#14 Orange Line Cars 1400-1551 (From Red/Orange Procurement discussion)

[tommyboy6181]

These new units are shaping up to be sharp looking, I may have to eat some MAJOR crow about CNR if they're built as good as they look.

You won't be dining alone at McCrow's. I'll be there, and many others. Actually, I could live with that -- let it happen.

CNR and CSR have now merged to form CRRC Corporation. Both companies were rivals in China that had originally been together, then split. Then, the Chinese Government decided to merge their operations back together to create the world's largest railcar builder. There is some interesting things about both divisions.

CSR and Kawasaki have jointly built projects for the Singapore MRT and in other locations before. This typically included a technology transfer from Kawasaki to CSR for the design/building of those products. CNR and Bombardier have also jointly built projects for the Shenzhen Metro and the Guangzhou Metro and that involved a technology transfer of the Movia platform. Alstom and CSR have also jointly built projects together with a technology transfer.

However, there have been issues with CSR. Their project in Singapore (Kawasaki did the engineering, CSR built the trains for the C151A series) led to a recall of 26 our of the 35 trains built. This was due to cracking in the assembly linking the carbody to the undercarriage. Then in the Philippines, CSR had trains built with missing or incompatible parts.
Link: http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2016/07 ... mrt-trains" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CNR had issues with their wheelsets supplied to CN where they had to be recalled and replaced. In addition, CNR had to recall their Chinese bullet trains after an accident killed 40 people.
Link: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/chi ... s-recall-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I hope the combined CRRC proves me wrong. Boston and Chicago are the first 2 contracts for CRRC in the United States and I want both projects to have excellent quality, safety and reliability. But some of the things mentioned in the recalls and defects with the trains are a bit unusual to see.

[BostonUrbEx]

When was the Chicago bid secured? Will the Chicago bid's fleet be similar to the MBTA's? Will they be assembled in Springfield, MA as well?

[tommyboy6181]

When was the Chicago bid secured? Will the Chicago bid's fleet be similar to the MBTA's? Will they be assembled in Springfield, MA as well?

The Chicago bid was secured in March 2016 and it was won by CSR, which of course was merged with CNR to become CRRC. The contract calls for over 800 railcars, which will effectively replace everything currently running except for the 3200 series and 5000 series trains. Here's the link:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Chicago railcars will not be built in Springfield, MA. Instead, they opted to reopen the 135th St/Torrance plant that housed Pullman-Standard for many years. That cuts down on shipping costs and allows for jobs to be created locally. The cars are supposed to be a hybrid of the 3200 series built by Morrison-Knudsen and the newer 5000 series built by Bombardier. However, they will have a different cab exterior compared to anything currently in the system. Here's the rendering from CRRC:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... llery.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My guess is that Springfield's plant will likely remain open after the contract as that plant is being built from the ground up, while Chicago's would likely close. That's only a guess. But if CRRC does well on these contracts, it could allow them to secure additional work and have more railcars built, which is always good.

One thing I can say about the new railcars for both cities after reading through technical specs. CRRC is planning on using propulsion from Mitsubishi Electric or Toyo Denki. Also, Mitsubishi will provide the HVAC, low voltage power, and car monitoring systems. That's good to see service-proven products being used for those items.

[The EGE]

Apparently the FMCB agreed last night to purchase 130 additional new Red Line cars from CRRC for $280M. This will replace the 01800 series (leaving the Red Line with entirely new fleet) and expand from the current 210 (+ 8 OOS) to 258 cars.

Good news for the Red Line (assuming that the new cars are good), and also good for the Green Line I would think. This signals that the FMCB is willing to go for full fleet replacement - including capacity expansion above a 1:1 replacement - on both the Orange and Red lines, and thus that a full-replacement order is more likely to go through on the Green Line in a year or two.

[typesix]

Two articles about the additional cars purchase:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/1 ... story.html

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_ ... line_fleet

[Diverging Route]

How will this acquisition allow better frequency from five to three minutes at peak time? The Park Street choke point (and sometimes Malfunction Junction) are the throttles. If the antiquated ATC were modernized to full CBTC I can understand. But the parade of trains waiting to clear blocks entering Park with its long rush hour dwell times seems to be maxed out now.

[csor2010]

As I understand it, the additional cars only increases the theoretical capacity of the Red Line. Since the CNR cars have shorter stopping distances, removing the 01800s allows them to shorten the blocks a bit and therefore run trains closer together. F-line linked a FMCB presentation from September a couple pages back that details this. Of course, the sticking point is that this all goes to hell when Park Street dwells starts setting the actual capacity of the system during rush. In order to fix that, they need to figure out how to get fewer people to transfer at Park/DTX/South Station and/or herd people more effectively within the stations (discussed in more detail a few pages back). In terms of concrete solutions, NSRL, Red-Blue, and Green-Transitway come to mind, but all of those projects are years away at best. So I guess the angle is that removing the 01800s enables the signalling improvements that in turn enable 3" headways at rush, but we still have a lot of work to do before that is actually achievable. But regardless of the theoretical headway improvements, the additional order still gets the T a lot of standardization across the red/orange fleet, along with being apparently cheaper than mid-life rehabs on the 01800s.

[Head-end View]

I can't believe the 1800's are going to be replaced. To me they are still the "new cars" on the Red Line. But considering that they've been in-service since around 1994, I guess they will be close to 30 years old by 2023 when the new cars will finally arrive.

I wonder if buying from a company with no U.S. history is wise. (sound familiar?) I hope the Chinese build better cars than Hyundai-Rotem did or MBTA will get screwed yet again with another garbage product and wish they'd gone with Kawasaki or Bombardier. You'd think they would have learned this lesson the first time around.........

[Bramdeisroberts]

As I understand it, the additional cars only increases the theoretical capacity of the Red Line. Since the CNR cars have shorter stopping distances, removing the 01800s allows them to shorten the blocks a bit and therefore run trains closer together. F-line linked a FMCB presentation from September a couple pages back that details this. Of course, the sticking point is that this all goes to hell when Park Street dwells starts setting the actual capacity of the system during rush. In order to fix that, they need to figure out how to get fewer people to transfer at Park/DTX/South Station and/or herd people more effectively within the stations (discussed in more detail a few pages back). In terms of concrete solutions, NSRL, Red-Blue, and Green-Transitway come to mind, but all of those projects are years away at best. So I guess the angle is that removing the 01800s enables the signalling improvements that in turn enable 3" headways at rush, but we still have a lot of work to do before that is actually achievable. But regardless of the theoretical headway improvements, the additional order still gets the T a lot of standardization across the red/orange fleet, along with being apparently cheaper than mid-life rehabs on the 01800s.

Aren't the doors on the new CRRC cars significantly wider than the doors on the 15/16/1700s and the 1800s so that they can retain ADA compliance even with one leaf OOS? Since the new cars will have 4 doors per side like the 1800s, would it be reasonable to expect that the new cars might have significant improvements in dwell time compared to 2/3rds of the current red line fleet?

[Bramdeisroberts]

I hope the Chinese build better cars than Hyundai-Rotem did or MBTA will get screwed yet again with another garbage product and wish they'd gone with Kawasaki or Bombardier.

South Korea doesn't have mobile execution squads to punish the leaders of state-affiliated businesses for their high-profile business failures, so I guess you could say that the folks at CRRC have some pretty strong incentives to deliver a quality product, at least for their first customer, for whatever that's worth.

[The EGE]

The wider doors - and more doors, since the older cars only have 3 on a side - will help some with dwell time. However, the sheer level of platform crowding and the inability of boarding and alighting passengers to reasonably pass each other will continue without difficult and expensive platform widening (and preferably a north Park Street headhouse)

[Disney Guy]

The signal system needs to be redone with shorter blocks, so (example) an inbound train leaving Kendall for Charles can get up onto the bridge waiting if needed just outside Charles instead of sitting back in Kendall. In this example yet another inbound train will be able to enter Kendall in the meantime.

[ns3010]

I didn't see the pictures of the interior, but I understand they are no longer going to have "carpet" seats but orange plastic instead. I like the carpet seats as you stay in place when accelerating and braking. With plastic seats there will be too much assliding.

Hopefully they can use textured plastic like the seats on the new buses the T is getting. I slide around a little less on those seats than the smooth seats older buses have.

I like the textured vinyl seats on the WMATA 7000 series as well. More textured than we have on the Green Line so maybe a little more grip, but still easy to clean.

IIRC, though, the new cars will have some type of plastic seats. Even if they can be slick, I'll always take those over the disgusting carpet...

[MBTA3247]

The signal system needs to be redone with shorter blocks,

And with higher speed limits like they had in the past.

[jonnhrr]

What is involved in changing block gaps on the Red Line? Are they still using insulated rail joints or is it a more modern jointless system?

Jon