work conversion than the newer-manufacture 01800's because the rebuild was so recent.


The T has a largeish roster of hi-rails and track critters that are portable across all 4 lines, but there isn't a public roster of them so we don't exactly know how many of each there are.
 
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