F-Line to Dudley
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Re: Silver Line to Chelsea (Study Meeting)
I'm sure battery buses are the next great alternative fuel tech bus purchase. It's advancing so fast we're probably not far at all from real 'Prius' buses hitting whatever efficiency threshold that opens the purchase floodgates for transit agencies. And then the real 'Tesla' buses not far behind as that tech scales up to truck/bus performance and high-capacity charging station equipment becomes less costly due to the boom market in car chargers.
The 'Priuses' are already creeping into the market and should bit nearing critical mass over the next 5 years. I bet the 'Teslas' hitting critical mass within 7-9 years. But I wouldn't necessarily think of those solely in Silver Line terms, since that's always going to be working from a traction (i.e. trackless trolley) lineage and somewhat different evolutionary tree despite some similarities. These can be real-deal mass replacement order for the first gen of low-floor 40-footers when they're up for retirement in the early 20's.
Once the mileage per charge on an 'any-bus' electric bumps significantly higher than the 35 miles this Worcester pilot is getting they become a mass purchase option for all the shorter downtown routes that have a layover terminal big enough to plug in between runs. Stuff like the Dudley and Forest Hills routes that stay in-town and have staffed terminals for a home base. In fact, I'm not sure why they're investing in expansion of the CNG facility at FH when that fleet is pretty much in stasis. Doesn't make sense to buy any more when clean diesel tech has closed the emissions efficiency gap bigtime in the last 10 years, eroding a lot of CNG's alt fuel advantages. Since those routes are more or less held captive to in-town routes fed from the downtown yards and FH that have the CNG fueling facilities, those would seem to be the first candidate routes to flip to mass battery/hybrid deployment in '23-24 when the current CNG's hit their 20-year end-of-life.
I could even see the 'plug' for the plug-ins being the TT wires to keep the charging hands-free. As in, these buses wouldn't be TT's drawing traction power on the overhead but could have some quasi-dummy poles to do a simultaneous charge off the overhead within the Harvard tunnel. Or if a big terminal like Dudley just installed a static stretch of overhead as a linear battery charger. I don't know what kind of transformer setup it would require to grab stock 750-volt trolley overhead power for use charging a battery on a 'Tesla' bus. The R&D departments at the big bus manufacturers would know that answer. But labor- and ops-wise it's a much more elegant solution than grabbing an extension cord at a charging station and easier to implement in cities like Boston that have 750 v traction powerlines criscrossing under many streets to remotely feed all the LRT/HRT/TT network's substations. For example, the ex- A line and E-Arborway trunks are still active under the street as power feeds for Green, Orange, and the Watertown end of the 71. So Forest Hills is equipped if that voltage is convertible for a charging station. Maybe Dudley too if there's an ex- El trunk under Washington still there boosting the Orange Line.
Re: the next dual-mode purchase. They definitely need to buy some extras to assign to the Cambridge routes. It would do a lot of good to unite the 77 and 77A with a North Cambridge power switch past all the Harvard-Porter congestion and give that critical route some badly-needed 60-footers. The People's Republic would certainly clamor for it on air quality alone. And if a future 'Fairmounted' commuter rail station at Newton Corner is desireable you'd really want the 71 to be able to roam seamlessly from Watertown to Corner with 60-footers, because that route's ridership would explode as a CR-Harvard shortcut and quasi- ring route.
I'm sure battery buses are the next great alternative fuel tech bus purchase. It's advancing so fast we're probably not far at all from real 'Prius' buses hitting whatever efficiency threshold that opens the purchase floodgates for transit agencies. And then the real 'Tesla' buses not far behind as that tech scales up to truck/bus performance and high-capacity charging station equipment becomes less costly due to the boom market in car chargers.
The 'Priuses' are already creeping into the market and should bit nearing critical mass over the next 5 years. I bet the 'Teslas' hitting critical mass within 7-9 years. But I wouldn't necessarily think of those solely in Silver Line terms, since that's always going to be working from a traction (i.e. trackless trolley) lineage and somewhat different evolutionary tree despite some similarities. These can be real-deal mass replacement order for the first gen of low-floor 40-footers when they're up for retirement in the early 20's.
Once the mileage per charge on an 'any-bus' electric bumps significantly higher than the 35 miles this Worcester pilot is getting they become a mass purchase option for all the shorter downtown routes that have a layover terminal big enough to plug in between runs. Stuff like the Dudley and Forest Hills routes that stay in-town and have staffed terminals for a home base. In fact, I'm not sure why they're investing in expansion of the CNG facility at FH when that fleet is pretty much in stasis. Doesn't make sense to buy any more when clean diesel tech has closed the emissions efficiency gap bigtime in the last 10 years, eroding a lot of CNG's alt fuel advantages. Since those routes are more or less held captive to in-town routes fed from the downtown yards and FH that have the CNG fueling facilities, those would seem to be the first candidate routes to flip to mass battery/hybrid deployment in '23-24 when the current CNG's hit their 20-year end-of-life.
I could even see the 'plug' for the plug-ins being the TT wires to keep the charging hands-free. As in, these buses wouldn't be TT's drawing traction power on the overhead but could have some quasi-dummy poles to do a simultaneous charge off the overhead within the Harvard tunnel. Or if a big terminal like Dudley just installed a static stretch of overhead as a linear battery charger. I don't know what kind of transformer setup it would require to grab stock 750-volt trolley overhead power for use charging a battery on a 'Tesla' bus. The R&D departments at the big bus manufacturers would know that answer. But labor- and ops-wise it's a much more elegant solution than grabbing an extension cord at a charging station and easier to implement in cities like Boston that have 750 v traction powerlines criscrossing under many streets to remotely feed all the LRT/HRT/TT network's substations. For example, the ex- A line and E-Arborway trunks are still active under the street as power feeds for Green, Orange, and the Watertown end of the 71. So Forest Hills is equipped if that voltage is convertible for a charging station. Maybe Dudley too if there's an ex- El trunk under Washington still there boosting the Orange Line.
Re: the next dual-mode purchase. They definitely need to buy some extras to assign to the Cambridge routes. It would do a lot of good to unite the 77 and 77A with a North Cambridge power switch past all the Harvard-Porter congestion and give that critical route some badly-needed 60-footers. The People's Republic would certainly clamor for it on air quality alone. And if a future 'Fairmounted' commuter rail station at Newton Corner is desireable you'd really want the 71 to be able to roam seamlessly from Watertown to Corner with 60-footers, because that route's ridership would explode as a CR-Harvard shortcut and quasi- ring route.
