3 Car Green Line Train Discussion

MBTA General Manager Rich Davey reports the first three-car train will pull out of Riverside station 7 a.m. on Monday, with a second to follow at 8:30 a.m. In e-mail, he writes:

"We're starting this up on a trial basis as personnel from the Green Line and Power Department closely monitor the performance of the train and the D branch itself. If all goes well, we plan to increase the number of trips made by 3-car trains and expand the program to the B branch. You are probably aware that the Riverside and Boston College lines are the longest branches of the Green Line. All of the train platforms on the D and B branches can accommodate 3-car train sets."

He says this is the first time the Green Line will see three-car trains in five years. What spurred the return, he said, were comments from a number of customers asking for increased capacity during rush hour, at a "Join the GM" session at Riverside last month.

He adds that in the afternoon, there'll be three-car trains at 4 and 5:40 p.m.

http://www.archboston.org/community/sho ... tcount=829

http://www.universalhub.com/2010/mbta-b ... ains-start

heard on wbz this morning that tomorrow, the T will run (2) 3 car trains in the morning rush, and (2) 3 car trains for the evening rush, on one of the green line branches (i forget). of course, they're hoping to expand this other branches.

jscola30 wrote:heard on wbz this morning that tomorrow, the T will run (2) 3 car trains in the morning rush, and (2) 3 car trains for the evening rush, on one of the green line branches (i forget). of course, they're hoping to expand this other branches.

D and B lines, the two that have most frequently gotten the 3-car trains on prior tries because of their length.

First day of 3 car operations... here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i7yCY1dftc

Interesting to see that they would sandwich a Type 8 between two Type 7s. I thought the 8 would be in the lead.

Mcoov wrote:Interesting to see that they would sandwich a Type 8 between two Type 7s. I thought the 8 would be in the lead.

No, it makes sense for ADA.

That way the accessible area is close to everyone on the platform

jamesinclair wrote:

Mcoov wrote:Interesting to see that they would sandwich a Type 8 between two Type 7s. I thought the 8 would be in the lead.

No, it makes sense for ADA.

That way the accessible area is close to everyone on the platform

And for rush hour it makes for higher passenger capacity because the 7's can hold more people total with their seating arrangement and not having stairs in the low-floor section. 7-8-7 triplets on the B and D, and 8-8 and 8-7 doubles on the C and E are the right car assignment alignment for max GL capacity. It's also the intended mix, since there are 110 operational (non-wrecked/scrapped) Kinkis vs. 94 operational Bredas, so Type 7's are always going to be the majority car. 7-8-7's actually put them closer to complete operational compliance with ADA because it eats up enough of the differential between high-floor and low-floor makes to not be forced by the numbers to run occasional 7-7 consists.

Also, the 7-8-7 sandwich allows for a somewhat smoother operation as the type 7s and type 8s aren't quite speed matched (you have a type 7 in the front pulling, and a type 7 in the back pushing, which means that each type 7 is taking up about 50% of the difference in speeds between the 7s and 8s)

Just tweeted...

@mbtaGM Starting Monday we will be running two 3-car Green Line trains on the B line in each morning and evening rush hour.

I'll be interested to see how they handle triplets on the B line. At BC the outbound platform is only 2 cars long, so unless they empty the first car of an outbound train at the unused platform at the end of the reservation and then pull up a carlength beyond the main platform, the rear car is going to be hanging out in Comm Ave when the train stops to unload the remaining passengers. And there's several other stops where I'm not convinced the platforms are 3 cars long (it's very close if they are).

They could stop so that the last door of the first car and first door of the last car are on the platform, while the middle car is at the platform. They'll need to extend station stops if this procedure is used, so as to let everyone out of the two cars that aren't fully at the platform.

MBTA3247 wrote:I'll be interested to see how they handle triplets on the B line. At BC the outbound platform is only 2 cars long, so unless they empty the first car of an outbound train at the unused platform at the end of the reservation and then pull up a carlength beyond the main platform, the rear car is going to be hanging out in Comm Ave when the train stops to unload the remaining passengers. And there's several other stops where I'm not convinced the platforms are 3 cars long (it's very close if they are).

I think that platform has been at least partially removed. I'll double check on Monday. At BC though, sometimes they use one of the yard tracks to unload passengers when the train is going OOS (which the 3-car train might be if it has a special schedule), so they could use that, assuming there were no passengers who needed the raised platform.

Mcoov wrote:They could stop so that the last door of the first car and first door of the last car are on the platform, while the middle car is at the platform. They'll need to extend station stops if this procedure is used, so as to let everyone out of the two cars that aren't fully at the platform.

They've done triplets on the B more than any other line the last decade, and the last two stints they did it were exclusively on the B. So positioning on the shorter platforms has got to be operationally old hat for the operators, and I'm sure they get trained on it. Just because fleet shortages and interminable platform construction have made it a rare sight the last few years doesn't mean this wasn't a fairly common (if intermittent) practice in the past.

Mcoov wrote:They could stop so that the last door of the first car and first door of the last car are on the platform, while the middle car is at the platform. They'll need to extend station stops if this procedure is used, so as to let everyone out of the two cars that aren't fully at the platform.

Back when I used to live on the B-branch, they did not do this. The head car would stop at the usual spot, while the third car would open the doors letting people step out/off onto the ballast.

diburning wrote:The head car would stop at the usual spot, while the third car would open the doors letting people step out/off onto the ballast.

I understand that that's essentially what they've been doing at BC, but substitute Comm Ave for ballast. I'm sure the autos appreciate that.