New Red and Orange Line Cars

Thank you, all. If anything, the new cars both Red & Orange would brighten up the lines & make them look more attractive to ride on. The old trains take away that luster & shine. They don't look bright & cheerful any more. Both lines have trains that should've been replaced eons ago. It's a shame that the transit agencies wait so long to replace antiquated trains that should've been dumped a long time ago. The Red Line still has trains that were in use as far back as '69, since Richard Nixon's first term in office as President of the United States. Now that is pretty damn old.🥺
 
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I'm repeating everyone, but I have to still chime in that even if regular people don't know and don't really care about trainsets, people do still feel and thus can sense when something is more enjoyable or not. Seeing and riding new and shiny trains does have a value in the rider. Seeing decrepit trains and crumbling stations does deter people from wanting to ride the T - even if they can't recognize and articulate what is affecting their experience.
 
An update today on the Commonwealth Magazine website regarding Orange Line car testing: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/new-orange-line-cars-being-tested/

"THE MBTA has begun testing its new Orange Line cars with the goal of returning them to active service in the coming weeks, a move that suggests the transit authority is finally closing in on the cause of a derailment nearly six months ago...

"T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in an email that the new Orange Line trains are currently being tested on the main subway line and are expected to return to active service before the end of the summer, which is September 22. He said the investigation into the cause of the [Wellington March 16th] derailment is ongoing with a “continued focus” on the various factors [Jeffrey] Gonneville had outlined previously.

"“The investigation into the cause(s) of the derailment and the process of re-introducing the cars are on parallel tracks,” he said."
 
That's awesome!

A piece of data: the Orange Line was averaging 36,000 riders per weekday when the derailment occurred in mid-March. Now, the Orange Line is averaging 60,000 riders per weekday.

We've come a long way in five months.

While OL ridership is still only ~40% of pre-COVID, ridership is increasing and the new cars will be welcome by all, and used and noticed by many.
 
Well its nice that they are back into testing. Hopefully, they fixed or replace the parts that were very problematic underneath the cars. Shows that they are trying to make the trains right & safe. :)
 
Entirely valid point. I think this contrast will be more noticeable to the general public once the cars are actually regularly on the tracks, though. A better way of putting what I was trying to say is that T riders will definitely enjoy these trains once they see them, but I just don't think many of them are eagerly anticipating their arrival or even know if they exist in the first place.
Thing is, people not only have seen the new OL cars, they've ridden in them -- they ran in regular service and were widely promoted on media.
 
Probably because they might've lost trust in them, seeing that about every month or so until last March, they kept being pulled from service for one thing or another. I haven't even seen one in person, much less having been able to ride one. They probably feel the same way that I do; Don't rush out to ride on one just yet. Let nature take its course & let the chips fall where they may. I gave up trying to get on one until at least 1/2 of them are in service, whenever THAT will be. :(
 
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Probably because they might've lost trust in them, seeing that about every month until last March, they kept being pulled from service for one thing or another. I haven't even seen one in person, much less anyhow else. They probably feel the same way that I do; Don't rush out to ride on one yet. Let nature take its course & let the chips fall where they may. I gave up trying to get on one until at least 1/2 of them are in service. :(

Different mode of transportation, but passengers are back to flying on Boeing 737 MAXs despite having far more cause to be wary of them (cruddy-automation-induced crashes tend to unnerve passengers) than any of the issues with the CRRC cars. It's perfectly fine to make the personal choice to avoid them, but I don't think the public will (especially given how poor the headways can be on the Orange Line these days because of the strain on the #12 cars). I don't recall any widespread aversion to the Bredas back when they derailed on a regular basis (with the caveat that I wasn't paying as close attention as I am now).
 
It's a shame that the system of the law waits for innocent lives to be lost before fixing something. A 777 jetliner almost had a tragic ending in February Because the right engine had failed after losing 2 intake fan blades. Luckily, the skilled pilots kept their cool & was able to limp the crippled plane back to Denver & land it safely. There were no injuries or deaths. The plane is 26 years old - probably too old be used. Again, this comes from using equipment that is too old & begins to become too dangerous to operate. Pratt & Whitney took responsibility for the engine. Hopefully this time, the problems with the new trains are fixed once & for all.
 
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A 777 almost had a tragic ending in February Because the right engine had failed after losing 2 fan blades. Luckily, the skilled pilots kept their cool & was able to limp the crippled plane plack back to Denver & land it safely

A little bit sensationalistic for a quasi-uncontained engine failure*. As visually dramatic as the incident was, the 777 is designed to be able to fly on one engine for hours. The pressure vessel of the fuselage was undamaged (only the non-structural aerodynamic fairing around the wing root was damaged by the disintegrating engine cowl), and while the crew handled the situation well, the aircraft was hardly crippled. (United 232, the DC-10 that lost its #2 engine and hydraulics in 1989, that was crippled.)

*"Uncontained" in "uncontained engine failure" is a technical term referring to whether the fan blades and other internal parts of the engine escape the containment ring in the nacelle. In this incident, they did not, meaning it's technically "uncontained". The fact that the cowling separated and the engine very dramatically burned anything it still could once the fuel flow was cut off made for very dramatic images which provoke some considerable dissonance when it's called "contained" even if that is in the strictest technical sense true.

The plane was 26 years old - probably too old be used. Again, this comes from using equipment that is too old & begins to become too dangerous to operate. Pratt & Whitney took responsibility for the engine.

26 is on the older side for mainline jets, but it's not the number that matters. Flight hours and cycles (roughly analogous to flights) are what matters, and there's no particular reason planes cannot fly for a great many years so long as they're adequately maintained and haven't hit their hours/cycles ceilings. Most jets get retired (at least from domestic passenger carriage) after 20 to 30 years because the increasing costs of maintenance and advances in engine and aircraft design mean they're no longer economically efficient rather than mechanically too old let alone dangerous. The NTSB is still investigating the United incident. It's quite clear that one of the fan blades separated due to metal fatigue, taking another one with it and separating the cowl. It would seem more likely than not (the final report will presumably answer this question) that either United, P&W, or both did not have sufficient procedures to identify incipient metal fatigue pre-failure. Your mileage may vary as to whether or not that's a failure of government oversight and regulation.

It's a shame that the system of the law waits for innocent lives to be lost before fixing something.

The system of law waits for legal problems before 'fixing' something. Regulations may be insufficient, and regulators may well lack imagination at times, but it is literally impossible to predict and plan for everything. Unfortunately, sometimes unanticipated, maybe completely unpredictable circumstances may arise that result in fatalities. (We can go back quite some time to the first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, which had an unfortunate tendency to explode because the effects of metal fatigue around square windows in pressurized jet airliners was not known, because it was the first one ever.) I don't know if the legal system comments were meant to refer to the new cars or not (seeing as how they haven't incurred any fatalities) but that's another example where it may have been literally impossible to predict that the side bearer pads would wear unexpectedly quickly such that they could contribute to a derailment before the problem could be detected and rectified. That's not waiting until lives of loss out of some evil-lawyer apathy; that's the problem either literally not existing or not reasonably being predictable until it manifests, which is something completely different. (Leaving aside that we really should distinguish between the regulatory system, which I think is often too reactive and unimaginative in practice, and the legal system, which is literally designed to require that a legal injury has occurred or will occur in order to bring a case in the first place.)

Hopefully this time, the problems with the new trains are fixed once & for all.

One can hope, though I doubt it. I'd certainly hope that this is the last of the major problems sufficient to pull them from service (for any meaningful length of time), but there will almost certainly still be other teething problems, considering we're still quite early into their service lives. As others have mentioned as well, annoying as this is, it's also normal for things to go wrong. The point isn't to get them in service as quickly as possible, the point is to get them to work properly, unlike the Boeings (the T's benchmark for atrociously bad equipment). We're nowhere near Boeing territory or even Breda territory yet.
 
In my book, Crippled means that something major has gone wrong. That WAS a major issue. They didn't want to chance going over the pond to Hawaii with just one engine working. Glad that the hydraulic system didn't crap out. Anyway, we'll see how the new trains will work this time. Hope that the track & switch were replaced.
 
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In my book, Crippled means that something major has gone wrong.

Fair enough. I default to reading it as more "unflyable" than "damaged but functional" but that's just a matter of linguistic interpretation.

They didn't want to chance going over the pond to Hawaii with just one engine working.

No pilot in their right mind would ever attempt a transoceanic flight with an engine inoperative (let alone damaged and/or on fire) intentionally. The 777 (and all ETOPS-qualified aircraft) are certified for extended single-engine flight in case something happens over an ocean, to maximize the ability for the damaged aircraft to reach a safe landing site. Once that engine blew, that United plane wasn't going anywhere but back to a runway as soon as possible.

Glad that the hydraulic system didn't crap out.

For record for those unfamiliar, UA232 lost its hydraulics because the fan disk in its center engine, which on the DC-10 was embedded in the tail, failed and essentially caused the engine to explode, severing the hydraulic lines. The DC-10 was not designed with safeguards to keep that from happening (they were retrofitted afterwards) because McDonnell Douglas analyzed the chances of that kind of catastrophic failure as astronomically unlikely to occur. (Which was fair enough in my opinion, given that the defect in the fan disk should have been identified if UA's maintenance people had properly followed procedures.) It's generally rare (thankfully) for aircraft to suffer that kind of massive hydraulic issue that renders them extremely difficult if not impossible to properly control.

Hope that the track & switch were replaced.

The switch in question was already scheduled to be replaced (and was not generally used for revenue service, only being in use because of the Wellington track work), and has been confirmed to have been replaced.
 
And to make sure that doesn't happen again, all of their PW-powered 777's are parked until further notice. All air lines. The engine was in fact on fire. Literally! That's a scary looking thing to see!! But the best thing is that the plane didn't crash. A newly-developed system, tested on the MD-11 was beefed up & given a try. Called the get-you-home system, it was developed so that the plane would safely land & stop just by using engine power alone, ensuring a safe & secure landing just in case there were little or no hydraulic power in the lines. :)
 
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E3957907-31EB-474E-95CE-950592B1B618.jpeg

pleasant surprise this morning
 
Nice to see, even though they are not back into revenue service yet. Let's all hope that the constant onslaught of problems that have plagued them in the past are all behind them now. Oh. Someone is on one. I see someone's feet! :)
 
Nice to see, even though they are not back into revenue service yet. Let's all hope that the constant onslaught of problems that have plagued them in the past are all behind them now. Oh. Someone is on one. I see someone's feet! :)
Looks like it is in revenue service. You can see the crossed legs of a seated passenger through the first open door on the right side of the picture.
 
Looks like it is in revenue service. You can see the crossed legs of a seated passenger through the first open door on the right side of the picture.
I dunno. Could be a dummy. Wouldn't put it past them to go full Carousel of Progress and start riding this thing around town declaring "In the year 2000, everyone will be riding in new trains!"
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Well, that is pretty exciting. Here's hoping they can get back to the rollout and hopefully accelerate some more sets going into revenue service. Anyone hear anything about the timeline for the first Red Line one to go into service? Or how the signal system/etc upgrades are going to support the new cars?
 
I'm thinking that the first Red Line train that went into revenue service last December would be put back on the tracks. After all, nothing bad has happened to it that we know of. She was just yanked off when the new Orange Line trains were stopped from running. :(
Fist new Red Line train in service..jpg
 
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