New Red and Orange Line Cars

#bancars said:
www.wbur.org

China to Springfield: The MBTA's 11-year struggle to get new Red and Orange Line cars

The MBTA is 11 years into a contract to replace its aging Orange and Red Line train cars. The project is up to a billion dollars and has been riddled with delays and challenges. Now, delivery of the cars is in sight – but Trump’s tariffs could cause new problems.
www.wbur.org www.wbur.org
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There is no real point in these big complaints, there is nothing to do at this point, beyond just learning for the next contracts. Also, I find the “in service” % sort of misleading. Besides those 2 OL cars, basically every delivered car is in service, or will be very soon. A better (and would probably strengthen their argument) wording would be saying % delivered.
 
I'm almost willing to bet that there will still be another long-ass delay with the new railcars. Seems as though there are delays after delays, after delays in getting the new trains made. This is so damn ridiculous!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad::mad::mad:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
I'm almost willing to bet that there will still be another long-ass delay with the new railcars. Seems as though there are delays after delays in getting the new trains made. This is so damn ridiculous!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad::mad::mad:
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"Still be another"? Implying you're getting mad on the hypothetical that it would get delayed anyways? Or are you not able to recognize that link is saying that right now parts for assembly is all held up at the border. That's not just risking another delay, it's risking a complete halt - and I don't it's an unreasonable speculation a possible total end to the order.

The MBTA would have to face stretching out the Red Line rolling stock for roughly a decade. Maybe more (and possibly less but history has not been kind to pulling that off). And that assuming a new order (or the implied but speculated fallback plan) can be pulled off in the current political environment (well a non-zero chance, but it should be completely absurd).
 
The same article quotes a T source confirming that Springfield has enough China-delivered shells and parts onhand to continue the production line and deliveries for at least the rest of the year (longer than that, in fact, given that the article also says that there are at least 22 Red cars in active production at Springfield right now). So while these component shipping delays are no doubt a problem if not resolved soon enough, they're very much a future-tense problem when it comes to outright stopping the order. Breathe, please.


EDIT: Doing some math, NETransit is showing 38 Red cars in-service, with 10 unaccepteds delivered and in-testing. To go along with the at least 22 confirmed in-assembly in Springfield, so there's likely no way the order could stop before we hit 70 cars. There are only 4 01600 cars left in-service, and 22 01500's, so we only have to hit about 64-66 total CRRC cars before those antiques are completely gone. Getting the entire 1969-70 #1 fleet retired is a big milestone, because those are far and away the most decrepit cars on the whole system and the ones that are failing all the freaking time out there. The #2/01700 series was rebuilt in the last 9 years and are holding up well, and the #3/01800 series while 31 years old without a rebuild are so far not failing at too abnormally high a rate. There'd obviously be concern if the contract were hit with any major delay once the shipped components supply ran dry, but it probably wouldn't be catastrophic because we'd have succeeded at getting the most-dire concern #1 cars completely expunged before any supply-chain interruptions start affecting deliveries.

And they have time to troubleshoot this before there's an actual impact on the assembly line, so the shipping delays are not close to impacting Springfield.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
The same article quotes a T source confirming that Springfield has enough China-delivered shells and parts onhand to continue the production line and deliveries for at least the rest of the year (longer than that, in fact, given that the article also says that there are at least 22 Red cars in active production at Springfield right now). So while these component shipping delays are no doubt a problem if not resolved soon enough, they're very much a future-tense problem when it comes to outright stopping the order. Breathe, please.


EDIT: Doing some math, NETransit is showing 38 Red cars in-service, with 10 unaccepteds delivered and in-testing. To go along with the at least 22 confirmed in-assembly in Springfield, so there's likely no way the order could stop before we hit 70 cars. There are only 4 01600 cars left in-service, and 22 01500's, so we only have to hit about 64-66 total CRRC cars before those antiques are completely gone. Getting the entire 1969-70 #1 fleet retired is a big milestone, because those are far and away the most decrepit cars on the whole system and the ones that are failing all the freaking time out there. The #2/01700 series was rebuilt in the last 9 years and are holding up well, and the #3/01800 series while 31 years old without a rebuild are so far not failing at too abnormally high a rate. There'd obviously be concern if the contract were hit with any major delay once the shipped components supply ran dry, but it probably wouldn't be catastrophic because we'd have succeeded at getting the most-dire concern #1 cars completely expunged before any supply-chain interruptions start affecting deliveries.

And they have time to troubleshoot this before there's an actual impact on the assembly line, so the shipping delays are not close to impacting Springfield.
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Yeah, I think that it was one of the #1500 cars that had suffered the derailment because of the broken axle that time & some of them seemed to be just suffering from derailments while entering stations, to say the least. Even though the old Pullmans were all retired from service, there are still some of the old '60's trains from when the Nixon administation was still around. Which leads us to one thing; The MBTA waits way too long to replace decrepit decades-old equipment that should've been dumped eons ago!! By that time, they are suject to fires, smoke, derailments accidents & whatever else have you. :eek:
 
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Seems that there's another dark cloud over us in the form of another damn delay in getting the rest of the new railcars made!!! :mad: :mad::eek::mad::eek:
 
#bancars said:
commonwealthbeacon.org

US Customs detains 8 Red Line subway cars in Philadelphia

US Customs detains Red Line subway cars from China, raising concerns about delays in the MBTA subway fleet replacement.
commonwealthbeacon.org commonwealthbeacon.org
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My first, perhaps overly cynical thought, is that this is another way for the Trump admin to harass and harm blue cities. Target purchasing and activities unique to a city on the enemies list, and they can pretend it's about fair labor standards without causing harm elsewhere.
 
HenryAlan said:
My first, perhaps overly cynical thought, is that this is another way for the Trump admin to harass and harm blue cities. Target purchasing and activities unique to a city on the enemies list, and they can pretend it's about fair labor standards without causing harm elsewhere.
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There has never been so many damn tarriffs as there are now because Trump is so damn power-greedy that he wants to control everything & make everyone suffer with less things to get or have!! :mad: :mad:
 
Jahvon09 said:
There has never been so many damn tarriffs as there are now because Trump is so damn power-greedy that he wants to control everything & make everyone suffer with less things to get or have!! :mad: :mad:
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This isn't about tariffs. The CRRC shells were impounded because of an investigation into allegations of forced labor at the Chinese plants that produced the shells. It says right in the article that it's not a tariff thing.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
This isn't about tariffs. The CRRC shells were impounded because of an investigation into allegations of forced labor at the Chinese plants that produced the shells. It says right in the article that it's not a tariff thing.
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Whatever the problem is, we've waited long enough for these new railcars to be delivered. It's a sad state of affairs the way that things have been going with the new trains. :eek:
 
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HenryAlan said:
My first, perhaps overly cynical thought, is that this is another way for the Trump admin to harass and harm blue cities. Target purchasing and activities unique to a city on the enemies list, and they can pretend it's about fair labor standards without causing harm elsewhere.
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This is plainly the correct answer. Scratch the surface on any of the imported goods from China and I'm sure you can find rationale for unfair/forced labor issues. This, the funding fights, are pretty easy ways to make life worse (or show that things are worse) in blue cities.
 
commonwealthbeacon.org

Eng confident 'challenges' to delivery of new MBTA trains will be resolved - CommonWealth Beacon

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said -- without describing any details about the latest apparent hiccup -- that he believes parties will be able to navigate the upheaval.
commonwealthbeacon.org commonwealthbeacon.org
“While those challenges right now are going on, I do feel very confident that CRRC is in the midst of answering the last round of questions, and we will be able to get through this point where we can continue to deliver [train car] shells and continue production,” Eng said without making any explicit reference to a federal probe or questions about forced labor.
[...]
The T has received 48 Red Line cars from CRRC so far and expects to have 152 Orange Line cars by the end of the year, Eng said Thursday, praising the trains for “performing well.” CRRC ships components and train car “shells” to the United States, and final assembly takes place in Springfield.
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NETransit rosters updated. . .

Orange is at 142 active cars. Acceptances have been a little slow of late, as they've only added +2 active cars in the last 2 months. 4 cars currently in-testing. Only 4 more to be delivered before that order is done!

Red's at 42 active cars. Enough for 7 active sets, though practice the last several months has been the active ranks lagging by 1 set because of cycled maintenance for warranty mods. 8 cars in-testing. The in-service ranks of the oldest #1 cars have taken their steepest dive yet, with only 16 01500-series cars and 4 01600-series cars left. They now make up less than a tenth of the active roster.
 
alewife said:
Also worth noting is that CRRC was able to deliver 3 pairs of new cars in July (two for Red and one for Orange). They'd been keeping a pace of 2 pairs per month for a while. Hopefully they're able to keep it up and it's not just a one-off.
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By the last contract 'reset' schedule, we should've started seeing 3-pair-per-month deliveries 6 months ago and had it happen 3x already. This is the first time. So...yay?...they're lagging their target considerably but staying ahead of the worst case of no 3-pair-per-month deliveries till end-'27.😐

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I think that they've been draaging their feet for so long, that it seems like the T has paid even more dough than they planned to spend on the new cars, just so that they can have them all delivered at a reasonable time, & are still getting nowhere fast. :eek:
 
Now for the first time, the new Orange Line trains will run at 55MPH between Oak Grove & Assembly. Back in the day, this running speeed was unheard of. Hopefully, the new Red Line trains will be able to do the same thing!!!! :)
 
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