guitarguynboston
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And the elevatorsSeems like quite a few door issues on the new OL cars since reopening.
Seems like quite a few door issues on the new OL cars since reopening.
Seems like quite a few door issues on the new OL cars since reopening.
Honestly, I feel alarmed. We're halfway through the order now and we got a breakdown after only a day. After all that testing and they made a pretty big show repeatedly checking up on the trains. Is this still in the realm of teething issues or is it reasonable to start speculating this as a preview for things to come?
I know the average Uhub, r/Boston, and IRL riders already assumes the latter. But I'm still trying to operate on transit and manufacturing history. So I want to know if are broaching past developments (I wouldn't say we have reached Breda Type 8s so far - but I am saying how does this keep happening?)
Door issue aside, I’m more confused as to how they’re looking from the inside of a passenger cabin straight into the cab of another car. I would have assumed they should have been looking into the passenger cabin?
isn;t that the ab<>bb-ab<>bb-bb<>ba married pairs? (a is cab, b is no cab end)
That said, I do wonder if there are any statistics available out there regarding the CRRC cars' issues compared to other new T equipment and other new equipment elsewhere. It's also that these cars are both the first series delivered (to the T) in the social media era when we can get frequent, well-publicized, reports of issues, coming at a time when service is particularly in the news given the shutdown, the FTA-triggered service cuts, and the T's general increasing decrepitude. It's also entirely plausible that the rate of problems is actually higher than for other equipment here and elsewhere (which would be deeply bad news), but without proper comparative statistics it's difficult to make a judgment on which explanation is best-supported.
As for how this keeps happening, well, their practice of buying from untested (at least in the US) manufacturers probably doesn't help, but it's extremely common for issues with new equipment to crop up, including component failures and design flaws. I recall the Rotem bi-levels on the Commuter Rail, when new, had a (since-resolved) problem with the mechanisms that kept their vestibule doors open, leading to them frequently closing when they shouldn't. (Which is particularly jarring when said door attempts to close, for instance, between a person and their backpack...) The two biggest lemons in MBTA subway equipment history (the Boeings and the Bredas) were both the result of multiple bad decisions. The Boeings were an idiotic federal-forced compromise between MUNI's needs and the MBTAs, saddling us with the astonishingly-complex and failure-prone sliding doors that caused a lot of problems, built by a helicopter manufacturer too cheap to license proven designs for some elements, while the Bredas involved the T asking a company that had made some decent HRT equipment in the US to build LRVs instead (their offering for MUNI was less derailment-happy as I understand but still underwhelming), and to make them low-floor on a very tight system with basically a new center truck design (and possibly involving inaccurate wheel profiles). The CRRC cars, by contrast, are a much-more-standard HRT offering; it's entirely possible that they're buggier than others, it's possible they're not, but it's unlikely that they're fundamentally flawed in a seriously-problematic way like the Bredas or (shudders) the Boeings.
I am not the person who know the statistics to compare CRRC cars versus other T equipment or other transit systems. I am aware of the Recommendation presentation where the slides does tell me the MBTA did try to assess past history (also a more technical version too). Which is now retrospectively complicated because CRRC is the company post-merge of the selected company CNR and outright explicitly rejected (not unselected, rejected) company CSR. CNR was evaluated very positively citing past successful work around various metros. Meanwhile CSR was explicitly rejected where page 8 (of both the presentation slides and staff summary report) showing why with CSR rated as unacceptable for Technical, Manufacturing, and Overall.
...Only for a year later post-selection of CNR we'll see CNR and CSR merged to become CRRC.
I think we've all been hoping the CNR-side dominates the culture more than CSR-post merger.
Also this made look up the Blue Line. I guess 2006-2008 is now a long time ago now. But it is recent enough to had its own thread at least during the delivery phase of the Siemens Blue Line trains.
New Blue line cars.
If I lived on the Green Line, I'd take the Blue Line to the airport. Since I live on the Red Line, I take the Silver Line.archboston.com
The chatter was not that much. Maybe it's just reflect Archboston was smaller, but looking at the chatter back then, it seems like it was just very uneventful. It arrived, we posted how the it was getting tested, and then a few complaints that it didn't look more futuristic and some cheer the rust buckets were gone. But no posts about issues found during the testing phase or breakdowns after deployment. I do read the manufacturing itself was bumpy, but once arrived, it was uneventful.
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But all of that said, my question "why this keeps happening" isn't just asking about MBTA's level of luck with procuring new equipment, it's more about why the CRRC trains themselves keep running into these hiccups despite all the testing and effort. Maybe this is just normal and we're just being hyper-alert in the age of social media and after so many back-to-back events. But I lack the knowledge to truly examine it.
take it that the inside of the new Type 10's might look somewhat like THIS? But they won't have the soft seats, that's for sure!!
‘Bout time KnotheadPer the T's Twitter, the first pair of the old OL trains have finally left MBTA property.
The chatter was not that much. Maybe it's just reflect Archboston was smaller, but looking at the chatter back then, it seems like it was just very uneventful. It arrived, we posted how the it was getting tested, and then a few complaints that it didn't look more futuristic and some cheer the rust buckets were gone. But no posts about issues found during the testing phase or breakdowns after deployment. I do read the manufacturing itself was bumpy, but once arrived, it was uneventful.