Interesting Consist Discussion for the South Side

Not given to us by Keolis

Was on Train 025 Mon. night on an exceedingly rare all-flats set on the Old Colony. Containing exceedingly rare-for-Old Colony 600-series Bombardier coaches lacking automatic doors, which confused the hell out of passengers who had to go sprinting to the adjacent Pullmans to get off. Guessing that was a one-off equipment bump from somewhere else.

Also, the 150x cab was pumping out the new ASA announcements...first time I've ever seen the new announcements activated on any non-Rotem or non-1700 rebuild cab. No LED displays on any of the cars, but it was pumping out full glitch-free audio (something the the Brokem cabs rarely do!).

On 823 now, the 4:55 outbound to Providence. It's usually an 8-car solid bilevel set, but today has seven bilevels plus one flat stuck in as the third to last car. The set looks really funky!

Seen going outbound on M'boro Line 1 hr. ago: 904 pulling MassDOT-paint 1056 and a string of MBB flats. Deposit move to Rochester?

Welded rail train is on the Framingham-Worcester with 1075 and 904 as power today. It was INSIDE Back Bay station at about 1 PM and then subsequently spotted near Yawkey. Rumor was it was supposed to drop rail between CP 3 and CP COVE. It had moved from the North Side to the "4th Iron" in Framingham on Friday 5/12/17. Probably go back there for storage tonight, but I'm just guessing about that.

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Was westbound through Newtonville around 16:00 today, looked fairly empty.

it's still stick rail between CP3 and Cove?

No. it's CWR. I couldn't see if any got dropped there but I'm assuming it's just getting replaced.

Providence train 2815 (8:45PM outbound) had the control car facing forward and the locomotive in the back, like an inbound train. It was 4 doubles (control car 1717 I think) and a single, with GP1123 I believe.

Now, I don't know the turn schedule for the Providence weekend trains. Does this train layover in Pawtucket or turn around and become the last inbound train (2818, 10:00PM)? Don't think it can be the latter, since it would arrive at Providence at 9:50 and have roughly 10 minutes to turn around (unless the track switch happens after it leaves the station).

Also, how are locomotives/cars flipped around? Is there a looping track or a turntable or anything (or am I thinking too much Island of Sodor with the last one)?

EDIT: 2815 did in fact turn to 2818, so the locomotive was facing forward for the inbound trip. So back to Boston for the night.

2818 should make the last RT to Franklin and come back to Boston for the night.

There's both a wye and a loop at Southampton Street that a train could turn on. Northside trains have a wye around BET.

Around 11:30AM Thursday, I saw a six far flat set of all MBB's being pushed across the Fort Point Channel by the Mass Dot Blue F40 into South Station. Is this the dedicated Cape Flyer set? Although that wouldn't make sense - no café car or bike car.

The other day I saw 5 car set in MassDOT livery in revenue service on the Worcester line. 1530 was the CTC.

I assume this is a cape flyer set that MBTA borrowed?

EDIT: maybe it was the 6 car set mentioned above?? lol

Is 1530 back in service? I saw it on the Framingham line on Wednesday at South Station.

Are they starting to "fluff" some MBB cab cars up because of the shortage of coaches?

harshaw wrote:The other day I saw 5 car set in MassDOT livery in revenue service on the Worcester line. 1530 was the CTC.

I assume this is a cape flyer set that MBTA borrowed?

EDIT: maybe it was the 6 car set mentioned above?? lol

Supposedly there are two "MassDOT" sets in circulation on the south side. One is CapeFlyer and one is an all-flat set designated to be used on the "HeartToHub" P552/P552 bullet train (and the corresponding 'positioning' moves for those trains which are revenue trips P505 & P530). That's what I was told before 5/22 but I'm not sure how things are really playing out.

Part of reason for placing the MassDOT set into service on F-W Commuter Rail is that the expansion of Framingham-Worcester service in the AM required one completely additional set beyond the contractual requirement that MBTA has with Keolis for fleet size. More about the "additional set" at item #3a in this blog post: http://framwormbta.weebly.com/blog/comp ... -available" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;