Green Line Type 9 Thread

[bostontrainguy]

Be better to upgrade the tracks and remove speed restrictions. In the good old days they used to bet on how quick you could get your last train back to Riverside from Lechmere. Also the Boeing LRVs topped off at 50 mph while today's cars are limited to 40 mph. Those days are over. Today you are restricted to 10 mph through all stations. most switches and crossings. They do use radar traps so unless some rules are changed the ride will keep getting longer and longer.

[Arlington]

Be better to upgrade the tracks and remove speed restrictions.

Better to inventory *everything* (including retractable mirrors) and do a cost-benefit on them all.
In the NYC story, the delays were *everywhere* Vehicles, Doors, Track, Signals, & operation practices.

The Green Line Transformation has got to look at everything. Maybe ask the Japanese for help in by-the-second analysis of stops (and safety).

One nice thing about OPTO: with a single operator, you won't have the little dance as the operators coordinate when it is time to close the doors and go. (

Will Type 9s be one operator for a whole train, or do we wait for the Type 10 for that?
(one operator doing the whole train might actually be worth it for the mirrors to extend/retract, though I'm more of a video guy)

[CRail]

OPTO has done nothing to improve dwell times on other lines and it certainly won't help here. The ability to close doors individually when they're clear rather than wait for all of them to be clear before closing any is a major advantage to time and safety.

The Riverside line remained at 50MPH until the type 8s came, the 7s are not the reason for the restriction. Hopefully once the 8s are gone the speed can be brought back up to 50. Central Subway speed is 25, which is ridiculous. If you can do 40 in the woods there's no reason you cant do 40 in a tube, perhaps once the signals are equipped with enforcement devices (currently in design) they'll raise those speeds too.

They've slowed down doors, added service inhibiting operating rules, reduced speeds, and deferred maintenance compounding the issue. Arlington is right that they've got to work on everything to get the service running the way it should.

[bostontrainguy]

OPTO has done nothing to improve dwell times on other lines and it certainly won't help here. The ability to close doors individually when they're clear rather than wait for all of them to be clear before closing any is a major advantage to time and safety.

There is a process. The second car operator closes his rear doors first when clear, then he closes his front door. The front car operator waits and then closes his rear doors and lastly his front door. This was even more lengthy a process when there was a third car to wait for. If someone gets caught in a door, it's an "accident" and you're going downtown for a drug test. The T takes it's door procedure very seriously.

As far as speeding up the service, the quickest and easiest thing to do is eliminate the "timing lights" that stop trains for no reason other than purposely slowing down trains.

[CRail]

I'm very familiar with the procedure, and the first car's rear doors can close at any time. Only the front door needs to wait so that the motorman can see the mirror. The second car in a three car train waits for no one. Again, the leading motorman simply has to wait to see that all right side doors have closed. On left side platforms, there is no incorrect order for closing doors as the mirrors are fixed to the station. Also, people are hit with doors all the time; quite frequently they get hit by the doors on purpose trying to beat them (the passenger trying to beat the doors, that is). Only if the person claims injury is it considered an accident, and even then there are specific parameters for additional post accident procedures.

You're exactly right about the time lights. Many don't require a stop if a certain speed is adhered to between signals (not necessarily the posted speed), but some hold no matter how slowly you approach them. That is senseless in my opinion. I also think AVI (Automatic Vehicle Identification) antennas should be placed further back from junctions so that the route can be set and signal cleared before the car gets to it and has to stop. If it were up to me, I'd also have every junction set up so that an official could set it to be manually operated locally. Currently, only the North Station turnback and the Reservoir upper yard junction have that capability.

[Yellowspoon]

It turns out, the Type-9 design flaw that I reported on this thread (Page 38, 2nd-to-last post) is worse than I originally reported.

On Friday, 15-Feb-19, with stopwatch in hand, I went for a few LRV rides. The front door mirror on the Type-9s is only part of the problem. On the Type-9s, the front door takes 8 seconds to open and ten seconds to close before the train can move. This includes the time for the mirror to unfold/unfold as well as the door opening procedure. By contrast, the Type-7s and the Type-8s take two seconds to open and two seconds to close. That’s fourteen extra seconds at each and every stop. With eighteen stops from Park to Riverside, that’s more than four minutes. Of course, if one is a commuter who goes both ways, that’s eight minutes a day or forty minutes a week.

Because the train is undergoing testing, there is a supervisor on the train in addition to the motorman. When I reported my findings to the supervisor, he was totally unconcerned.

But wait, there’s more. When I went online about 10:40, car 3900 was inbound at Copley. The next Riverside car inbound was one minute behind them. I don’t know when either car left Riverside, but read on.

When I went online at 11:21, car 3900 was at Fenway, outbound. Best case, I figured 30 minutes to Riverside at current scheduled times, and another five minutes back to Waban, which is where I get on the train. When I arrived at the station at 11:55, car 3900 was already at the station, but he was outbound. It had taken him 34 minutes to go ten stops, or 3.4 minutes per stop. Back in 1959, the schedule was 2.0 minutes per stop. This was 70% longer than 1959, and 33% longer than current time tables. After 3900 left for Riverside, two trains followed within six minutes.

After I parked my car and was waiting for 3900 inbound, a type7/8 train passed Waban at 12:07. One minute later, at 12:08, car 3900 picked me up. Because we were right behind the previous train, there were no passengers at Eliot, Newton Highlands, or Newton Center. We saved 54 seconds because the doors did not open. I wonder if this was intentional. When we arrived at Copley at 12:42, it had taken us 34 minutes to go 13 stops, or 2.6 minutes per stop. Despite the 54 second savings, we still took longer than the scheduled 2.5 minutes per stop.

[rethcir]

What a dumb flaw. How does that get past acceptance testing? You should email this info to the Globe's transit columnist.

[Arlington]

Please do. This is crazy. Is it the plug doors or the mirror that's the bottleneck? I think lightweight bifolds are always going to win speed tests, given their low mass (low intertia)

[Yellowspoon]

What a dumb flaw. How does that get past acceptance testing? You should email this info to the Globe's transit columnist.

Will do. I didn't know the Globe had a transit columnist. I've already sent snail mail to Governor Baker, Secretary Pollack, General Manager Steve Poftak, MBTA Customer Service, and WBZ iTeam.

This is a broad generalization, but I don't think the MBTA considers the customer's time to have any value. When the train supervisor showed a lack of concern for the issue, I decided to go on the warpath.

[rethcir]

The current Globe Starts and Stops columnist appears to be Nicole Dungca: https://www.bostonglobe.com/staff/dungca

[chrisf]

Now it's Adam Vaccaro: @adamtvaccaro on Twitter or Adam.vaccaro at globe.com

[CRail]

When the train supervisor showed a lack of concern for the issue, I decided to go on the warpath.

People seem to think uniformed employees have a lot more clout with these things than they do, their only concern is getting the trip finished. If there is an inspector or instructor on the car, they are there to troubleshoot if there is an issue that could delay service. They aren't Caf engineers who can redesign the car based on a passenger's input.

[Yellowspoon]

When I asked the inspector to whom I should address this problem, he would not tell me. His tart response was that the vehicle was working as designed. Period. He tried to blame it on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and he grew annoyed when I was not accepting that excuse. The tone of his voice was, "Go away, little boy. You bother me."

[bostontrainguy]

Realize that the T is hampered by very tight clearances (like 3" around the Park Street loop) so the trolleys can't have fixed mirrors. That severely limits your knowledge of what is happening around your vehicle. For instance when you come off of the Huntington Ave. reservation you are totally blind cutting into traffic. Operating in the street in heavy traffic totally blind on your right side can be a bit unnerving especially when you are about to open the door for passengers to alight. They really needed to go with cameras that show the right side of the vehicle instead of the folding mirrors.

Fixed mirrors like this would be much better but impossible at the MBTA.

[Disney Guy]

Some kind of fixed mirror or camera is needed for maneuvering in the street. It would add to the complexity of operating the car to have to have the extra steps of deploying and stowing just the mirror as needed and be sure it is stowed before re-entering the subway. (Is it possible to deploy and see the mirror without opening the door?)