#14 Orange Line Cars 1400-1551 (From Red/Orange Procurement discussion)

If that happened, then the Old Colony through Dorchester could be combined with the Braintree Branch of the Red Line.

Current federal regulations do not allow commingling of rapid transit and mainline regional rail equipment on the same track without strict time separation of operations.

Charliemta wrote:If the Old Colony Lines were to be converted to electric someday, it would have to be catenary for at least the parts that have grade crossings. The sections that don't, including the part through Dorchester, could be third rail.

Why would you need to flip-flop between third rail and catenary just because of grade crossings? You just stop the thrid rail at the street and start it up on the other side...usually a couple of feet back from the roadway. The entire train is always in contact with the third rail either in the back or the front. This is how the LIRR works.

Now you're not going to ingegrate the Red Line and the Old Colony. But if any of the south side lines (including Old Colony) were to electrify, they should use catenary, as it would be compatible with the NEC that runs right into South Station.

Alright, we are quite a bit off topic here... Lets return to Orange and Red Line CARS please!

Theres no reason why the rapid transit cars should run on the same ROW as the commuter rail. Rapid transit has their headways, and commuter rail has their schedules. By keeping them seperate, you won't have any bunching issues or issues with disabled trainsets.

Converting the lines to panto-power is not only a costly, but also not very useful. The lines are fine the way they are as they have a seperate ROW with no grade crossings. Grade crossings would not be an issue (as stated in the posts above). The orange line already has (private) grade crossings at wellington (at the yard). If Metro-North can run MUs on third rail and still have grade crossings, then I don't see why rapid transit can't do the same.

Why would you need the red or orange lines to run on pantographs? Besides the safety aspect (theres no 3rd rail to fall onto and get electrocuted on), theres no practical reason to convert. If it isn't broken, don't fix it!

If the orange line was converted to catenary power, then they would have to raise the tunnels a bit as the orange line doesn't have much clearance from the tunnel ceiling as it is right now.

However, I do think that it is a good idea to have similar designs between the orange and red line cars as it would make maintenance easier and less costly. (for example, the hawkers on the blue and orange lines had interchangable parts). I'm not saying that they could hire less mechanics, but the mechanics trained to fix the new cars can move around from line to line as needed.

I'm pretty sure with the economy in the toilet, and the T so far in debt, that they would want to choose the most cost effective option possible.

As a side note, the Chicago el has grade crossings. Not that the T should ever expand the subways into territory where they'd need grade crossings...

Cleveland RTA has a grade crossing (complete with gates and flashers) on their Red Line (heavy rail rapid transit) at Brookpark station (right next to the NS Brookpark Yard). (They use catenary the whole way though)

There shouldn't be any problems with public third rail crossings except for the occasional idiot who trespasses on the ROW, comes into contact with the third rail and gets zapped.

Soon we'll need new cars for the Orange and Red Lines, maybe next decade, I don't think we'll be getting them in 2015 as first thought

Robert Paniagua wrote:Soon we'll need new cars for the Orange and Red Lines, maybe next decade, I don't think we'll be getting them in 2015 as first thought

The Orange Line cars are beyond their design life, and also well beyond their safe operating life. They are beginning to experience structural failure in the floors (some of which has been patched), and the wheel bearings are ready to go at any time. The latter is liable to kill people at some point, as a failure at full operating speed would cause a spectacular derailment.

The T is pouring (or trying to pour) millions into emergency maintenance to keep the fleet from literally falling to pieces. Which might help push the State into forking over the cash to replace the cars and avoid the lawsuits and bad press from a crash.

The Orange Line cars are beyond their design life, and also well beyond their safe operating life. They are beginning to experience structural failure in the floors (some of which has been patched), and the wheel bearings are ready to go at any time.

Are you privy to some internal report or maintenance records that prove what you allege?

jwhite07 wrote:

The Orange Line cars are beyond their design life, and also well beyond their safe operating life. They are beginning to experience structural failure in the floors (some of which has been patched), and the wheel bearings are ready to go at any time.

Are you privy to some internal report or maintenance records that prove what you allege?

The floor failures have been covered in other threads. (and some of us have experienced a not-so-great sinking feeling while standing near the doorways of the 01200s as the floor beneath us began to sag.)

link

Safety concerns, though they drew the most attention in last month’s external review of the T, are worth a maximum of 10 points on the T’s 100-point rating system.

And some projects that did not receive the most urgent rating of 10 on the safety scale seemed to pose a greater risk than those that did.

Managers on the Orange Line, for example, say the wheel bearings on the train cars have been in use since the early 1980s and have outlived their useful life of 1 million miles by about 10 percent. If the bearing system fails, trains could derail, according to a memo requesting an additional $4 million to complete an overhaul that has already received $2 million. One such wheel bearing has already failed while a train was carrying passengers, according to the memo.

“An emergency replacement of all . . . must be undertaken,’’ the memo stated.

The $4 million to complete the project was not added to the capital budget, though the T hopes it eventually qualifies for stimulus money for an expanded revamp.

John C. Lewis, acting chief operating officer, said in an e-mail that the failure of the wheel bearing during passenger service was detected when the crew noticed a strange odor. Passengers got off the train and the car was removed from service for a day so workers could replace the part. Though inconvenienced, the passengers were not at risk, he said.

I'd say the T is downplaying the danger. A wheel bearing failure is not a small issue, and at around 40 mph would pose a severe hazard to a train and its occupants. The T got extremely lucky that the failure that occurred was noticed early, and the fact that it reached the point it did speaks volumes about why the trains need to go.

Fair enough... sounded to me to be a bit alarmist, but if indeed there's proof behind it, I'm as shocked as you are!

I would tend to agree with Mr. Arborway to a degree, also. I took the Orange Line into Northeastern today (I haven't been on the T for a few months) and I was quite surprised at the poor operational conditions of my car. The car (01273 I believe) seemed to be a difficult car to handle, had severely flat spotted wheels (the worst that I have ever encountered), poor traction, balked, and rode far less smoothly than even the old Pullmans on the Blue Line at the end which were about twice their age at the time. I know that what I've described could affect any RTC, but this car had a run down feel to it. I did not notice the structural flaws as described, but if the ride was anything like it- watch out ! I've never been a big fan of the Hawker-Siddeley's anyway, either on the Orange or Blue, and would like to see the 01200's replaced, personally.
In all fairness to the T, I do not think that they would down-play a known dangerous condition, particularly at this time when all eyes are upon the newly formatted organization, watching for lapses in safety. The feeling that I get is that most likely, although the car's condition may not be a safety hazard to run as such, that the cars are being run into the ground with a minimum of maintenance being performed, and that maintenance most likely only addressing safety concerns and not general preventive maintenance- like they did with a majority of the PCC's.

Arborway wrote:

Robert Paniagua wrote:Soon we'll need new cars for the Orange and Red Lines, maybe next decade, I don't think we'll be getting them in 2015 as first thought

The Orange Line cars are beyond their design life, and also well beyond their safe operating life. They are beginning to experience structural failure in the floors (some of which has been patched), and the wheel bearings are ready to go at any time. The latter is liable to kill people at some point, as a failure at full operating speed would cause a spectacular derailment.

The T is pouring (or trying to pour) millions into emergency maintenance to keep the fleet from literally falling to pieces. Which might help push the State into forking over the cash to replace the cars and avoid the lawsuits and bad press from a crash.

I really dont understand why there wasnt a joint blue/orange line order.

However, according to the march scorecard, the orange line is exceeding expectations in mean miles between failures and is on target with cars available. That doesnt quite jive with your "report"

http://mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the ... 010-03.pdf

(Page 5)

In fact, the MBTA in general seems to be doing a good job at keeping service

jamesinclair wrote:

Arborway wrote:

Robert Paniagua wrote:Soon we'll need new cars for the Orange and Red Lines, maybe next decade, I don't think we'll be getting them in 2015 as first thought

The Orange Line cars are beyond their design life, and also well beyond their safe operating life. They are beginning to experience structural failure in the floors (some of which has been patched), and the wheel bearings are ready to go at any time. The latter is liable to kill people at some point, as a failure at full operating speed would cause a spectacular derailment.

The T is pouring (or trying to pour) millions into emergency maintenance to keep the fleet from literally falling to pieces. Which might help push the State into forking over the cash to replace the cars and avoid the lawsuits and bad press from a crash.

I really dont understand why there wasnt a joint blue/orange line order.

However, according to the march scorecard, the orange line is exceeding expectations in mean miles between failures and is on target with cars available. That doesnt quite jive with your "report"

http://mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the ... 010-03.pdf

(Page 5)

In fact, the MBTA in general seems to be doing a good job at keeping service

"Report"? I'm not quite sure why you would use quotation marks around the word. The article cites interviews with MBTA management and memos written by the MBTA specifically about this issue.

Bearing problems are unlikely to show up in those statistics for a few reasons. First, it's a latent problem. It's either causing the trucks to disintegrate at a given moment or.. not. The T lacks the resources to repair the problem, so the trains are not being withdrawn from service to deal with the issue. For those reasons the trains will be available and in service. That looks good on reports. Yet the fact remains that MBTA managers and the outside audit found the problem is there. The longer the parts are in service beyond their operational lifetimes, the more likely there is to be a problem.

The body issues are being handled on an as-needed basis. It's possible to find trains with a brand-new floor through the entire car. It doesn't mean the T has deemed every other car to be in great shape (they're not) but that those cars that have been repaired have required the work to continue functioning.

The issues I'm citing with the Orange Line cars are unrelated to the quality of the maintenance performed on them. The amount of money invested in replacing the decayed pieces that make up each train is the issue. The T simply doesn't have that kind of money. As the years go on, and the mileage accumulates, there will be more and more failures related to the 01200s exceeding their operational lifetimes without the investment needed to compensate.

But really, any investment is going to have minimal returns in the long run. If you're at the point where you're replacing major structural elements as a matter of course, and expensive core components are beyond their expected range of service, then it's time to pack it in and send them out to be an artificial reef somewhere.

Point taken.

Which leads back to my first point: why wasn't their another joint blue/orange train order?