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

T hints that Orange Line cars may return to service in the next few weeks:

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transp ... ng-tested/

They didn't say in the article whether they have fixed the pad problem. I hope they haven't just replaced the pads. Perhaps they think they have fixed the problem and need to test it in use...

Here’s another link stating from Jeff himself when the new orange line cars may come back. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.boston ... n/%3famp=1

I understand now that 60-65 cars are on MBTA property, and that 48 of them are in service

So that would be 6 or 8 new trains in revenue service, right Rob?

Also note that 2 cars are still listed as having derailment damage.

Yes they do, 01400/01401 are the ones still out of service

That’s 8 trains accepted to service but they aren’t running that many at a time during peak service.

Also note that they have been running up to 3 new train sets during peak rushour at the most. Not sure why though?

The new cars likely have a higher peak current flow than the existing ones (more power for acceleration/regen), so the T may be waiting to complete the electrical substation refurbishments before releasing all of the new fleet onto the line.*

*Complete guess on my part!

New equipment also puts power back into the overhead when it's in regenerative braking rather than just burn it off in grids, so a train slowing down can help power a train starting up. They're actually more efficient than the older cars. To your point, however, to run a mix of trains that consume more power on takeoff with ones that don't give power back when braking is likely to put additional strain on the substations.

Overhead?.........Aren't Red and Orange Lines, 3rd rail powered?

CRail wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 7:16 pm New equipment also puts power back into the overhead when it's in regenerative braking rather than just burn it off in grids, so a train slowing down can help power a train starting up. They're actually more efficient than the older cars. To your point, however, to run a mix of trains that consume more power on takeoff with ones that don't give power back when braking is likely to put additional strain on the substations.

The strain on the system was more of my point. There will be more current flowing through the rails if the new cars are both drawing more power at acceleration and putting (some of) it back into the system on deceleration (hence my reference to "regen", sorry if that was unclear).

The capacity issue is in what the power station can put out, not in what can flow through the infrastructure. Having regenerative braking put power back into the overhead (third rail, conduit, w/e...) puts less of a strain on the system, not more.

Then why don’t they run all of the accepted to service new line cars if they produce regenerative braking?