New Red and Orange Line Cars

Yeah - having saw it in person, the seats seemed fine. The comments on the uhub article seem to be people who didn't and were looking at the photo (which does make them look smaller).
 
The MBTA says that the new cars can accommodate about 15 extra passengers, but I think that means for standees only, since the number of seats did not increase.
 
You figure that they MUST do SOMETHING with them. Room has to be made in order to accommodate the new cars.

No one is going to buy them because, put simply, they are way too old, dirty, rusted out, eaten up & decrepit. Unless they are broken down into scrap metal, like was done with the old Boeing Vertol Type 6 trolleys.
 
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^^Well, that would be the most logical choice.
 
Scrap metal seems to be the most logical choice to me, too. Sure, it'll probably be a gradual process, anyway, so likely not a concern until near the end of phasing out the old cars.
 
I think a lot of people would be happy to see them dropped off of the top of the John Hancock Tower.
 
I would take one and convert it into a Tiny House, thus winning the Hipster of the Year award.
 
fattony said:
I would take one and convert it into a Tiny House, thus winning the Hipster of the Year award.
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Find a way to put inside a big loft space and make it a pretty big metal bedroom in a much larger open space and you'll be hip as a motherfucker
 
As we all know, for each new set of cars they receive, an old set will be swapped out.

The only cars they probably could sell are the 1800 series stainless steel cars, since they were introduced in the mid '90s, & some of them were given an overhaul. Whatever the case may be,
 
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Jahvon09 said:
As we all know, for each new set of cars they receive, an old set will be swapped out.

The only cars they probably could sell are the 1800 series stainless steel cars, since they were introduced in the mid '90s, & some of the were given an overhaul. Whatever the case may be,
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Sell to who? The scrapper? Heavy rail is pretty custom - no one is going to purchase any of them with the intention of actually running them.
 
bakgwailo said:
Sell to who? The scrapper? Heavy rail is pretty custom - no one is going to purchase any of them with the intention of actually running them.
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Weren't they overhauled during or after that rough winter that we had between January & February, 2015?

But maybe you're right. If someone else bought them, they'd just be buying the T's headaches. Besides, most other transit agencies in the country have already bought, or are planning to buy new railcars. :cool:
 
Jahvon09 said:
Weren't they overhauled during or after that rough winter that we had between January & February, 2015?

But maybe you're right. If someone else bought them, they'd just be buying the T's headaches. Besides, most other transit agencies in the country have already bought, or are planning to buy new railcars. :cool:
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AFAIK they won't work on any other subway system in the country - no one else uses our loading gauge, and generally no two subways in the country are really compatible with each other rolling-stock wise. I believe one of contributing factors to the full fleet replacement was also that the cost wasn't that much higher than the need midlife rebuild/overhauls which were overdue (and thus never done as the order was expanded).
 
bakgwailo said:
generally no two subways in the country are really compatible with each other rolling-stock wise.
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This. Or if Boston did have a procurement twin (such as Baltimore+Miami) we'd already know about it. Ergo Boston has only that commonality which it makes beteweeen it's own lines on a kit-of-parts basis (former Blue-Orange or this Orange-Red)
 
Isn't the Orange Line compatible with PATH trains? Maybe NJ DOT will latch on to this procurement at some point.
 
HenryAlan said:
Isn't the Orange Line compatible with PATH trains? Maybe NJ DOT will latch on to this procurement at some point.
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But NJ wants the trains to be built in New Jersey, so they'll stipulate that and then a new factory will be built there.
 
HenryAlan said:
Isn't the Orange Line compatible with PATH trains? Maybe NJ DOT will latch on to this procurement at some point.
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PATH's PA5's are less than 10 years old. And for fleet expansion, they've still got more options to expend on the original contract, they actually just exercised 50 of them and there's still 22 cars left in options.

And if for some reason they did want to buy even more cars, I think it'd be extraordinarily unlikely for them to order from anyone else while the production line is still open for what they have already. Keeping the fleet uniform = big savings in maintenance, easier operations, etc.
 
PATH is technically a railroad (regulated by the FRA and having to meet their crashworthiness standards) unlike all the other transit systems (regulated by the FTA and able to use lightweight car bodies) so that even when PATH dimensionally matches other subways PATH trains end up being heavier more expensive and less energy efficient.
 
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