So, right now, there are 89 locos on active passenger service. Not counting the Jeeps, when the rebuild program is done there will be.....89 locos. (Data from NETransit)
You're not reading NETransit correctly. 89 locos are
rostered for active revenue service. On any given day far fewer than 89 are
available: 92-day inspections, awaiting parts, shop time, off "on assignment" for work. NETransit doesn't count those, only the ones de-rostered long-term. The real
availability log is only circulated internally on the Keolis daily employee bulletin; it isn't public info NETransit is allowed to publish. As one example: HSP-46 #2002 is listed duly "active" southside right this second...only it's sitting hundreds of miles away in Erie, PA getting MPI warranty repairs. NETransit footnotes this only because it showed up on a freight manifest. See also: units that haven't carried passengers in months because they're assigned to the PTC test train(s).
We only get rough availability snapshots in the FCMB
Commuter Rail Performance Updates...which show it hovering in the low-70's since start of year, stitch ahead of the 65 + spares baseline that keeps mass cancellations from breaking out. So "89" rostered has meant "73-ish" available in official reporting...with God knows what % of 'official' actually carrying passengers on daily basis. If user GP40MC logs on maybe he can enlighten us about what the typical "availables" board looked like pre-COVID, since Dave is the only known aB user privvy to the daily bulletin.
Based on availability math, a final post-rebuild count of 105 rostered isn't going to allow mass service increases, while subtracting 25 Geeps from that in a half-decade puts them right back skirting disaster. Indeed, the only shortest-term increases talked up to the FCMB have been pushing schedule revisions to cram an extra slot here/there...most of it OTP-serving for taming dwells (Worcester) or fishing out Forge Park schedules tanked by the Foxboro trial via re-spacing to use the new double-track. There's good reason why outright expansion proposals like South Coast Rail bake in their above-and-beyond fleet needs into the project cap. cost; those incremental increases are
not pre-factored into existing margins, so those projects must pay forward into future procurement windows.
Even the snails pace the MBTA procurement system seems to move at should be able to at least get the Providence Line electrified within six years and expecting Fairmount done in that same time frame is not unreasonable. There will be riots on the State House floors if the North Shore delegation is held off much longer that that.
Then I guess there are going to be riots. Because today you can't run a Providence rush hour slate on rented beater electrics without shorting out the whole juice South Station to Norton. Amtrak only built Sharon Substation with enough generation capacity for its own needs; half the site is empty awaiting the T to expand it for commuter capacity. That's a big funding+design+build to stick on a 4-year CIP, with design-build that must be coordinated with power system owner Amtrak. Throw in permitting plus design-build for Fairmount wires, reliance on RIDOT to budget Pawtucket layover wire-up, and *potential* reliance on RIDOT for T.F. Green buildout if the south-of-PRV stops have to be included because RI uses its Pilgrim Agreement fleet part-ownership as leverage.
Yes, with no CIP monies devoted yet and the balance of 2020 now a COVID salvage job you are indeed looking at FY2026 with absolute no give for slippage in-house or with our join-hands partners AMTK and RIDOT. So...molotov cocktails ahoy, I guess? Is what it is.
And last I knew, each consist requires ONE loco. Not sure what coach needs have to do with loco needs.
And ONE cab car. Which must be available for service at same time in ONE put-together set. They have 87 "active rostered" cabs, 3 off-roster for repair...way less than their top-line loco number. Daily availability unknown because cabs aren't broken out from coaches in the FCMB Performance reports. Cabs have 92-day inspection pauses just like locos, and the Bombardier and MBB single-levels are in deplorable shape. The ongoing Rotem order will have 40 cabs, all 40 drop-in replacements for retirements. The stored MBB 1500's currently being reactivated are having their (shot) cab controls deactivated to run as trailers-only, so they're no help. Unless they set aside some of the decrepit Bombers for reconditioning there's a numbers problem here that won't be solved until the later 200-coach order. Meaningful service increases are presently impossible within current margins.
But lets go there. The 80 car order would allow scrapping the entire Bombardier fleet and retain capacity. The expected 200 coach order would increase capacity significantly, even if half of them were used to EMU Providence.
But back to the locos. Most of the increase in service proposed by Regional Rail is NOT during peak, but keeping the trains moving during the day instead of sitting unused.
This is not to say that NO additional equipment will be necessary. For example, Worcester would go from nine trainsets to sixteen, but only after electrification. Providence would require the same.
Also, we should not assume that the GPs will just all disappear in six years. If they are still needed, then cannibalizing should keep some of them rolling for a few years.
I would rather see the money spend on EMUs than additional locos.
Retain capacity at literally the same not-good-enough cab car ratio. The 80-car order does nothing for expansion...just keeps 'em afloat by getting rid of old ruins and backfilling overcrowded trains with more seats @ same cars. (And that's all fine!). The 200-car order is the key one, correct. But we DON'T know how it'll be apportioned. If Rotem's out and no one else steps forward to bid more 3x2 seating clones, all remaining players--Bombardier, CRRC, etc.--pitch 2x2 seat designs that instantly change the seating cap. and coach-per-consist target math. Without knowing coach-per-consist targets we can't factor trailers vs. cab ratio out of the 200.
So maybe the 200-car RFP will lick it if they can save the 50-car Pullman flats for Urban Rail starts and come up with other flats cab remainders. Or maybe it won't...because we need more trailers per train and maybe the Pullman parts supply doesn't look so rosy for 2030. We don't know, because several big questions are waiting for one root answer before they can be asked in the first place.
But let's remind about the other big thing we don't fully know:
WE HAVE NOT RATIFIED REGIONAL RAIL YET. There is no Final Implementation Plan voted on for the Rail Vision. It is not a reliable assumption to claim that "keeping the trains moving during the day instead of sitting unused" is precisely the pulsing scheme they will choose. Some of the extant Alts. pulse the schedules in bigger step-ups/step-downs than that. You cannot rest on an unvetted assumption of which Alt. gets the final vote in order to pre-count would be RUR trainsets against a current roster and current procurement clock filled with as many unanswered questions as the ^^paragraphs above^^ detail. It's all dueling moving targets until a Final Alt. gets locked into a CIP and bunch of loose-end RFP's get settled. The only number given here that
is firmer than guesstimate is the projected dates the T gave to its FCMB bosses--
after scouring the market for rebuild options--for when a major parts supply runs out requiring slotting a loco buy on the procurement calendar.
I have trouble seeing the scruples in having SO much mathematical confidence in self-counts so heavily invested in a final vote that has not taken place yet
nor has narrowed all service options into calculable ranges. Then calculates that against fleet management needs unknowable without 2...3...4 Procurement Dept. dominoes sequentially falling first to reveal the next answers. And yet pooh-poohs the firmest official number given by the T to its own overlords as a fleet "assumption" we don't need to worry about, because a
personal procurement preference should be pursued
instead (not even in
parallel) because reasons. There is way too much assuming going on here.
You know what I'd rather see good money get spent on?
Options...options big enough to cover the spread of everything we haven't yet nailed down to nitty-gritty final decision. Options that take stress off of timetables, spread the love on service increasers regardless of them, and don't leave us up shit's creek if one single thing upsets the absolute best-case scenario. I guarantee far more people are going to riot at the statehouse if we boomerang right back into another "old shit of declining availability = mass cancellations!" vicious cycle by playing it too cutesy. And TransitMatters will join them throwing molotovs too, because when push comes to shove expansion projects get back-burnered in a heartbeat when crashing OTP puts somebody's reelection prospects in jeopardy.
What else do options do? Give us
resale value if we have well taken-care of rolling stock when things change. Heaven forbid we electrify *just too darn fast* and get to sell some K-car or F40 rebuilds with 15 years of parts left to someone else. Isn't that how this thread managed to fly completely off-topic in only 6 posts?
