New Red and Orange Line Cars

[F-Line to Dudley]

"the obsession with union rules" is simply that I have done work for MassDOT and have several friends who currently work for MassDOT and the MBTA and the reoccurring theme I hear from everyone is "well we would like to do that, but bureaucracy and obscure rules and laws"

And it's definitely not unfounded. Look at Britain. The change to drivers operating the doors and conductors only checking tickets has caused four years of strikes and shows no sign of stopping. No pay changes, no nothing, simply having drivers control doors instead of conductors. Meanwhile automatic trains on the underground has faced years of opposition and strikes, although is slowly happening anyway.

Except...this is not Britain. This is a place where the guard law already got struck down without a fight, and where PoP has not been challenged at any serious level and with it now being much too late for them to begin doing so.

Your past work with MassDOT and management spin heard about why management is justifying not doing something does not jibe with facts or timeline on the ground that there's a grave-threat union challenge underway. The evidence doesn't add up.

Show some evidence if you're going to claim this so resolutely...not garbage comparisons from a country of wildly different labor laws.

 

[George_Apley]

Gonna just throw in my 2 cents/perspective as well: If you want anything done at the T, it's like pulling teeth.

Don't talk to union members about any changes, even if they're going to potentially benefit them. Your efforts will be squashed in a matter of days.

Navigating through/with management is not a cake-walk, either. There's something like 270 out of the 280 managers with different titles, and their roles and responsibilities are not clear in the slightest.

Even at the lower level, project managers have too much on their plate at times, overseeing multiple projects at once. (PMs are also underpaid compared to industry)

And if you're on the outside trying to get in, your first interaction with the T is their exhaustive hiring process that shows first-hand how tangled everything is, lasting 60-140+ days with 96 steps involved. It deters any good talent from joining in the first place.

Man, this implies that the workers for the MBTA are either no-talent union hacks or underpaid schlubs.

Holy gross generalization, Batman!

 

[sneijder]

Back to the red line.. glad the Alewife crossovers are getting taken care of, but what about the Harvard bend (and other points in this article? Can the track be banked at all to add a few mph? Hopefully the wider doors/shorter signal blocks can keep things nimble during rush hour.. but more realistically I see so little margin for error that one dumbass blocking the door for a 3-min dwell time at Downtown Crossing will back up half the line..

Thinking Big? Let's Think "Realistic" First

The MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board, according to their slides, wants to “ think big .” Thinking big is a laudable goal. The on...

amateurplanner.blogspot.com

Would love for someone to prove me wrong..

 

[HelloBostonHi]

Unfortunate news, the new orange line train got stuck again today. No word on why beyond "a train activated its emergency brake". Let's hope passenger error not train or door error. Train 1408.

 

[datadyne007]

Unfortunate news, the new orange line train got stuck again today. No word on why beyond "a train activated its emergency brake". Let's hope passenger error not train or door error. Train 1408.

Where did you hear this? Can you provide the source material please?

 

[Equilibria]

Where did you hear this? Can you provide the source material please?

The MBTA tweeted about the service interruption - can be easily cross-referenced with where the new train was.

 

[HelloBostonHi]

The MBTA tweeted about the service interruption - can be easily cross-referenced with where the new train was.

This, I was on twitter, saw the alert and cross referenced tracking to find the new train had been sitting for 15 minutes and had four trains behind it, combined with reports from riders on Twitter stuck on the train and by the fact it was taken out of service and dissapeared off tracking

 

[whighlander]

So how did they come up with these red and orange cars. Did they design both basically from scratch to the requirements we laid out, and clearly they seem to be influenced at least by the previous designs.. although maybe due to the restraints, or did they have a baseline they started at and then modified them to fit our system? Besides our type 9 green line cars that are related to the muni metro cars in san fran, Ive never seen any subway cars that resemble ours.. anywhere else.

Remember --the history behind all of this:

1. 1863 London -- between Paddington and Farringdon using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives [from wiki]
2. 1889 Boston -- Newly created West End Street Railway -- inaugurates electric powered trolley in place of horse-car Union Square [Allston] and Park Square -- by the end of the year over 7,000 Horses displaced by electric motors*1
3. 1890 London -- City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction --- six stations and ran for 3.2 miles (5.1 km) in a pair of tunnels between the City of London and Stockwell, passing under the River Thames.
4. 1896 Budapest -- electric trains in tunnels [Millennium Underground Museum is a memorial to the underground railway's golden age, where vintage brown and yellow cars rest on the original rails, with a cast of waxwork figures in navy conductor uniforms. M1 earned its "Millennium Underground" title due to its role in the 1896 celebrations marking the 1,000 year anniversary of the Hungarian conquest of the region]
5. 1897 Boston -- Tremont St. Subway -- Trolley car tunnel under Tremont and Boylston St. --progenitor of the Green Line --The initial construction of the Boston subway included three stations: Park Street, Public Garden and Boylston. The subway line was a little over half a mile long and was a three minute ride. The underground stations were connected to trolley tracks on the city streets and later to elevated tracks above the city streets.*2

Note an excellent compendium of T-related developments from the beginning to 1992 is available at the following site

http://web.mit.edu/cron/project/uncertainty/Dowd_Data/Baum_Snow/boston-history.txt

later "heavy rail" for the Red and Orange and finally Blue [bastardization of heavy rail with dimensions of the original Streetcar Tunnel under the harbor

Tremont Subway Construction 1895 [near Park St. Church]

Test Run 1897

Adams Sq. before the official opening 1897 [underground platform & Headhouse]

Refs:

*1 from Wiki

West End Street Railway was organized in 1887. --- the Thomson-Houston company was chosen for system-wide deployment of overhead wires. The electrified rapid transit system was named an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering in 10 November 2004

The plaque may be viewed by the side of the door (left hand as you are facing it) of the northernmost of the two Park Street T stations at Park and Tremont Streets, 42.356478,-71.062507

*2

On March 28, 1895, the Boston Transit Commission [Chairman George G. Crocker] broke ground on the project in a special ceremony in the Boston Public Garden. The two-track subway line between Park Street and Tremont street and the four-track subway line between Boylston street and Park street was finished in the summer of 1897 and opened to the public on September 1, 1897.

later "heavy rail" was introduced for the Red and Orange and finally Blue [bastardization of heavy rail with dimensions of the original Streetcar Tunnel under the harbor

 

[stick n move]

Has there ever been a proposal to put a red line station in trolley sq?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Has there ever been a proposal to put a red line station in trolley sq?

In North Cambridge? No. It's way too close to Davis; when the leaves fall you can see the headhouse from Cameron Ave. looking down the Community Path. It's also a heavily residential spot in a bit of a lean area for commercial real estate, and the natives like it that way because it's a little quieter at night. There's zero advocacy for an infill there...not even as a "nice to have". Those folks are Green to Porter cheerleaders.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Back to the red line.. glad the Alewife crossovers are getting taken care of, but what about the Harvard bend (and other points in this article? Can the track be banked at all to add a few mph? Hopefully the wider doors/shorter signal blocks can keep things nimble during rush hour.. but more realistically I see so little margin for error that one dumbass blocking the door for a 3-min dwell time at Downtown Crossing will back up half the line..

Thinking Big? Let's Think "Realistic" First

The MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board, according to their slides, wants to “ think big .” Thinking big is a laudable goal. The on...

amateurplanner.blogspot.com

Would love for someone to prove me wrong..

No. Harvard curve negotiates a historic impacts minefield up above it and a utilities minefield down below. Since it was constructed as live open-heart surgery while service was still running on the old alignment the physical plant placement had to split the difference in compromise, and then when the new station was completed post-opening and re-hooked to the busway it locked up any future ability to make new touches. You can't play any games with the alignment; it is the limiter for the whole line. The headways are feasible, and there is no foreseeable need to ever run at sub- 3 minutes because we're not New York and Red isn't Lexington Ave. To keep the headways reliable they have to pursue dwell time fixes. Harvard itself doesn't have a lot of problems with that so long as service to/from downtown operates on time, but this is where they must build Red-Blue and must address constipated passenger flow on the narrow Park St. stairs before the transferee crowds start choking off upstream traffic management from late door closures. It's not strictly a Red performance problem in that sense; it's the transfer swells when they're in pedestrian mode changing levels.

i.e. It's not one door-blocking dumbass. It's when there's 300 of them at a time backed up onto the Park stairs.

 

[JeffDowntown]

No. Harvard curve negotiates a historic impacts minefield up above it and a utilities minefield down below. Since it was constructed as live open-heart surgery while service was still running on the old alignment the physical plant placement had to split the difference in compromise, and then when the new station was completed post-opening and re-hooked to the busway it locked up any future ability to make new touches. You can't play any games with the alignment; it is the limiter for the whole line. The headways are feasible, and there is no foreseeable need to ever run at sub- 3 minutes because we're not New York and Red isn't Lexington Ave. To keep the headways reliable they have to pursue dwell time fixes. Harvard itself doesn't have a lot of problems with that so long as service to/from downtown operates on time, but this is where they must build Red-Blue and must address constipated passenger flow on the narrow Park St. stairs before the transferee crowds start choking off upstream traffic management from late door closures. It's not strictly a Red performance problem in that sense; it's the transfer swells when they're in pedestrian mode changing levels.

i.e. It's not one door-blocking dumbass. It's when there's 300 of them at a time backed up onto the Park stairs.

And it is not just Park. Downtown Crossing is also close to (or over) saturation, such that pedestrian flow now gates timing on both Red and Orange at peak crush.

 

[George_Apley]

GLX from Union to Porter would help a lot with the downtown transfer stations. So would GLX on the Grand Junction.

 

[Jahvon09]

This looks like the button that is pushed when it looks like the person in a wheelchair wants to get on or off the train.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

This looks like the button that is pushed when it looks like the person in a wheelchair wants to get on or off the train.

Yes. The Blue 0700 cars have them too. Gives the operator a special signal so they can get the bridge plate (anchored to the wall at every station) ready to go and speed up alighting for the person in the wheelchair. The bridge plates are needed for motorized wheelchairs or for wheelchair patrons who don't have the hand strength to power over the small platform-to-door gap.

 

[HelloBostonHi]

Yes. The Blue 0700 cars have them too. Gives the operator a special signal so they can get the bridge plate (anchored to the wall at every station) ready to go and speed up alighting for the person in the wheelchair. The bridge plates are needed for motorized wheelchairs or for wheelchair patrons who don't have the hand strength to power over the small platform-to-door gap.

Incorrect for the new OL. It signals to the operator to enable the built in bridge plates/platform gap mitigation ramps on these new vehicles. Vaguely like the green line type 8s but in theory quicker since the gap is smaller and less likely to malfunction. In theory. I believe they are supposed to be operable from the cab without personnel actually being at the door too. Haven't yet seen them in action but that's what the specs say and was in a few press releases.

 

[stefal]

I believe there are a few problems with the infrastructure we have. Work is being done to make the ramps accessible/usable for the first car, but the platforms weren't built with level automatic ramps in mind, so some assistance may be required for the further back cars.

 

[Jahvon09]

Amtrak needs that on THEIR train doors. There are very BIG gaps between THEIR doorways & the platforms!!! I hope that the new Acela trains will have them!!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I believe there are a few problems with the infrastructure we have. Work is being done to make the ramps accessible/usable for the first car, but the platforms weren't built with level automatic ramps in mind, so some assistance may be required for the further back cars.

The air ballast in the car's hydraulics, which utilizes a cushion of air to smooth out the ride, is responsible for maintaining level boarding with the platform height. Spot-on perfection is hard to achieve, however, despire the ballast being adjustable. In this climate temperature change coming underground out of the heat or cold above-ground is enough to affect the air pressure in the ballast, as well as whether the train itself is heated up from running a full shift or is fresh from the yard on a cold start. And that in turn makes fiddling on-the-fly with the ballast a wasteful exercise, since it's chasing a moving target. You can see it yourself as sometimes the train floor will be up to couple centimeters above or below the platform. If you've ever been on a train with a car that has a busted or leaking ballast the difference is even starker...up to 3 inches below the platform and a LOUD ride from the lack of vibration dampening (they'll usually isolate said car if a problem becomes apparent).

Any automation on the door lips is going to be subject to these variances in air ballast pressure. If the ballast pressure is high (i.e. door raised above platform) they'll be fine. But it won't work if the car slips slightly below the platform level and the auto bridge plate bangs into the platform edge...something that is most likely to happen on very cold mornings or soon after a cold start. You still need the manual traps at every station to back everything up, though if this works even 30-40% of the time it's enough of a time-saver to have done its job. No...there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Most HRT systems in cities with large temperature swings have to put up with some degree of air ballast variance, so regardless of what % of their trips hit absolute level perfection they all have to bake in operational allowances for variance.

 

[stefal]

Any automation on the door lips is going to be subject to these variances in air ballast pressure. If the ballast pressure is high (i.e. door raised above platform) they'll be fine. But it won't work if the car slips slightly below the platform level and the auto bridge plate bangs into the platform edge...something that is most likely to happen on very cold mornings or soon after a cold start. You still need the manual traps at every station to back everything up, though if this works even 30-40% of the time it's enough of a time-saver to have done its job. No...there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Most HRT systems in cities with large temperature swings have to put up with some degree of air ballast variance, so regardless of what % of their trips hit absolute level perfection they all have to bake in operational allowances for variance.

Interesting. You know, now that I've put some thought into it, that is pretty much "common sense," though the work being done is actually raising part of the edge platform height by maybe an inch or two, which would make the floor level being below the platform more likely. I believe the work has been 'completed' at Wellington. If I'm in the area any time soon, I'll try to get a picture of it.