Kawasaki Rebuild Program at Alstom

Here comes another completed K-car rebuild bringing up the rear of a 100 car EDPO at Ayer on Friday 10/14/16.

Got dragged all the way to Portland too instead of being set off in Lawrence!

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They've stepped up the pace on the cab cars, upping the count out at Alstom to 1:1 with the trailers. 1706, 1711, 1713, 1716, 1720 are the last five non-rebuilds still roaming. 13 rebuilds are back, 6 are away in rebuild.


Heaven forbid we might actually be out of the hole at long last on cabs shortage before Memorial Day at this pace, and if Delaware Car can clear the inspections backlog on the 1600's briskly enough.

My wife was driving through Athol this morning and saw two K cars on (what I'm guessing was a) POED.

707 & 1713

Down to only 3 non-rebuilt cabs left in-service: 1706, 1711, 1716. At rate Alstom's going now double-barreling trailers and cabs 1:1 to finish the cab fleet those 3 will be gone in couple weeks and the entire active bi-level cab fleet will be pumping out ASA. And by summer's end commuter rail will finally be at full strength on cabs for first time in years.

Also...looks like the first of the '97-era BTC-4A contract options have headed out to Alstom. 757 and 767 have cut ahead in line of 15 non-rebuild '91 trailers still in-service.

What's with the extremely slowed pace of cars returning to service of late? NETransit's been stuck at 48 in-service rebuilds for nearly a month with 4 cars back on the property languishing in testing. Problems uncovered, or manpower shortage at BET for clearing out the test line?

Well the last car took a week for PAR to pick up, then the slow boat west to Mickeyville. Also they took
two weeks to pick up the 1812 for Delaware Car (there was some brake issues, I guess).

The last K-Car returnee went fairly quickly to Area 52 for testing.

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777 has not been rebuilt yet right? It does not have power doors or electronic displays.

Was on this car this morning on the North Side, and I have to say it looked much newer / nicer than the 900's cars we sometimes get.

777 is a BTC-4B coach, from the third batch of 3 separate orders in the 700 series. They're 10 years younger than the BTC-4 cars currently in rebuild, so that's why they seem so much fresher.

700-749 are BTC-4's delivered 1991-92 (along with CTC-4 cab cars 1700-1724), and are on the base contract for the rebuild program.
750-766 are BTC-4A's delivered 1997-98, and are on the now-exercised contract option on the rebuild program.
767-781 are BTC-4B's delivered 2001-02, and are on the now-exercised contract option on the rebuild program.
900-932 are BTC-4C's delivered 2005-06, and are not included in the rebuild program because of their youth.

All of the in-service rebuilds so far are -4's from '91. The first BTC-4A (757) and BTC-4B (767) pilot cars have been removed from service and sent to Alstom for rebuild, but the contract gives Alstom an extra-long time to work on them so neither will be back in-service until the rest of the '91-era cars are all done.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:900-932 are BTC-4C's delivered 2005-06, and are not included in the rebuild program because of their youth.

They also do not need the HVAC intake modification.

702, 706 & 710 set out today for PAR to pick up.

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1713 returned from rehab last night via PAR.

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GP40MC1118 wrote:1713 returned from rehab last night via PAR.

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And here is said coach bracketed by Ciment Quebec covered hoppers on mixed train EDPO of Thursday 10/19/17 crawling through Forge Village, MA.

Side note: CWR recently dropped on the Stony Brook east of CPF-312 through Forge Village has not yet been installed.