New Red and Orange Line Cars

[F-Line to Dudley]

You know, a few years ago I was going to ask the railfans here about headway times. I thought something was different.
The next three years are going to be tough.

And the saddest thing of all is that there are adults with several commute years in the workforce who've lived in this town their entire lives but weren't even born when this very same car fleet last ran at a 'normal' rush-hour headway.

The SW Corridor not only had more stops than the El and took longer because of the extra stops, but the longer platforms finally allowed all peak trainsets to extend from 4 to 6 cars. But no additional cars were ordered, so all of that newly-created car shortage got sucked out of the headways.

The Red Line had a similar platform extension project going on at the same time, and also went from 4 to 6 cars within one calendar year of the Orange relocation. They ordered the 54 new 01700 series Red cars to balance the ledger for the increased train length. And that was without any of the route changes like Orange.


Had they not shorted the car supply 30 years ago, Orange would be running rush-hour headways more or less equal to Red. Pre-1987 and post-1987 is a jarring difference in service levels. Thankfully we only have to wait 4 more years. New Bostonians may feel like breaking out the happy dance when they first feel the service increases from having a right-sized car supply...but stand next to somebody in their late-50's who's been commuting on Orange their whole working lives and they'll be like "Meh...everything old becomes new again. At least they didn't wait till after I retired to fix what they broke."

 

[bigeman312]

Don't the deliveries begin in two years?

 

[statler]

Globe article says 2019

The T awarded a $566.6 million contract in 2014 to a company now called Changchun Railway Vehicles, but the first Orange Line cars won’t be delivered until 2019.

 

[bigeman312]

Thank you. As a JP resident and frequent OL rider, I can't wait!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Don't the deliveries begin in two years?

Yes. Although like the Blue cars you won't see more than 1-2 revenue sets in operation because of testing, then obligatory warranty mods. They usually get 1 year for pilots and bug fixes before the bulk of the order starts churning out, and then they start arriving FAST. As the article says, the 01200's have to remain in service until 2022. But that last year will be much like the Blue 0600's: a protect fleet for the warranty period that usually gets isolated to supplementals and off-peaks. Probably will see some early scrappings of the most worn-out units even when most of the fleet is still operating, also like the Blue 0600's.


Where this could get interesting is if history repeats itself. . .

^^Those are Orange Line 01100's the previous generation retired from revenue service in 1981. Sitting in Cabot Yard on the Red Line, where they were used as work trains. The 11's stayed on in non-revenue service on Red and Orange until '87. Could very well happen with these Orange 01200's since they're fully signal-compatible with Red and can run as-is. Decent chance of a few sets staying on Orange for work trains, and a couple temporarily going to Red until the back-end of this order lets them pick some new work trains out of the Red 01500/01600 retirees. Red hasn't had working work trains since their pair of old-timey 14000's died about 5 years ago, so they're a little desperate for equipment. Right now they have to borrow a revenue set to do overnight miscellany, which means that borrowed set can't run in revenue the next day because they first have to thoroughly clean/disinfect it from the prior night's dirty work.

 

[winstonoboogie]

The SW Corridor not only had more stops than the El and took longer because of the extra stops, but the longer platforms finally allowed all peak trainsets to extend from 4 to 6 cars. But no additional cars were ordered, so all of that newly-created car shortage got sucked out of the headways.

The Red Line had a similar platform extension project going on at the same time, and also went from 4 to 6 cars within one calendar year of the Orange relocation. They ordered the 54 new 01700 series Red cars to balance the ledger for the increased train length. And that was without any of the route changes like Orange.


Had they not shorted the car supply 30 years ago, Orange would be running rush-hour headways more or less equal to Red. Pre-1987 and post-1987 is a jarring difference in service levels. Thankfully we only have to wait 4 more years. New Bostonians may feel like breaking out the happy dance when they first feel the service increases from having a right-sized car supply...but stand next to somebody in their late-50's who's been commuting on Orange their whole working lives and they'll be like "Meh...everything old becomes new again. At least they didn't wait till after I retired to fix what they broke."

From the time #12 Main Line 01200-01319 cars went into service in 1979-81, until the Orange Line moved from the Washington St. El to the Southwest Corridor in 1987, the peak requirement for the Orange Line was only 76 cars, operated as 19 four-car trains on a 4 minute headway. After the Southwest Corridor switch, the peak car requirement was increased from 76 to 102, with 17 six-car trains running every 4/5 minute headways. The #12 car fleet are 120 65-foot long cars. They replaced a #11 (01100 series) car fleet that had already shrunk from 100 to 86 cars by 1980 because of cars out of service from accidents and fires. The #11 series cars were only 55 feet long. Enough #12 cars were ordered that it was considered to be a large increase in fleet size when the cars were new. When the last of the cars were being delivered, the MBTA even considered having the last 24 delivered with raised suspensions and bridge-plates at the door thresholds so that they could operate in Red Line service. The FTA (still UMTA at the time) nixed that idea, and as a result the #2 01700 cars were ordered to expand Red Line capacity. As the #12 cars aged, it was no longer practical to use 102 out of 120 in the peak, so one train was removed from the peak requirement a few years ago, and the car requirement went from 102 to 96. Initially, they were able to still operate a 5 minute headway with one less train, but slightly longer dwell times from single-person operation, longer dwell times at peak stations from ridership increases, and the addition of Assembly station combined have resulted in longer round-trip running times. Headways have been stretched to 6 minutes as 16 trains sets was no longer enough to maintain a 5 minute headway with the longer travel times and still maintain a schedule.

 

[winstonoboogie]

Y

^^Those are Orange Line 01100's the previous generation retired from revenue service in 1981. Sitting in Cabot Yard on the Red Line, where they were used as work trains. The 11's stayed on in non-revenue service on Red and Orange until '87. Could very well happen with these Orange 01200's since they're fully signal-compatible with Red and can run as-is. Decent chance of a few sets staying on Orange for work trains, and a couple temporarily going to Red until the back-end of this order lets them pick some new work trains out of the Red 01500/01600 retirees. Red hasn't had working work trains since their pair of old-timey 14000's died about 5 years ago, so they're a little desperate for equipment. Right now they have to borrow a revenue set to do overnight miscellany, which means that borrowed set can't run in revenue the next day because they first have to thoroughly clean/disinfect it from the prior night's dirty work.

There are no plans to maintain any of the cars as work trains once they are retired. The MBTA briefly did that with a four-car set of the #4 Blue Line cars in 2009, but removed the cars from work train service after less than a year. Unlike old equipment from the pre-WWII era that could be kept around as work equipment for ages, cars built from the 1950s and later have more complex control systems, that require stocking unique parts and keeping maintenance people trained on the old technology. The rapid transit work cars were used to haul a flat car around, essentially serving as a four-section locomotive. Using a revenue set to haul a flat car around does result in some more wear and tear on the couplers, but it was determined that it is cheaper to deal with that than to maintain a special set of antiquated equipment for such limited duties. Not long after the Blue Line work train was removed from service, the 01400 series work train that had operated since 1994 on the Red Line was also removed from service because of the same change in work train maintenance philosophy.

 

[Jahvon09]

And the saddest thing of all is that there are adults with several commute years in the workforce who've lived in this town their entire lives but weren't even born when this very same car fleet last ran at a 'normal' rush-hour headway.

The SW Corridor not only had more stops than the El and took longer because of the extra stops, but the longer platforms finally allowed all peak trainsets to extend from 4 to 6 cars. But no additional cars were ordered, so all of that newly-created car shortage got sucked out of the headways.

The Red Line had a similar platform extension project going on at the same time, and also went from 4 to 6 cars within one calendar year of the Orange relocation. They ordered the 54 new 01700 series Red cars to balance the ledger for the increased train length. And that was without any of the route changes like Orange.


Had they not shorted the car supply 30 years ago, Orange would be running rush-hour headways more or less equal to Red. Pre-1987 and post-1987 is a jarring difference in service levels. Thankfully we only have to wait 4 more years. New Bostonians may feel like breaking out the happy dance when they first feel the service increases from having a right-sized car supply...but stand next to somebody in their late-50's who's been commuting on Orange their whole working lives and they'll be like "Meh...everything old becomes new again. At least they didn't wait till after I retired to fix what they broke."

Those cars still looked shiny & new back them! Can't say the same thing for them now.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Those cars still looked shiny & new back them! Can't say that same thing for them now.

Pic on the right was from 1983, when they were less than 2 years old. Pic on the left was '87 during last couple months of service.


They've overstayed their welcome, but they and the identical Blue Line 0600's were damn good cars. They're based on the PATH PA-3 cars, which ran from 1972-2011 under much more punishing schedule and are still around today as a work fleet. Look familiar?

 

[winstonoboogie]

They've overstayed their welcome, but they and the identical Blue Line 0600's were damn good cars. They're based on the PATH PA-3 cars, which ran from 1972-2011 under much more punishing schedule and are still around today as a work fleet. Look familiar?

The PA3s as well as the PA1s and PA2s are all gone except for PA3 745 which is at the Shore Line Trolley Museum and PA1 143 which is at the Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston. It is the PA4 fleet (cars 800-894), built by Kawasaki in 1986-87 that PATH has retained for work service.

The PATH PA3 and MBTA Blue/Orange order all came from the same plant in Thunder Bay and have a shared family appearance, but the PATH cars are aluminum carbodies with Westinghouse control systems while the MBTA cars have cor-ten steel carbodies (that are prone to rust), and General Electric controls. There aren't that many mechanical parts that the PATH and MBTA fleets actually have in common.

 

[Jahvon09]

Pic on the right was from 1983, when they were less than 2 years old. Pic on the left was '87 during last couple months of service.


They've overstayed their welcome, but they and the identical Blue Line 0600's were damn good cars. They're based on the PATH PA-3 cars, which ran from 1972-2011 under much more punishing schedule and are still around today as a work fleet. Look familiar?

F-Line to Dudley, you were right about one thing. Those cars have worn out their welcome eons ago! Hah!

Typically, rail cars used by the MBTA & other transit agencies are supposed to be in use for at least 25 years, 30 tops. The Red Line 1600 cars have been in use since the very late '60s - '69 to be exact. Those are a whopping 43 years old!

Even though they've become true workhorses, like everything else, the older they become, the more problematic they become. They needed to be put out to pasture at least about 15 years ago. And the winter of 2014 has proven that. Now supposedly, this coming winter is supposed to be about as bad as the winter of 2014, and I don't see those cars holding out that much longer.

We still have over a year left to go, even before the first rail car for the Orange Line starts being made.

 

[Jahvon09]

As the MBTA gears up for the new assembly plant being built in Springfield MA. for the finally assembly of the new Red & Orange Line railcars, the WMATA in Washington, DC has removed & retired the first of the existing 1000-series railcars from service.

All of the existing 1000-series railcars will be replaced by the new 7000-series railcars that have begun coming into service in April, 2014.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5QLd0uahs

 

[datadyne007]

Springfield facility construction!

https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/746421582009077762

 

[Jahvon09]

The spot where the actual assembly plant is being built does not look all that big. Unless more buildings are going to be added at some point in time.

I wonder if, when all of the railcars are made, what will become of the plant? Hopefully, it will remain there, and when the MBTA has to replaces older cars on it lines, it will call on CNR to make more at the same plant.

I don't think that the building will be torn down!

 

[tysmith95]

^ The factory probably only builds one or two cars at a time. The orange line employs 6 car trains.

 

[datadyne007]

The spot where the actual assembly plant is being built does not look all that big. Unless more buildings are going to be added at some point in time.

I wonder if, when all of the railcars are made, what will become of the plant? Hopefully, it will remain there, and when the MBTA has to replaces older cars on it lines, it will call on CNR to make more at the same plant.

I don't think that the building will be torn down!

I believe the plan is for CNR to use it for other North American rolling stock orders.

 

[Jahvon09]

I believe the plan is for CNR to use it for other North American rolling stock orders.

Great idea!

The T also plans to add at least 24 new Type 9 trolleys, even though we don't know yet what the final design will look like, or even who was awarded the contract to make them.

I'm wondering if CNR is also interested in the deal.

This kind of reminds me of Boeing, when they first began making the 747 for the first time in the '60s. They had to build a brand new assembly plant in Everett, WA to accommodate the huge production line of what was known back then as the very first & largest wide-bodied jetliner in the world.

The plane was even being made while the actual construction of the building was in progress!

 

[datadyne007]

Great idea!

The T also plans to add at least 24 new Type 9 trolleys, even though we don't know yet what the final design will look like, or even who was awarded the contract to make them.

CAF USA was chosen for the GL Type 9 order.

 

[Equilibria]

CAF USA was chosen for the GL Type 9 order.

We also know what it will look like...

 

[datadyne007]

^ Yeah. For some reason most of the Type 9 discussion is in the GLX thread and not the Type 9 thread... Thanks for digging that up.