Commuter Rail Electrification

BandA wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2024 12:38 am So, we are spending $56M for this project. What are we getting? Charging stations in Readville, presumably leased. How many BEMU cars are we leasing and for how many years? How will cars and brakes couple? How much for Keolis to supervise? Nuggets are Eng says we will save $1.6M gallons of (diesel) fuel, I will assume annually, and assume $4/gal conservatively post-Biden so $4.8M/year assuming he is not forgetting the diesel-equivalent in natural gas to generate electricity. 50% increase in service, so 150% of the cars presently on the line plus spares + padding. These are FRA compatible cars meeting buff strength requirements? Some official said they will have enough cars to run additional pilot service including on the NEC so it will have to be Amtrak approved too.

Interesting that they can run under wire and presumably charge from the Amtrak wires.

Why give Amtrak ownership of the wires? Is not the corridor north of the RI-MA state line owned by MA or MBTA? If they own the corridor, don't they also own the wires?
Stadler has released a video showing how their Flirt BEMUs can charge, using Merta as an example for their ex-Rock Island corridor. Flirts are Alternate FRA compliant under a different crash worthiness rules, not fully FRA compliant under buff strength alone. I assume Siemens and Alstrom have competing designs.
FYI, Stadler reports a 100% charged battery can go 46 to 65 miles, and a charging time of 25 to 30 minutes from 20% to 80% charge. The Fairmount Line is only 9-10 miles in length, a round trip is just 18-20 miles. Technically, a similar trainset could do two round trips on a single charge of the battery.
It will be interesting to see who responds to this RFI, and who will offer to build these.
 

electricron wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2024 7:33 pm
Why give Amtrak ownership of the wires?

Because they put them there. The substations were built to house the equipment needed for commuter capacity but the T wouldn't spend the money to equip them.

That is not reasonable. If I or someone else build a house on your land you would own it, not me. But, if Amtrak did build the wires and its supporting systems on MBTA or MA land, there was most likely be a contract stating each party's responsibility and the sharing of the facilities on the corridor. Without access to that agreement and contract, I can't suggest if MBTA access to the wires are shared. Then again, I can't believe MBTA or MA did not agree to a contract where all equipment will be shared in one form or another.
Whereas this specific case may not follow the normal ways the Feds finance transportation projects, we should state what that norm is. The states buy the property, the states build the project, and the states pay 50% of the construction of that project, with the Feds paying the last 50%. If that normal process was followed here, MBTA or MA would own the wires.

It seems to me that under the contracts covering use of the Attleboro Line, that while MBTA owns the line, Amtrak is leasing the entire line from MBTA and maintains responsibility for dispatching and maintenance and MBTA has to pay Amtrak for any use of the line.

The Amtrak Authorization and Development Act of 1992 specifically states Amtrak will pay 90% of the cost of constructing the electric infrastructure between New Haven and Boston.

I can't find any documents one way or the other showing that the overhead electrification and supporting infrastructure is a leasehold improvement (meaning if Amtrak terminates its lease the catenary needs to come down or be bought by MBTA and the catenary is on Amtrak's books for accounting purposes) or an improvement owned by MBTA (meaning already on MBTA's books for accounting purposes), but either of those could be the case.

Share the electrical load? No way! Amtrak only installed enough electrical load capacity so any one substation could handle twice the anticipated load. That was so if an adjacent substation was inoperative for any reason the next substation could handle the whole load. So to handle the demand of MBTA final design load the substations will need to add twice the MBTA demand to the Amtrak substations. At least Amtrak left more than enough physical room in all its substations to add more than enough power capacity for any Amtrak expansion and final MBTA possible load.

RandallW wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 12:32 pm The Amtrak Authorization and Development Act of 1992 specifically states Amtrak will pay 90% of the cost of constructing the electric infrastructure between New Haven and Boston.

If Amtrak paid 90%, who paid the last 10%?
An Act by Congress authorizes the funding and spending of Federal funds for projects. It is not the specific operations agreement contract between Amtrak and MA or MBTA where responsibilites of both parties are stated.

electricron wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 1:32 pm

RandallW wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 12:32 pm The Amtrak Authorization and Development Act of 1992 specifically states Amtrak will pay 90% of the cost of constructing the electric infrastructure between New Haven and Boston.

If Amtrak paid 90%, who paid the last 10%?
An Act by Congress authorizes the funding and spending of Federal funds for projects. It is not the specific operations agreement contract between Amtrak and MA or MBTA where responsibilites of both parties are stated.

I think the remaining 10% came from US DOT's budget.

Much clearer than the briefings I can find on the MBTA / Amtrak contractual relationship are the the information posted on the contracts between Amtrak, NCDOT, NCRR, and NS. In those contracts, NCRR (a property of the State of NC) is leased to NS, and Amtrak operates NCDOT trains over the NCRR through its trackage agreements with NS. Any improvements to the NCRR by a party other than NS must be approved by NS, and any improvements by NS are the property of NCRR.

If the contracts between MBTA and Amtrak are like those contracts (and they seem to be from what I can infer), Amtrak runs the railroad and has full responsibility for the running of the railroad, including its catenary, and MBTA's operations are merely a tenant of Amtrak's despite MBTA being the owner of the property.

I do know that property improvements are not necessarily owned by the landlord, but can't speak for this specific instance.

I also can't find any indication that overhead catenary is or is not an easement over a railroad when not operated by that railroad, so the question of who owns the cat could be more interesting than I anticipated.

It's kind of nuts not to take the low hanging fruit of the Providence Line and electrify that. South of PVD I'm not sure what the clearances look like on the 3rd track that is shared with the autorack trains to Davisville, as they need clearance to the wire. You'd think that full electrification to Westerly, provided that the clearance issues can be addressed would be the ideal solution.

BEMU for FRA Heavy Rail is unproven, and will likely have some serious teething problems. I could see it for a streetcar type system, but even then, overhead wire is a proven technology. Overhead wire has been the most efficient way to run FRA heavy rail trains since 1914. 110 years.

BandA wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2024 6:11 pmTake the M8, remove the heavy 25Hz capable transformer, remove the DC compatibility gear.

They don't have 25hz capability. Hence the need for PRR 3rd rail shoes to get into NYP. The M-8s are bespoke cars that are ridiculously heavy for being battery powered, and would be rather poor performing as BEMUs.

If the batteries on BEMUs do not hold up very well MBTA could always add CAT wires at one or more stops to help charge the battery. AS well maybe extend the CAT far enough for acceleration to limit battery drain. Still MBTA will need to add capacity to the CAT power system.

As well Amtrak might limit charging of the BEMUs at South station if one or more substations go off line for any reason?

#1650031 by ElectricTraction
Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:09 pm
It's kind of nuts not to take the low hanging fruit of the Providence Line and electrify that. South of PVD I'm not sure what the clearances look like on the 3rd track that is shared with the autorack trains to Davisville, as they need clearance to the wire. You'd think that full electrification to Westerly, provided that the clearance issues can be addressed would be the ideal solution.

IMO not necessary as MBTA cannot use that wire until it pays for increasing the substation s capacity.

west point wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:40 pm If the batteries on BEMUs do not hold up very well MBTA could always add CAT wires at one or more stops to help charge the battery. AS well maybe extend the CAT far enough for acceleration to limit battery drain. Still MBTA will need to add capacity to the CAT power system.

IMO not necessary as MBTA cannot use that wire until it pays for increasing the substation s capacity.

Stadler reports a 100% charged battery can go 45 to 65 miles, with a charging time of 25 to 30 minutes from 20% to 80% charge. The Fairmount Line is only 9-10 miles in length, a round trip is just 18-20 miles. Technically, a similar trainset could do two round trips on a single charge of the battery assuming the worse possible travel length.
Additional recharging stations will not be needed on a line this short. Placing their own recharging station at Readville means they normally would not have to tap any power from the NEC.
Check out Stadler's demo video on BEMUs. Just search Stadler and BEMU and it will show up at youtube.

I’d imagine it’d be too much of a hassle to wire short stretches of the line vs. doing the entire thing.

west point wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:40 pmIMO not necessary as MBTA cannot use that wire until it pays for increasing the substation s capacity.

They could... pay for it. That was always part of the deal.

electricron wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2024 8:29 amPlacing their own recharging station at Readville means they normally would not have to tap any power from the NEC.
Check out Stadler's demo video on BEMUs. Just search Stadler and BEMU and it will show up at youtube.

It's one thing to debate running wires versus BEMUs, but running BEMUs on a railroad that already has almost all of the infrastructure to run electric and was designed to have the remaining infrastructure easily added is... idiotic to say the least. Although so is running diesel under the wire like CDOT did for years, MARC does, and MBTA itself does.

There is an example of the need for more substation power. Look at all the additional power being added to the Hell Gate route for MTA's EMU future service with M-8s.

There's also the issue of how much would Amtrak charge for power?
That's why Marc uses diesel under wire.

west point wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2024 10:50 pm There is an example of the need for more substation power. Look at all the additional power being added to the Hell Gate route for MTA's EMU future service with M-8s.

In the case of MBTA, the system was designed to have commuter rail added to it, MBTA just never bought into their share of it, so the substations are missing equipment and the third track is missing wire in sections.

scratchyX1 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2024 10:55 pmThere's also the issue of how much would Amtrak charge for power?
That's why Marc uses diesel under wire.

That's long been an issue. It's real, but NJT and SEPTA seem to have figured out how to make things work with Amtrak.