No Boeing LRV going to Mattapan says Grabauskas

Monday night I went to the MBTA Rider Oversight Committee meeting, and Dan Grabauskas the GM was there! He was asked about Boeing LRVs ever going down to the Mattapan high-speed line. He said they wouldn't.

The topic came up when Grabauskas gave an update on the Type 8 order status and the deal with the new Breda management, and how they expected to have all the old LRVs out of the fleet after the last of the Bredas were accepted. He was asked specifically about Boeings going to the Ashmont-Mattapan line and he and the new MBTA chief operating officer who was also there (I didn't get his name) both confirmed that the Boeings have outlived their useful life even with the rebuild program.

Back in this thread there was speculation about LRVs to Mattapan, but now it's official that they won't. Too bad; I hope the money can be found to keep the PCCs going.

So if no LRV will go to Mattapan, what will? Even with the rebuild the PCCs can't go on forever. For simplicity, I would assume the best thing to do would be to order 10 extra of whatever the next generation Green Line car is and send them over. I know some infastructure improvements will need to be done to support larger cars. No reason why Mattapan should continue to get hand me down leftovers.

Anything that replaces the PCCs has to be 100% ADA. So that would mean Type 8s! And we all know that wont happen.

My idea would be to bring the Boeings over, make the stations high level. Put the old doors back on and fill in the steps. It only has to be done to the one side door on each side. The second door can be blocked up. That would make the cars 100% ADA compliant I am sure.

Dont worry, when the PCC's wear out sometime in 2015, we'll move on to the Type 5 rebuilding program.

What's wrong with PCC's? Kenosha and Philadelphia made them ADA compliant with the installation of wheelchair lifts.

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:What's wrong with PCC's? Kenosha and Philadelphia made them ADA compliant with the installation of wheelchair lifts.

-otto-

Why can't the T do to the PCC's like SEPTA did to their Rt. 15 cars, send them to Brookville, get a virtually new car in the old body and run them on the Mattapan High Speed Line.

It would make sense. You even got to give credit to the idiots at SEPTA for doing something smart like that!

What's wrong with PCC's? Kenosha and Philadelphia made them ADA compliant with the installation of wheelchair lifts.

Probably because in Boston, you'd need *two* lifts... don't forget about that off side door! That gets kind of expensive, and there may be carbody structural issues with that kind of setup as well.

I believe there may be weight issues with certain bridges on the High-Speed Line that currently prevents Boeing LRV's or even Type 7's from operating there.

Regarding the left-hand door - Ashmont station is being rebuilt with a new loop at the south end of the station. It would then be relatively simple to build new side platforms at Butler and do away with the need for a lift on the left-side door.

JD

RailBus63 wrote:I believe there may be weight issues with certain bridges on the High-Speed Line that currently prevents Boeing LRV's or even Type 7's from operating there.

Regarding the left-hand door - Ashmont station is being rebuilt with a new loop at the south end of the station. It would then be relatively simple to build new side platforms at Butler and do away with the need for a lift on the left-side door.

JD

The ramp at Ashmont will be torn down and rebuilt when that station is renovated. That's the big bridge with the weight issues, and it's being taken care of. There are a couple of small bridges left that wouldn't take much time/money to reinforce. The only other thing they have to do is give the M line its own substation, because right now it just siphons off the Red Line. That'll be a bit of money, but not hard to do at all. After all they did that to the entire Green Line except for Watertown and Arborway when the LRV's were ordered in the 70's. They'll probably have to do it anyway when the next Red Line car order is made just so Codman can handle the load of more power-hungry equipment without also having to supply the M. They'd probably also have to replace the rails...but that's less because of the needs of the new equipment than because the track currently there is in utter crap shape. So the infrastructure improvements needed would not be huge.

But they HAVE to do something about the fleet. They are kidding themselves if they think 10 seventy-year-old cars with no replacements are going to cover it another 10-15 years. Not all the cars are going to survive. Figure on at least one rust-out, and then there's always the possibility of a wreck because of the grade crossings on the line. They can barely cover full service with the fleet they've got, and can't even do things like 2-car trains at rush hour. A few LRV's would've made sense if only to augment the PCC's with a rush-hour capable fleet...not replace them outright. But I guess it's even harder to find parts for Boeings because of proprietary design than it is for PCC's...so it's defensible that they would opt against it.

However, they've got to do something. Just assuming the PCC's are going to cut it is only going to send them headlong into a car shortage. And a grade-protected ROW like that is simply too valuable to bustitute or BRT into the ground. Rail transit is the only adequate use of that ROW, and it's probably the cheapest use as well . Either there's got to be a plan for infrastructure improvements to get some Type 7's or Type 8's down there, or they've got to purchase some new/used trolleys to run on the currently-vintage infrastructure a la SEPTA. Or they should just bite the bullet, eliminate the grade crossings and some intermediate stops, and extend the whole Red Line to Mattapan (which would make a lot of sense for the Mattapan terminal, but not a lot of sense for the intermediate stops that would have to be closed because their trolley-sized patronage is too light for a full-length Red Line train with fare collection infrastructure in each station). Personally I think a full-blown Red Line extension is too extreme, and a stopgap order of low-power pole trolleys is not forward-thinking enough. The line really needs to use the same equipment as the Green Line. And that probably means doing what it takes to get Bredas and Kinkis out there (actually, probably just Bredas since you want ADA compliance and it would pretty much be single-car trains except rush hour).

If the plan is to continue rail service beyond 2015 or so, I believe the MBTA will eventually tack on an order for 10 to 12 nonarticulated cars to whatever car they buy to begin replacing the Type 7's.

But I'm not convinced that BRT is such a bad idea - you could extend the bus routes from the Blue Hill Ave. corridor, Wakefield Ave, etc. and give those folks a one-seat ride to the Red Line and still offer frequent service to the High-Speed Line stations. I know it's heresy to say this on a railfan board, but I would be shocked if the MBTA doesn't consider this at some point.

JD

Leave the PCC's as they are. As for ADA compliance, no need to worry. There are two alternatives to the trolleys for those who cannot access the PCC's.

1) "The Ride"

2) There is a bus which paralells the trolley line.......#27 is it?

You could extend the Red Line to Mattapan, but if you did so, you could probably justify only one intermediate stop -- either Milton, Central Ave, or a new stop somewhere between those two.

The two street crossings are a big problem. You can't close either of them. Central Avenue is a major thoroughfare, and Capen Street is a dead-end with a bunch of houses on the far side of the crossing.

CSX Conductor wrote:Leave the PCC's as they are. As for ADA compliance, no need to worry. There are two alternatives to the trolleys for those who cannot access the PCC's.

1) "The Ride"

2) There is a bus which paralells the trolley line.......#27 is it?

The route 27 bus is within walking distance of only two stops - Central Ave. and Milton. It does not serve the other four intermediate stops along the line. When the line was shut down in 1981, the MBTA ran two separate bus routes to get within walking distance of the stations.

Yes, handicapped passengers have The Ride, but the law is the law - all scheduled route service must be made accessible. I have no idea how the MBTA managed to rebuild the PCC's this time around without adding lifts. The ADA legislation is quite clear that older equipment is 'grandfathered' only until it is rebuilt, at which time it is expected to be made compliant. Perhaps they received a waiver.

JD

Wasn't this line shut down a few months for repairs (maybe only to track) much more recently than 1981?

Yes, it actually was just last year or three years ago, I'm not sure, but I remember the Mattapan Shuttle Line was closed a few years ago for more work on it.

perhaps they will use the Skoda-Inekon "sleekcars" used in Portland and Tacoma for replacement cars down the road, also SEPTA will be replacing their single-ended Kawasaki LRV cars probably in about 10 years maybe MBTA could do some joint order with SEPTA for a new single-end car