by Robert Paniagua
Hi everyone, this thread is to discuss the retirement of outgoing rolling rolling stock cars of Metrorail.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: mtuandrew, therock, Robert Paniagua
MCL1981 wrote:Politically, they could never replace anything else first but the 1000s. Those things are rolling death traps by today's standards. They'd be crucified for putting "convenience over safety", even if is truly the most logical course of action.The 4000's are barely safer, if at all. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/pos ... -about-it/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acci ... AR0601.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The cars involved in the accident were from the 1000 and 4000 series built byAnd they appear to suffer the same stresses as the 1000's
Rohr and Breda, respectively. The carbody is composed principally of aluminum alloy
extrusions and formed shapes with welded steel subassembly components for certain loadbearing
structural elements. The front-end cowl assembly is fabricated of molded
fiberglass incorporating a pair of collision and corner post elements. Aluminum sheeting
makes up the exterior skin of the roof, sidewalls, and rear-end panels.
The original contract specifications for the 2000-, 3000-, and 4000-series carsI agree the 1000's probably would be replaced first due to political and oversight pressure, but it doesn't really matter. Similar to how bellying the 1000's doesn't matter and doesn't increase safety at all (see: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acci ... AB1204.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
show that the car collision posts have the same section modulus and yield stress material
as the 1000-series cars, but the ultimate shear value was increased by 50 percent. No
crashworthiness improvements were required in the recent rehabilitation of the 2000- and
3000-series cars.
Sand Box John wrote:Instead of everybody worrying about the crashworthiness of the various series, they should be demanding that the hardware in signaling system be maintained to designed specifications with absolutely no exceptions to prevent any future collisions.Metro would need a major employee, union, and management shakeup for that to be realistic. The current atmosphere of laziness and rewarding stupidity will never allow this. The union would never allow for actual productive work and discipline/repercussions. It's be come more of a jobs program than a transit system. Management doesn't care. The board of directors is clueless. The politicians are all talk, no bite. And the customers have no other choice but to use the system regardless. What motivation is there to do better? None. There are no consequences for their actions and inactions. Maybe they can hire a consultant to form a committee to create a report. Then hire another consultant and form another committee to evaluate the report and decide what action not to take.
Sand Box John wrote:I think the practice of "bellying" the 1k cars is nothing but theater and should be discontinued.I agree completely. Unless it will cause me to wait around for another 10 minutes, I refuse to ride them. I take the first/last two cars every time. In addition to not dying in the next crash, they're always less crowded and have better AC too. People got scared after the 2009 crash and bum rush the middle of the train. Too bad they don't realize the car collapsed due to design, not because it was in the front. Anyone who understands a little bit of physics can see those cars will collapse just the same regardless of where they are in the set. Didn't this happen in the yard a few years ago where some bellied 1000 series goes got wrecked?
Sand Box John wrote:Instead of everybody worrying about the crashworthiness of the various series, they should be demanding that the hardware in signaling system be maintained to designed specifications with absolutely no exceptions to prevent any future collisions.In a perfect world I think this should be the case, but protecting against crashes has generally been the US mindset for a few decades now. The FTA, even NHTSA/others push crashworthiness almost more than crash avoidance, unlike some of the European modeling. With the track record WMATA has, I don't think they'd be the one to push that shift from crash reaction to prevention.
Sand Box John wrote:I think the practice of "bellying" the 1k cars is nothing but theater and should be discontinued.100% agree.
Sand Box John wrote:I am not a fan of trashing the 4k cars. I believe they should be rehabilitated in the same way the 2 and 3k cars were rehabilitated.I'm against rehabbing the 4Ks since the MDBD data shows they have just about never been reliable. In the data that I have, they only meet/exceed WMATA's target MDBD of 60,000mi for 3 months since 2008 (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oBnfSe9fjz8/V ... l-mdbd.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). The 5Ks are better and have some pretty decent monthly averages, but neither have been phenomenal even before mixed consists.
Sand Box John wrote:The 1k cars that are in the best physical condition should be retained as reserves.I believe they are already going to be keeping 50 as reserves once they're phased out of revenue service, so yes that is part of the plan for at least a few years.
Sand Box John wrote: I have a sneaky suspicion that after roughly 150 of the 7k cars are put into service the mean distance between failures fleet wide will go down because the folks in the shops will have more time to address and correct the minor problems before they become bigger problems that result in cars crapping the bed out on the railroad carrying revenue passengers.My own suspicion is that they will be pulling the 1K cars from service by that point on a 1 for 1 basis as the 7K cars arrive and are placed into service. That might in fact start to happen once the initial 64 7K cars are in service.
The 1000 series Rohr railcars will be retired first. Once all 1000 series Rohr railcars are removed and disposed of, the 4000 series Breda railcars will be retired.
dcmike wrote:Just about a foregone conclusion at this point. See the Statement of Work, page 73, of this RFP for car disposal that is now closed: http://www.wmata.com/business/procureme ... lcars1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;Nice document. How did the 4000-series get almost 8,000 lbs heavier than the 1000-series? See pg 75 of the document.
The 1000 series Rohr railcars will be retired first. Once all 1000 series Rohr railcars are removed and disposed of, the 4000 series Breda railcars will be retired.