New Red and Orange Line Cars

bakgwailo said:
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).
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Actually, it was cheaper to buy new than overhauling the #3 cars to similar specifications as the #4s.

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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Nope; not even close. I know there are some rumblings among the railfan community that the Hawker-Siddeley Orange and Blue Line cars were based off of the PA-3 design. That may have been true on a very fundamental level, but the cars are otherwise very different, right down to the throttle controller handle.
 
Jouhou said:
Only steel cars I would hope. The process of producing aluminum is extremely energy intensive and it wouldn't be very green to not recycle aluminum.
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But my understanding is that producing aluminum merely requires heating it to a very hot temperature, and we know how to use renewable electricity to do that.

Some of the steel that is manufactured simply recycles existing scrap (the ``mini mills''), but there isn't enough scrap steel to meet the total demand, so we still have steel being manufactured from scratch (in ``integrated mills''). The iron from the mines comes pre-rusted, so to get rid of the oxygen from the iron oxide, my understanding is that typically coal is partially burned to produce carbon monoxide, the carbon monoxide then reacts with the iron oxide to produce iron plus carbon dioxide, and the carbon dioxide is normally dumped into the atmosphere. LanzaTech could probably turn that carbon dioxide into jet fuel instead, although that probably would require an additional energy input (which will be fine in a decade or two when we have excess renewable electricity), and then the jet airplane is still dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If you used biomass (which would start the process by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere) to make the carbon monoxide, though, you could probably come up with a carbon neutral process.

There's also an effort being made to set up a steel mill that will use hydrogen instead of carbon monoxide.

I'm a little baffled that using railcars as reefs instead of recycling the steel would have been considered to make any sense at all. I've seen an automotive junkyard that had several decaying RVs that had no significant scrap metal value, and I have to wonder if those RVs would work just as well as reefs.
 
Joel N. Weber II said:
But my understanding is that producing aluminum merely requires heating it to a very hot temperature, and we know how to use renewable electricity to do that.

Some of the steel that is manufactured simply recycles existing scrap (the ``mini mills''), but there isn't enough scrap steel to meet the total demand, so we still have steel being manufactured from scratch (in ``integrated mills''). The iron from the mines comes pre-rusted, so to get rid of the oxygen from the iron oxide, my understanding is that typically coal is partially burned to produce carbon monoxide, the carbon monoxide then reacts with the iron oxide to produce iron plus carbon dioxide, and the carbon dioxide is normally dumped into the atmosphere. LanzaTech could probably turn that carbon dioxide into jet fuel instead, although that probably would require an additional energy input (which will be fine in a decade or two when we have excess renewable electricity), and then the jet airplane is still dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If you used biomass (which would start the process by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere) to make the carbon monoxide, though, you could probably come up with a carbon neutral process.

There's also an effort being made to set up a steel mill that will use hydrogen instead of carbon monoxide.

I'm a little baffled that using railcars as reefs instead of recycling the steel would have been considered to make any sense at all. I've seen an automotive junkyard that had several decaying RVs that had no significant scrap metal value, and I have to wonder if those RVs would work just as well as reefs.
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Actually aluminum smelting is much more than just heating the ore, it then involves electrolysis, using high electrical current on the molten ore to separate the metal from the oxide component. This is why is uses so much electricity (if it was just about heat, you would not create the heat with electricity, too inefficient).

Recycling aluminum uses about 5% of the energy required to produce aluminum from ore. Sure the electricity could be from a renewable source, but most still isn't. So why waste all that electricity making virgin aluminum when you a can use 95% less and redirect the rest of that electricity to a useful purpose. Wasting that amount of energy just doesn't make sense, even if it is renewable. It's not free (renewable generation cost serious money to build and maintain.)
 
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I'm certainly in favor of recycling both aluminum and steel where possible, but I can see where I may not have made that clear enough.

And it's also true that we need to get more aggressive about building more renewable generation.
 
tysmith95 said:
Talking about how the cars are designed to last at least 30 years, when the current orange line cars date from roughly 1980 and will be 40 years old by the time they're replaced. 40 years old with no major refurbishment.
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The current #12 Orange Line cars were designed to last 25 years. They'll be 40 years old when they retire, but their carbodies are rusting through and they're maintenance intensive. Before 2011, there used to be 102 cars in service during rush hours. There are now 96 because an extra set has to be kept in the shop for preventative maintenance work. The MBTA has had to spend an extra $100 million just to keep them in service until the #14s can be deployed. Ideally, they should've been retired by 2010.
 
swtat said:
The current #12 Orange Line cars were designed to last 25 years. They'll be 40 years old when they retire, but their carbodies are rusting through and they're maintenance intensive. Before 2011, there used to be 102 cars in service during rush hours. There are now 96 because an extra set has to be kept in the shop for preventative maintenance work. The MBTA has had to spend an extra $100 million just to keep them in service until the #14s can be deployed. Ideally, they should've been retired by 2010.
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Though I'm not too well versed on the inner workings of the MBTA, the age of trains on both the Red and the Orange line must be a major factor in the poor reliability we've seen on both lines the past few years.

Also the northern part of the Orange Line is horribly overcrowded during rush hour, and is only getting worse with stuff like Assembly going in.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Y'all might find THIS interesting.


https://www.enr.com/articles/43731-chinese-firm-makes-prototype-for-first-carbon-fiber-railway-car
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The MBTA is very notorious for having around & keeping equipment in service much longer than the planned time to phase them out of service.

But won't this new carbon fiber design change the shape of the cars from the way they look now, as the T had ordered them?

We know that Boeing has designed their newest wide-bodied jetliner, the 787- 8, -9 & -10 Dreamliners with a completely carbon fiber fuselage, and so far, it is a success.

Will the same thing hold true for the new subway cars as well? Time will tell. :confused:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
The MBTA is very notorious for keeping equipment in service much longer than the planned time to phase them out of service.

But won't this new carbon fiber design change the shape of the cars from the way they look now, as the T had ordered them?

We know that Boeing has designed their newest jetliner, the 787- 8, 9 & 10 Dreamliners with a completely carbon fiber fuselage, and so far, it is a success.

Will the same thing hold true for the new subway cars as well? Time will tell. :confused:
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The new Orange Line cars won't be carbon fiber...
 
Has anyone seen the new OL cars being tested at all since they got here?
 
Jahvon09 said:
Has anyone seen the new OL cars being tested at all since they got here?
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Someone has (UHub)

shinyorange.jpg
 
The side windows on the new cars look even longer!

in a little less than 2 months from now, the new Springfield plant will be open for business, as the first few sets of OL cars can start being made!! :cool:
 
I just can't wait to see those Relics go!!! :arrow:
 
I remember when they were new.

The original Blue Line cars ran from 1923 to 1980. No AC but you could open the windows.
 
Now the oldest trains are on the red Line & the Ashmont / Mattapan Line.
 
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