Seaport District to Back Bay DMU Plan

BandA wrote:

Bramdeisroberts wrote:Better yet, throw tracks down in the silver line tunnels for the first leg of a South Station -> Andrew/City point light rail service, and replace the Logan portion of the Silver Line with a shuttle bus service that runs from South Station down Summer street to the Ted/Logan with a stop at the BCEC. It would provide faster, better service for both airport passengers AND the growing seaport district.

I like the idea of "street running" trolleys in the silver line! But this doesn't solve the single-seat ride problem for the conventioneers between Back Bay and the waterfront, if we want to solve that in addition to all the subsidies the Convention Center Authority gets.

And that's where a Silver Line tunnel extension from South Station to Back Bay comes in.

Reviving an old thread, however the old locomotive at Cypher/South Boston Bypass was removed and a track crew repainted the crossing markings on Cypher St and has been working on track next to the Convention Center all week. Progress apparently!

SeaportMike wrote:Reviving an old thread, however the old locomotive at Cypher/South Boston Bypass was removed and a track crew repainted the crossing markings on Cypher St and has been working on track next to the Convention Center all week. Progress apparently!

Probably just regular maintenance. The RFP for the DMUs has only just been issued (see the Fairmont Line thread), they have a long time before it makes sense to actually do any work aimed at passenger service near the Convention Center.

What are they doing at the BCEC? Assembling panels? Maybe it is just a good spot for that kind of work. Then they can haul it out to wherever it is needed nearby. I do recall there being a pretty good stack of panels in the recent past, however a couple months ago I didn't notice any. Perhaps it is time to make more?

BostonUrbEx wrote:What are they doing at the BCEC? Assembling panels? Maybe it is just a good spot for that kind of work. Then they can haul it out to wherever it is needed nearby. I do recall there being a pretty good stack of panels in the recent past, however a couple months ago I didn't notice any. Perhaps it is time to make more?

They've always used that yard for assembling track panels. I used to work at Channel Center and would walk past Cypher for lunch a couple times a week. Some weeks the piles would be bigger...some weeks they'd be smaller. But it was definitely in a constant sort of slow flux, so I guess that's what it's used for...a flat expanse of space very close to home where workers can spread out and assemble panels. I'm guessing they just stack them up on flatbed trucks and drive down the Haul Road back to Widett. That's probably way quicker than bringing any power or a hi-rail truck down Track 61. Some of the panel assembly might even be for the rapid transit division since Cabot's likewise only a half-mile down the street.

Doesn't look like they've been doing much there lately as Google Maps has shown the same piles there for a few years now (I worked there from 2008-2010, so my observations are a little dated). Maybe that's ramping up again, or they're clearing away the old panels and leftover ties.


As for Track 61 construction...that's going to start with Marine Terminal long, long before they do anything passenger around BCEC. And Marine Terminal has to get land-prepped before they can begin constructing the spur, so that's going to be at least 2 years away. Short of cleanup and more use of the Cypher St. yard for staging space, there's absolutely no reason anything will be going down Track 61 in 2014 or 2015. Way too early.

I did a walk by this evening and found out what they were doing. They are using tractors to remove the overgrowth from the middle and to the sides of the rails. Like "digging them out". Despite the fact they might be years away from running on this line, a lot of new work is taking place, including survey work and signal testing. Maybe a test-run soon?

Could be a number of reasons behind such work, really. Could even be MassPort pulling some strings since they want to maintain the line in an effort to dangle it to any interested industries that may want to locate in the Seaport. They may want to show some interested developers their nice, "well maintained" line waiting for some use.

BostonUrbEx wrote:Could be a number of reasons behind such work, really. Could even be MassPort pulling some strings since they want to maintain the line in an effort to dangle it to any interested industries that may want to locate in the Seaport. They may want to show some interested developers their nice, "well maintained" line waiting for some use.

Not really. It's operable right now. It's just in really crap shape right in the vicinity of Cypher St. yard. No one does freight track upgrades without the customer already inked on the bottom line. Real upgrades are not going to happen until Marine Terminal construction finishes, and they've still got a lot of paperwork and land demo to go before the terminal is even ready for the track spur project to start.

The Cypher St. spur would be an ideal place to locate a rail customer. But I suspect BCEC covets that block so much that the BRA is going to simply pay off and grab every one of those parcels and make it a moot point.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:

BostonUrbEx wrote:Could be a number of reasons behind such work, really. Could even be MassPort pulling some strings since they want to maintain the line in an effort to dangle it to any interested industries that may want to locate in the Seaport. They may want to show some interested developers their nice, "well maintained" line waiting for some use.

Not really. It's operable right now. It's just in really crap shape right in the vicinity of Cypher St. yard. No one does freight track upgrades without the customer already inked on the bottom line. Real upgrades are not going to happen until Marine Terminal construction finishes, and they've still got a lot of paperwork and land demo to go before the terminal is even ready for the track spur project to start.

The Cypher St. spur would be an ideal place to locate a rail customer. But I suspect BCEC covets that block so much that the BRA is going to simply pay off and grab every one of those parcels and make it a moot point.

I meant in reference to the reported removal of brush from the tracks, not actual physical upgrades. Remove the brush, bring in some big wigs to see the tracks, "Look, ain't they pretty?", and then start a deal.

Please see pasted below an Editorial from today's Boston Globe. One question I have, why is it that any photos we see of potential DMU's have full cab fronts and lack ability for a passenger or conductor to go from one car to another? Seems to me that the good old Budd RDC was a better design in that regard. But perhaps MBTA specs will include such provisions.

<<Little engines hold key to future of transport, but where are they?

Increasingly, the Patrick administration has offered a three-letter magic solution to a variety of transportation challenges in Greater Boston: DMU. Short for diesel multiple units, DMUs are essentially little trains, which can use the same tracks and stations as big commuter rail locomotives, but would be quieter, cleaner, cheaper, and more suitable for frequent service on routes with stations close together. The recently announced plan for a new “West Station” in Allston is the latest project that relies on such trains. State officials foresee frequent DMU service connecting every corner of Greater Boston, and even set aside a portion of a $252 million section of the capital investment plan last year to pay for them.

The pesky problem, though, is that no US transit agency of the MBTA’s size uses DMUs, the only company that makes them to American standards has a shaky history, and it’s unclear how Massachusetts will get the trains that plans in South Boston, Dorchester, and now Allston are counting on. That’s not a reason to slow down planning, and the Allston project should certainly go forward, since conventional trains will still be able to stop there too. But the next governor and MassDOT secretary will need to devote more attention to the nitty-gritty task of actually finding the DMUs needed to make full use of the new station and fulfill the promises made to improve service on the Fairmount Line in Dorchester.

DMUs are common in Germany, Australia, Sweden, and other countries with less demanding railway safety laws, but have virtually disappeared in the United States. Federal regulators set such high safety standards because the trains would be sharing tracks that are also used for freight rail shippers. Because the market for passenger trains in the United States remains tiny — about 5 percent of the world total — foreign manufacturers haven’t traditionally viewed designing a US-compliant vehicle as a priority. American companies have tried to pick up the slack, with discouraging results; one domestic manufacturer, Colorado Railcar, went bankrupt in 2008 after an Oregon transit agency was forced to bail them out, even picking up the tab for the CEO’s $37,000-a-month salary. The company that emerged from Colorado Railcar’s bankruptcy is the one a T spokesman supplied this week when asked where the agency might find its DMUs.

T officials are moving ahead, putting out a request for technical information recently from potential manufacturers. Massachusetts is likely to be an early adopter of DMUs among big American transit agencies. Someone needs to go first, and that shouldn’t scare the state off; the new vehicles could allow transformative new uses of existing rail lines. Still, there are risks involved — especially in light of the T’s experience with Hyundai Rotem, which delivered the agency’s new double-level coaches behind schedule and only after much drama. And with every step like the West Station announcement, the greater the burden on the state to lay out how and when these much-touted new vehicles will materialize.>>

I guess I'm just not understanding why they can't use existing rolling stock in a push-pull capacity. Even if its just one control car, one car, and a loco. Why go crazy with this DMU stuff?

SeaportMike wrote:I guess I'm just not understanding why they can't use existing rolling stock in a push-pull capacity. Even if its just one control car, one car, and a loco. Why go crazy with this DMU stuff?

Seems, (if they ever get them) DMU's would use less fuel for starters. Less wear and tear on ROW's too. I'm baffled by 6 car, off peak trains needing just one coach. It was likely more efficient when they were running off peak RDC's "back in the day."

NRGeep wrote:

SeaportMike wrote:I guess I'm just not understanding why they can't use existing rolling stock in a push-pull capacity. Even if its just one control car, one car, and a loco. Why go crazy with this DMU stuff?

Seems, (if they ever get them) DMU's would use less fuel for starters. Less wear and tear on ROW's too. I'm baffled by 6 car, off peak trains needing just one coach. It was likely more efficient when they were running off peak RDC's "back in the day."

Not totally true. At the extremes there's a difference...an HSP-46 carrying one coach between BCEC and West through 3 stops at an average speed of 25 MPH is obviously stupid overkill for Track 61. But a DMU is going to waste more fuel doing the end-to-end Fitchburg Line than a 4-car push-pull because of its 2 fast-spinning diesel engines sucking up fuel through wide stop spacing, longer distance on smaller tanks, and lower fuel efficiency at idle and cruising. RDC's were absolute fuel pigs for what services they were asked to cover back in the day. And really really big pigs on the few bread-and-butter lines that needed multi-car consists of decent size at peak. The degree to which B&M used them for EVERY passenger train on its system and NYNH&H specifically used them on the South Station branchlines were historical oddities much moreso than it was operationally visionary. Other roads that bought them did stick more to the script of shuttle service and low-margin lines where >1 car was rarely needed and the RDC's advantages were optimal. The rest of the time a well put-together loco-haul consist brought back best bang for buck, best scalability, and best hedging-of-bets on the spread of all middle ground.

The T's lousy about putting together right-sized consists and lousier at staffing them correctly. That's an independent issue unto itself; they need to get more efficient across-the-board or the DMU's are going to be as slovenly assembled and staffed as everything else. But DMU's to 495 and beyond is at best a completely negligible performance difference; at worst it's going to cost a bit more to operate than a nearly-empty 4-car with the first 2 cars blocked off, a minimum staff, and a locomotive that's barely breaking a sweat. And with a seating configuration not optimized to sitting for an hour-plus and pulling out your laptop to do some work. Route 128 and dense stops within is pretty much the demarcation point between where they shine and where they barely make an impact. 495 is the demarcation point between where thoroughly make no impact and where they rapidly start to impede efficiency.


The only xMU "every-vehicles" out there start with an "E", not a "D". These have a narrow range where they really, really excel. And you have to have a service plan for them that fits that range. That's why it's starting to get very worrying how little the T is saying about service frequencies on this Indigo routes. If they aren't running frequent enough to tap the specialty to meaningful advantage for the extra overhead of buying/maintaining an entirely new vehicle type...they don't have anywhere else on the system where they're going to run at an advantage. And when those finances get spent and potentially impede the push-pull vehicle replacements they're on-deadline to do for 2020 (remember, not a single piece of CR equipment gets displaced by a DMU...it's all additional)...well, then their presence is an outright problem. Need all the service details...soon please, MassDOT?

The Boston Globe (and the MBTA) may want to "Google" this: Stadler GTW FRA compliance.

That is unless the T wants a custom design, (we all know how well that's worked out for them).

F Line, what about the operational efficiencies of modern DMU technology today and how much does that change things. I know it's apples to oranges in terms of loading gauge and carbody weight, but there are all sorts of cool and fairly functional solutions in Europe that have lead to their DMU's having a near-monopoly on low-volume long-distance rail travel, just look at what SNCF or British rail have done.

This past spring I was over in the UK and in the course of my travels, ended up traveling from Liverpool all the way up to Inverness by DMU's alone. Privatization has created a fascinating mishmash of rolling stock on the BR lines, but their carriers are quite similar to the T in that they're operating on limited budgets and often have to make do with older or less-than-optimal rolling stock, especially compared to the better-funded national rail systems in France, Spain, or Germany (which I guess are more like the MNCR/LIRR/NJT in terms of their "cost is no option" approach to providing service). From Liverpool to Edinburgh I rode on a First TransPennine, a Leeds-centered private line by way of Manchester, and we did the trip in Siemens class 185 DMU's, which are fairly modern and state-of-the-art as far as English DMU's go. These things were set up as A-B-A married triplets with one engine per car, and they only used all 3 diesel engines while accelerating or climbing hills, and selectively idled or deactivated individual engines according to load, which meant that they were frequently running on one or two engines per 3-car set.

I guess my point is that these sorts of modern DMU systems obviously make economic sense, as the for-profit vendors more often than not have sprung for the operational flexibility of DMU's, even when running long distances under wires and despite the ample supply of heritage diesel power (most of which is EMD anyways) and old BR coaches/driving vans with their much simpler maintenance needs. If vendors such as First or Virgin are willing to hang their quarterly statements on the added cost of running modern Flash-Gordon DMU sets like Virgin's Voyagers or TransPennine's Siemens Desiros under wires or in lieu of loco's and coaches, with long stretches of service at speeds that the T could only dream of, then there's obviously something to this new technology, even of nobody stateside has so far been willing to stick their neck out and order some truly state-of-the-art DMU hardware.

I understand where you're coming from, but it just seems like an awful idea to base the economic justification for or against DMU's on the operational costs of RDC's, a Truman-era design. Back in the early 50's when the RDC was state of the art (alongside 2-engined E-units, piston-engined airliners, steamships, etc. etc. etc.), a blisteringly fast family car like a Hudson Hornet or Chrysler letter car made ~150-250 SAE net hp and could go from 0-60 in 9 seconds if you were lucky while maybe getting 15 mpg in the process. Today, a Ford Focus makes as much if not more power, can rip off a 7-second 0-60 time that makes those cars look like they're standing still, would tear through them like tissue paper in a collision, and all while returning 2-3 times the mpg. Is it too much to expect modern DMU's to return similar improvements in efficiency relative to the stone-age RDC's?

Or to put it this way, would Virgin Trains, First, or Veolia base their cost projections and feasibility studies for running their Turbostars, Desiros, and Voyagers off of the operational costs of old Metro-Cammell railcars from when Winston Churchill was still prime minister? In a way, it's a shame that the RDC was so popular that it put all of the competition out of business, only to have the SP2000 be such a disaster, as it robbed our railroads of the opportunity to see just how economically viable a modern US-compliant DMU could be.

EDIT: I would love to see someone like Siemens or BBD adapt the basic mechanical setup of one of their successful English DMU setups to work with an FRA-compliant carbody (which would basically involve uprating the engine/transmission to handle the extra weight, think an M7 carbody and bogies with a Turbostar-derived power pack) to see just how efficient a setup like that could be compared to the push-pulls or a more conservative DMU design like the new N-S units.