New Red and Orange Line Cars
- Thread starter bostoneophyte
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Does anybody know how exactly these will phase in? Part of the order is fleet expansion, part is fleet replacement. Will they start removing old cars from service immediately or will the first 3-4 new train sets add to the fleet to get the immediate capacity boost?
JeffDowntown
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I thought the capacity boost needs to wait for the new signal systems, to allow for the tighter headway? That is coming toward the end of the train set delivery schedule. (I could be mistaken.)
The T definitely has old train sets that need to be taken out of service immediately -- way too many breakdowns every day. (Capacity boost does not help if the train ahead of you is dead.)
JeffDowntown
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Exactly!
Jahvon09
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The old cars are so problematic now, they've become a cancer that hangs from a baby's diaper! They should've been put out to pasture eons ago!
Cut that cancer off & drop it like a bad habit. Everyone will be so glad to see those things go!! They are showing their age big time.
Cut that cancer off & drop it like a bad habit. Everyone will be so glad to see those things go!! They are showing their age big time.
I don't think that is true on the Orange, I thought the existing signaling system could easily support 4 minute (if not sub 4 minute), they just simply don't have nearly enough rolling stock at this point (and never did to be fair from the initial order that was undersized). I think they can immediately start bumping up headways and capacity once the new rolling stock starts flowing.
The red, though, I believe requires the signaling upgrades to get anything better than what we have right now.
This was talked about in an FMCB meeting a few months ago. Jeff Gonneville mentioned that the Orange Line ran 102 cars during rush hours before 2011; today, that number is 96. He said it's very possible that the Orange Line can return to the 102 car number. However, there's one thing preventing the T from significantly increasing the number of cars in service during rush hour: the overhaul of Wellington yard. Once the yard expansion is complete, some storage will shift over to the new storage tracks, and several of the existing tracks will be taken out of service to be reconstructed. There won't be any net new storage capacity until the entire yard is fully reconstructed.
Jahvon09
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Nope. You don't want to do that. Anything from the old cars would be like a cancer that would spread to the new ones. The new ones have all new parts. That would be like putting a diseased organ from a sick person to give it to the one that you're trying to heal.
DominusNovus
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Nope. You don't want to do that. Anything from the old cars would be like a cancer that would spread to the new ones. The new ones have all new parts. That would be like putting a diseased organ from a sick person to give it to the one that you're trying to heal.
Pretty sure the suggestion was to use the parts for the remaining old trains still in service.
Jahvon09
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Oh. Sorry.
Well. the new cars will go online & into revenue service in a few more months. I think it's a waste of time to even do THAT. Unless all of them will be tested first, they'll be coming on rather rapidly. At least several a month.
Well. the new cars will go online & into revenue service in a few more months. I think it's a waste of time to even do THAT. Unless all of them will be tested first, they'll be coming on rather rapidly. At least several a month.
DominusNovus
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Oh. Sorry.
Well. the new cars will go online & into revenue service in a few more months. I think it's a waste of time to even do THAT. Unless all of them will be tested first, they'll be coming on rather rapidly. At least several a month.
There are almost a hundred cars running during rush hour alone. Its going to take quite awhile to phase out all the old cars, even at several a month.
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Jahvon09
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Frankly speaking, I thought that they already had a test track for the Red Line cars in place already. Boy, are they slow!!
The new cars for the Red Line will be delivered here soon, & I bet that this won't be ready in time!
The new cars for the Red Line will be delivered here soon, & I bet that this won't be ready in time!
Jahvon09
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Came across something that I thought might be interesting, & wondered if the MBTA might be using it, or has thought about it for the Red, Orange & Blue Lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJsSfx076rQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJsSfx076rQ
The practicality of replacing 1000s and 1000s of feet of 3rd rail for slightly better performance is very low, and at such an assumed-high price point, its not high on their priority list. They're testing the new Orange Line trains with the same 3rd Rail design we currently have today.
I've had discussions with engineers about different third rail systems, and while each has their pros and cons, I'd say our current (simple) version is best for maintenance and accessibility. That protective cover board could become an attractive roof/harbor for animals (you'd be shocked to know how much roadkill (track-kill?) the MBTA has); with deferred maintenance, the cover could potentially fall on the rail, hindering the stretch impassible until repaired, and the dimensions of such a system could be a hindrance. You may need new 3rd rail contact shoes, depending on the shape of the cover. ( But its been a while since I've examined the bottom portion of a Red/Blue/Orange Line train to be certain about the possible equipment/dimension problems.) The T is really aiming toward preventative maintenance or as-little-required (but still effective) maintenance as possible with new equipment and rolling stock and, while it'd be nice to see an updated 3rd rail design, the current system we have now works. There's no point of fixing what's not broken. With their planned improvements/repairs on the Blue Line tracks, we'll see less of what happened at Maverick a few weeks ago where passengers had to get off in the tunnel, and common sense and basic safety training practiced and enforced by the MBTA is enough to keep workers safe from electrocution.
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And to clarify what is happening with old parts and new parts on the current and future Orange and Red Line trains: As best they can, new parts are replacing old out-of-service parts and/or being installed to phase out old/aging equipment on the current stock, and once the fleet retires, the used new parts may be used on the new fleet once maintenance is required. It's a lot easier to get parts that are being manufactured now and in the future rather than parts that were designed and manufactured in the 80's.
I'd imagine they will also be using a few old trains as parts donors for the old parts that aren't currently being phased out, but that is unsubstantiated.
I've had discussions with engineers about different third rail systems, and while each has their pros and cons, I'd say our current (simple) version is best for maintenance and accessibility. That protective cover board could become an attractive roof/harbor for animals (you'd be shocked to know how much roadkill (track-kill?) the MBTA has); with deferred maintenance, the cover could potentially fall on the rail, hindering the stretch impassible until repaired, and the dimensions of such a system could be a hindrance. You may need new 3rd rail contact shoes, depending on the shape of the cover. ( But its been a while since I've examined the bottom portion of a Red/Blue/Orange Line train to be certain about the possible equipment/dimension problems.) The T is really aiming toward preventative maintenance or as-little-required (but still effective) maintenance as possible with new equipment and rolling stock and, while it'd be nice to see an updated 3rd rail design, the current system we have now works. There's no point of fixing what's not broken. With their planned improvements/repairs on the Blue Line tracks, we'll see less of what happened at Maverick a few weeks ago where passengers had to get off in the tunnel, and common sense and basic safety training practiced and enforced by the MBTA is enough to keep workers safe from electrocution.
------
And to clarify what is happening with old parts and new parts on the current and future Orange and Red Line trains: As best they can, new parts are replacing old out-of-service parts and/or being installed to phase out old/aging equipment on the current stock, and once the fleet retires, the used new parts may be used on the new fleet once maintenance is required. It's a lot easier to get parts that are being manufactured now and in the future rather than parts that were designed and manufactured in the 80's.
I'd imagine they will also be using a few old trains as parts donors for the old parts that aren't currently being phased out, but that is unsubstantiated.
Frankly speaking, I thought that they already had a test track for the Red Line cars in place already. Boy, are they slow!!
The new cars for the Red Line will be delivered here soon, & I bet that this won't be ready in time!
Err, the Red Line isn't protected to start testing until next year - only the mockups have been delivered.
Oh. Sorry.
Well. the new cars will go online & into revenue service in a few more months. I think it's a waste of time to even do THAT. Unless all of them will be tested first, they'll be coming on rather rapidly. At least several a month.
The full roll out/replacement of the Orange line is scheduled to be completed in 2020-2021 I think - the old cars are still going to be around to meet peak demand for at least 2 years. The ones taken out of service makes sense to cannibalize to keep the other old ones running until they can be retired.
F-Line to Dudley
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It'll phase in the same sequence the Blue Line 0700's did.
1. You'll have 2-3 six-car sets sprinkled into revenue service for revenue burn-in testing, with no displacements on the old fleet. Few and far between, and you may not see them at all on the off-peak as they'll be taking data collection. This scarcity will last a few months as testing is the primary goal.
2. Then you'll see more of them graduate into revenue service, and a few old sets idled for certain peak shifts but still taking turns other times. So while the new cars are now starting to take up a portion of regular fleet %, because they still have to pass warranty milestones and because any fleet-wide problems may cause all of the newbies to be pulled at once for inspection they still have to have a full-service old fleet. This stage is where you'll start to see customer service tweaks in the ASA, speaker volume, door timings, hanging straps, etc. start to be applied in the very newest cars, as well as small fixes for things like rattles and ill-fitting plastic that only showed themselves after lots of burn-in. For a brief spell you'll be able to tell the very newest cars hot-off-the-press from the very first revenue pilot cars, because the pilots will still be carrying some of the first-timer annoyances that won't be modded out until midway through deliveries (example: The very talky ASA on the Blue 0700's was extremely, rage-inducingly annoying on the first revenue pilots until they toned Frank's verbosity down a notch in the later deliveries, then bumped the ASA firmware on the pilots to match.)
3. Old cars will start being idled at Wellington by order of sorriest condition, as the new car numbers swell. They still have to be maintained enough to go back into service on days' notice (but not hours) if there's some catastrophic fleet-grounding flaw in the new cars, but day-to-day maintenance starts getting curtailed and parts start getting raided from the reserve line to patch the shrinking in-service fleet so these are the de facto first retirees. The 01200/01300's are currently all in-service in similar overall condition, so there's no junkers leaps-and-bounds worse than the rest where you'd be able to guess at first retirees. Most likely things like snow casualties or crap-outs on the hardest-to-find parts set the order of removal from service.
4. Yard space will be at premium and enough warranty milestones will be passed that it's time to start removing the out-of-service reserves from the property. Cars are stripped of some key usable parts universal to the rapid transit division or which can feed the Red Line 01500/01600/01700's for a couple more years, and combed for some good-condition fixtures like rollsigns and over-the-door maps to re-sell through the gift shop. With the Blue 0700's and Flyer trackless trolleys they were taken by flatbed truck to Billerica Shops to pile up until whoever won the scrap contract could take them. Removal from the home yard is considered the "official" point of retirement, since they've now been stripped enough to be no trivial matter to get running again and are scrapper responsibility for removing from the temporary boneyard.
5. The final old units remaining in-service are any that have underwriter refinancing/leaseback deals, which are a common insurance money-saving scheme for railcars of all types. For example, the final 24 Blue Line 0600 cars that still ran alongside the full-delivered 0700's for several months were ones that had underwriter contracts that hadn't expired, and thus had to be maintained ready-to-run for the duration of that contract. And a number of Boeing LRV's remained at Riverside 3+ years after their last run to wait out expiring leases. I don't know how many Orange cars are under these lease-back deals. Usually (but not always) if they are on leaseback there'll be a nameplate for the underwriter affixed near the manufacturer builder's plate by the operator door.
5a. The overlap between full replacement fleet delivery and running out the clock on the old 012/013's that have leasebacks would be first opportunity to expand service. New cars will still be actively delivered for the expansion order, but they now have enough active reserves to scale-up. It depends on how many more months the leaseback 012/013's have to malinger on, and whether parts scarcity makes that a good idea to push them. With the Blue 0600's, they ended up being pulled from service and placed in dead storage at Orient Heights well before the lease terms ended on those cars simply because they were too unreliable and bereft of spare parts to keep running in limited service. If I had to guess, the T's experience with the last Blue 0600's will make them gun-shy about using the last leaseback Orange 012/013's as the service expander. More likely they'll wait for enough new cars on the expansion order to arrive and get themselves on a homogeneous fleet before cranking up the service levels. Lease expiration games probably mean that 1-2 dozen old cars will remain in the Wellington dead-line rostered but out-of-service for up to 2 years after final revenue appearance, then end up getting covered on a separate scrap contract (probably rolled in with some of the first Red Line scrappings).
6. Seashore Trolley Museum and any other interested museums get their pre-negotiated cars out of this remainder dead line. I don't know if there are any individual cars in the Orange fleet with unusual historical significance, other than they'd probably try to set aside first units 01200/01201 for Seashore. Some cars from these leaseback remainders may also be retained for non-revenue service as work trains. A bunch of the predecessor Orange 01100's ran for 6 extra years on the work trains for both Orange AND Red (the platform gap on Red obviously not being a problem for the overnight shift). And the 4-car set of Red 01400's lasted nearly 20 years on the overnight trash train until their propulsion finally crapped out and they moved into storage at Codman Yard. Orange badly needs more dedicated work equipment, so this is a cheap way to address that need even if there are no guarantees for further longevity of the designated work sets beyond "run 'em till they can't run no more".