MBTA in RI?

Diverging Route wrote:

Robert Paniagua wrote:All DoubleDeckers have been staying Southside for the past few years due to ridership, especially with the lines southeast of Boston into Plymouth County, which will add the Scituate Line soon, so that means all Kawasakis will most likely stay south of Town including Framingham/Worcester for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday an engineer acquaintance who works the Lowell Line confirmed that next week trains 308/333 will have either eight cars, or bilevels due to heavy ridership.

Can anyone confirm if this is true?

railfan101 wrote:

Diverging Route wrote:

Robert Paniagua wrote:All DoubleDeckers have been staying Southside for the past few years due to ridership, especially with the lines southeast of Boston into Plymouth County, which will add the Scituate Line soon, so that means all Kawasakis will most likely stay south of Town including Framingham/Worcester for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday an engineer acquaintance who works the Lowell Line confirmed that next week trains 308/333 will have either eight cars, or bilevels due to heavy ridership.

Can anyone confirm if this is true?

Join me on 308 and 333 on Monday and we'll find out together!

well now that it is out there, i have also been told by a Northside MBCR employee that they will be seeing some bilevels, the trainmaster asked for some 900's due to the high ridershiop and car shortage, but they will most likely get 700's

MBTA F40PH-2C 1050 wrote:well now that it is out there, i have also been told by a Northside MBCR employee that they will be seeing some bilevels, the trainmaster asked for some 900's due to the high ridershiop and car shortage, but they will most likely get 700's

700/1700's are better than nothing. THis will be great.

I was planning on taking the train into Boston sometime next week...I normally choose between going to Lawrence or Anderson to catch the train...I just might have to go to Anderson, since I would be taking 333 back home.

railfan101 wrote:

MBTA F40PH-2C 1050 wrote:well now that it is out there, i have also been told by a Northside MBCR employee that they will be seeing some bilevels, the trainmaster asked for some 900's due to the high ridershiop and car shortage, but they will most likely get 700's

700/1700's are better than nothing. THis will be great.

There is a downside to the bilevels: They unload more slowly at North Station since there are 160 or so seats vs. 120 or so on the flats. This can also be noticed to a lesser extent at busy stations along the line. For example, the dwell time at Mansfield on evening rush hour trains can be close to four minutes, even with all door sets in use.