New Red and Orange Line Cars

tysmith95 said:
There are a number of fully built cars sitting at Wellington Station.
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The 1st sentence that I posted was for the new Red Line cars.

2nd was for new Orange Line cars. :wink:
 
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sneijder said:
Anyone know what the "mainline signal upgrades" vs "signal enhancements" projects are? On slide 5. Does this involve re-wiring all the circuitry for future CBTC or just shortening the signal blocks so that trains can run closer together?

Gonna need tighter blocks if 3-min headways are to happen on the RL around the harvard curve and DTX/Park chokepoints..
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It's retaining the current ATO system with recalibrated blocks for the enhanced acceleration/braking performance of the new fleets (these enhancements thus won't go live until the old cars are purged and they're on the purely expansion parts of the order).

With it comes long overdue signal component replacement, and replacement of all remaining copper cable with fiber optic. Having all-fiber will allow for future CBTC installation, and continued parallel operation of the ATO system while they're phasing it in. So while there's no immediate plans for Red/Orange CBTC (that's still most likely to be seen on Blue before anywhere else), they're clearing a vital hurdle to doing it later at less disruption by getting the high-bandwidth fiber data pipe established now for the signals.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's retaining the current ATO system with recalibrated blocks for the enhanced acceleration/braking performance of the new fleets (these enhancements thus won't go live until the old cars are purged and they're on the purely expansion parts of the order).

With it comes long overdue signal component replacement, and replacement of all remaining copper cable with fiber optic. Having all-fiber will allow for future CBTC installation, and continued parallel operation of the ATO system while they're phasing it in. So while there's no immediate plans for Red/Orange CBTC (that's still most likely to be seen on Blue before anywhere else), they're clearing a vital hurdle to doing it later at less disruption by getting the high-bandwidth fiber data pipe established now for the signals.
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Riding these rustbuckets twice a day, it feels like the 1800 series already has vastly improved acceleration over the 1500/1600's. Thanks.
 
Sounds like a car that has sat in the driveway. If it has 1,800 miles on it for nine years, chances are that it needs a ton of stuff done to get it back on the road. Costing way too much to repair it.

These trains, though they haven't sat for long, they need to be brought back up to date for them to be considered operable again. This is where they begin to put good money after bad. The reason why both lines' trains have to be put out to pasture. :)
 
Todays FMCB OL update, pretty low-info:

Systems testing should be complete in mid-June, "Independent Safety Assessment Report" should be complete in mid-July, then has MBTA internal certification to complete, first consist enter service in "mid-summer". 30 cars at Springfield being assembled.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Todays FMCB OL update, pretty low-info:

Systems testing should be complete in mid-June, "Independent Safety Assessment Report" should be complete in mid-July, then has MBTA internal certification to complete, first consist enter service in "mid-summer". 30 cars at Springfield being assembled.
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Still practically the whole summer! So maybe August sometime? They just can't seem to get here fast enough, so that we can start seeing those Relics of the Dinosaur Age be put out to pasture!!

Never knew that there was so much involved in getting newly-acquired rolling stock into revenue service!! :eek:
 
Jahvon09 said:
Still practically the whole summer! So maybe August sometime? They just can't seem to get here fast enough, so that we can start seeing those Relics of the Dinosaur Age be put out to pasture!!

Never knew that there was so much involved in getting newly-acquired rolling stock into revenue service!! :eek:
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It isn't unusual when it's a brand new technological generation of stock. The whole metro/tram industry is still in-transition to a generation of rolling stock that is now stacked to the extreme with software-based control systems. In contrast the most recent subway stock the T purchased, the Blue Line 0700's, had relatively simple and task-limited computers with a lot of remaining analog electrical or electromechanical controls decidedly old and resource-intensive to produce as parts. Believe it or not, with a finalized design year of 2004 (15:!: years ago) for '07-09 delivery, their tiny brains are already 1-1/2 decades old. The computer complexity on the Orange/Red cars and even the Green Line Type 9's is light years ahead of that, with firmware programming absorbing far greater share of all of the train's various control systems than their much simpler predecessors.

New York and other systems have had similarly sluggish and/or painful adoption of its new-gen cars as they get over the hump on all these new layers of software debugging. The good news is that once replacement procurements have sufficiently flushed the railcar industry onto this new tech generational leap the follow-on orders get MUCH easier from here on out and build off the coding bug fixes the first-wave buyers implemented. If we're buying off-shelf trolleys for Green Line Transformation, then the pain and suffering other systems did/are going through debugging the latest-gen reference models will pay off by giving the T a much easier time piggybacking. When Buy America imposes its own world of hurt on delays and cost overruns, that's not at all insignificant a boost.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It isn't unusual when it's a brand new technological generation of stock. The whole metro/tram industry is still in-transition to a generation of rolling stock that is now stacked to the extreme with software-based control systems. In contrast the most recent subway stock the T purchased, the Blue Line 0700's, had relatively simple and task-limited computers with a lot of remaining analog electrical or electromechanical controls decidedly old and resource-intensive to produce as parts. Believe it or not, with a finalized design year of 2004 (15:!: years ago) for '07-09 delivery, their tiny brains are already 1-1/2 decades old. The computer complexity on the Orange/Red cars and even the Green Line Type 9's is light years ahead of that, with firmware programming absorbing far greater share of all of the train's various control systems than their much simpler predecessors.

New York and other systems have had similarly sluggish and/or painful adoption of its new-gen cars as they get over the hump on all these new layers of software debugging. The good news is that once replacement procurements have sufficiently flushed the railcar industry onto this new tech generational leap the follow-on orders get MUCH easier from here on out and build off the coding bug fixes the first-wave buyers implemented. If we're buying off-shelf trolleys for Green Line Transformation, then the pain and suffering other systems did/are going through debugging the latest-gen reference models will pay off by giving the T a much easier time piggybacking. When Buy America imposes its own world of hurt on delays and cost overruns, that's not at all insignificant a boost.
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Speaking of New York, it, too, was on the roster to receive new subway cars from CRRC, but it seems that it has pulled out for reasons unknown. & have begun looking for someone else to make them.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Speaking of New York, it, too, was on the roster to receive new subway cars from CRRC, but it seems that it has pulled out for reasons unknown. & have begun looking for someone else to make them.
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The reasons are known. In the minds of some, subway cars manufactured by a Chinese company pose a threat to national security.

From The Hill: Lawmakers raise security concerns about China building NYC subway cars

Recall that a Norfolk state representative thought he had “duly” raised a similar concern with regard to the T. Each state has its geniuses.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Speaking of New York, it, too, was on the roster to receive new subway cars from CRRC, but it seems that it has pulled out for reasons unknown. & have begun looking for someone else to make them.
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Not familiar with that situation, but if any federal money is at stake a Chinese gov't-invested builder is automatically disqualified (trade peculiarities...way out of my league to comprehend). If it's state money alone, CRRC's free to bid. If NYC is so much as smelling potential --not necessarily even realized--fed funding the bid conforms accordingly.
 
For many years, the MBTA has bought rolling stock from co's such as Pullman, Bombardier & other, Guess CRRC said. Show me the money, & the agency did.
 
Jahvon09 said:
For many years, the MBTA has bought rolling stock from co's such as Pullman, Bombardier & other, Guess CRRC said. Show me the money, & the agency did.
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Bombardier, Kinki-Sharyo, Siemens, Breda, and CAF are literally the only builders in 125 years of Boston rapid transit stock who are still in business in 2019 (some of them stronger HRT vs. LRT than others). And all of them represent active, post-1986 fleets. It's not like the incumbent builders were all that diverse to begin with. Kawasaki is the only major metro stock player they haven't yet sampled in any form. The world market for metro stock needs more competition in a big way.
 
Rotem Hyundai almost won. They were trying to sue the MBTA because they didn't win. The outcome was that the T has the right to choose any co they want that would meet their needs & have the lowest price. Guess that they DID show them the money!! Hah!!
 
This is embarrassing for the MBTA and yet another misstep. People wonder why confidence is so low and still so many people opt to drive into Boston for work. When you have incidents like this, there's your answer. Now you have the red line also causing issues for folks driving on 93.
 
Not sure if related, but there were switch issues at JFK/UMass (where the derailment occurred) last night.
 
mass88 said:
This is embarrassing for the MBTA and yet another misstep. People wonder why confidence is so low and still so many people opt to drive into Boston for work. When you have incidents like this, there's your answer. Now you have the red line also causing issues for folks driving on 93.
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If you mean confidence from a safety standpoint, anyone taking a car instead of a train and feeling safer is an absolute idiot. If you mean confidence from an on time perspective, I have some great data on time spent in traffic in Boston.

imrs.php
 
HelloBostonHi said:
If you mean confidence from a safety standpoint, anyone taking a car instead of a train and feeling safer is an absolute idiot. If you mean confidence from an on time perspective, I have some great data on time spent in traffic in Boston.

imrs.php
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And that train figure would be pretty much par with subway were it not for idiots in cars found at-fault in grade crossing accidents. Suicides, unfortunately, make up much of the bus vs. subway differential.
 
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