B line 3-car trains

Hi folks!

I've been lurking for a while on this board but witnessed something today that warranted a post! I've been taking the B and C line pretty regularly every day for the last year (commuting downtown from Washington Street) and I can say I've probably seen 4 or 5 3-car B line trains (and got to ride 1) throughout that year.

Today - I saw 8 of them! I rode one this morning (2 type 8's with a type 7 in the middle), passed 1 more on Commonwealth, saw another in the tunnel at Boylston, and then easily saw 5 while commuting hope/enjoying dinner with a view of the street.

This couldn't have been just chance - do they finally have enough trains to do this regularly or was this just a huge random coincidence? I'll be on the lookout in the coming days to see if the trend continues...

This seems werid how come there running 3 car trains when schools aren't in session. Anything they should be running those during the school year. I have never caught or seen a three car train on the green line in my life.

What schools? The Boston Public Schools are still in session until the end of the month because of snow days.

I've seen a couple 3-car trains on the B line in the past few years, but never expected it to happen a lot. Do you think maybe some of the ones you saw in the evening could have been the same consists you saw in the morning?

Will they ever be able to run 3-car Type 8s???

Hope so, without incident!

Robert Paniagua wrote:Will they ever be able to run 3-car Type 8s???

Hope so, without incident!

Yikes...I don't know how close I'd stand to that move, going through any switches.

I ment mor eon the lines of BU and BC and not Boston Public.

Robert Paniagua wrote:Will they ever be able to run 3-car Type 8s???

Hope so, without incident!

They already have, I got to ride the test train with 3 cars and I rode a 3 car set of type 8's a few months ago to my suprize in service.

Well, another crazy morning!

EVERY single train I saw this morning was a 3-car train on the B line - easily at least 9 to 10 discrete trains before they started looping back around and I saw some duplicates. I couldn't believe it! Quite a few all Type 8's, most often there was one type 7 with 2 type 8's it seemed, and I didn't see any 3 car Type 7's.

While BC/BU being out of session lessens peak loads somewhat, these trains are still really crowded during rush-hour. My guess on this 3 car thing is that it's kind of a load balancing test. They've tested a number of different things over the last couple of months - sending trains back to back, staging them at Washington occasionally...and today I definitely noticed that the wait time between trains was longer than normal. I'm guessing they were trying to handle the passenger load with extra trains (and keeping spacing more consistent) rather than running more frequently. If you think really long term, it could help them drop their staffing levels somewhat if they ran more 3 car trains that they didn't have an operator in (as was mentioned months ago as a future cost cutting move).

Regardless - it's crazy to see!

Robert Paniagua wrote:Will they ever be able to run 3-car Type 8s???

Hope so, without incident!

Yup! Sure enough, this evening I saw 3869/3840/3806 arriving outbound at Boston College. Looked pretty strange, to say the least...

Operationally, this makes a LOT of sense, and I've been urging the T to try this for a long time. Even if the number of available cars is fixed, running three vs. two car trains where possible will improve overall throughput, and here's why.

The Green Line's congestion is in the subway, especially around Government Center and Park Street. Reducing the number of trains will improve operations at these locations, and throughout the subway: In particular, there will be fewer trains to merge and dwell at stations.

On the surface, the downside is that there will be a longer wait between trains (up to 50% longer if a particular line's trains were all changed from two to three cars). But the overall riding time for passengers going from the surface to Central Boston (and reverse) should improve thanks to less congestion and improved running times.

Now if only the surface lines could get signal preemption! It works great in Los Angeles and other cities, why not Boston?

I noticed this morning that all the trains were 3-car trains. My initial wait was longer than normal, but once I was on the train it was much faster than usual, both aboveground and underground.

in january on 2003 i job shadowed an instructor at Riverside as part of a high school class. (i think i learned more there than the rest of my high school carreer, but thats beside the point). there were a few 3 car trains that left Riverside that morning, and up to that point i had never seen one. (i live over an hour away, and dont get to boston as often as id like to). i asked him about it, and he told me that most of the time, it is basically because someone called in sick or just didnt show up for work. what they did is combine a 2 car train with what would have been a 1 car train, and then waited 20 min instead of 10 between trains leaving Riverside. this may not be the case with 9 or 10 in a morning (unless a lot of people are skipping work), but that is what i was told.

Do the 2 or 3 car trains require an operator in each car as they did in the PCC days, or can the first car operator work all the doors by him/herself?

Currently they each need an operator in order to collect fares. That might not be true once the CharlieCard comes to the Green Line.