Arlington wrote:This thread proposes to discuss the age-old Orange Line vs Haverhill Line turf fight in light of the T's apparent new-found love of DMUs.
I know that we've covered elsewhere how Melrose's grade crossings and mode snobs thwarted the Orange Line's ambitions to reach out to Reading and Rt 128. We've also covered how, if we'd known that 40 years ago, the OL would not have been built as a 3-track operation. And we've watched the transit rails rot in place as they pass through stations like Wellington, while the Haverhill line is constrained on a single track, and CR growth beyond N. Wilmington pretty much has to get to/from North Station via the Lowell Line.
And we've watched that uneasy stalemate for 30 years now: OL has more infrastructure than it will ever need, Haverhill has less than it deserves because too many decisions were cast in concrete and kept there by an FRA that wouldn't let heavy rail and transit easily intermix.
So far, its always been concluded that it is (nearly) too expensive to change the OL to favor the CR, and CR ridership doesn't merit taking back a track.
Do DMU's change that?
What if the whole CR operation south of North Wilmington were converted to DMU? (with CR being redirected to the Lowell Line).
Could the grade-connections be severed and the railhead height be tweaked to allow DMUs to serve the unused OL platforms as their own?
Or is the real DMU on the Orange line just more Orange Line EMUs, and actually using the 3rd track for something?
Or does the population between North Station Reading just not need any more transit?
sery2831 wrote:Both Commuter Rail bids proposals have sections on DMU operations and maintenance. So the T is serious about acquiring them at some point in the next 8 years.
jaymac wrote:DMUs will be an additional capital -- not to mention maintenance -- expenditure for equipment that is not compatible system-wide.
Finch wrote:jaymac wrote:DMUs will be an additional capital -- not to mention maintenance -- expenditure for equipment that is not compatible system-wide.
Interesting points jaymac. Just curious, what do you mean by "not compatible system-wide?" I mean, the promise of FRA-compliant DMU's is that they can be run more widely and intermixed with conventional traffic. And I'd think they could be built within the required clearance envelope to fit everywhere the commuter rail runs. Are you referring to platform heights or something like that?
Finch wrote:jaymac wrote:DMUs will be an additional capital -- not to mention maintenance -- expenditure for equipment that is not compatible system-wide.
Interesting points jaymac. Just curious, what do you mean by "not compatible system-wide?" I mean, the promise of FRA-compliant DMU's is that they can be run more widely and intermixed with conventional traffic. And I'd think they could be built within the required clearance envelope to fit everywhere the commuter rail runs. Are you referring to platform heights or something like that?
jaymac wrote:For runs that might have DMUs, how many spare DMUs will be available for protection? Will protection DMUs be standard-consist compatible so they can serve as replacement coaches for standard-equipment runs? It's been a good length of time since I've seen any utilization charts, but one of the selling points to B&M and advertising points to other possible Budd customers was the ability of one set of equipment to cover multiple runs on different routes, aided in no small part by the time-savings of push-pull operation.
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