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  • Rolling Stock Retirement Sequence, Which Should Go First

  • Discussion related to DC area passenger rail services from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, MD. Includes Light Rail and Baltimore Subway.
Discussion related to DC area passenger rail services from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, MD. Includes Light Rail and Baltimore Subway.

Moderators: mtuandrew, therock, Robert Paniagua

 #1344850  by Robert Paniagua
 
Interesting post on GGW by Matt Johnson arguing that, all things being equal, maybe the 4000-series' 100 cars should be retired first because they break down almost twice as much as the 1000-series. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/pos ... -go-first/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From another member
 #1344853  by srepetsk
 
4000-series first. They're just as unsafe as the 1000's, and have the additional unreliability aspect to them. Even with the 100 4000-series cars gone there will still be enough 2/3K, 5K, and 6Ks to belly the 1000's and meet WMATA's need of 954 cars/144 trains, and that'll matter less and less as the 1000's then get replaced. Through the draw-down we should be able to get back to running full single-series consists starting with 6Ks to keep those reliability numbers up. The 5000's have the potential to be a lot more reliable (132,119 MDBD for April 2014 and 115,289 MDBD for July 2013!), but have only averaged 49,962 MDBD overall since July 2008.
 #1344887  by MCL1981
 
Politically, they could never replace anything else first but the 1000s. Those things are rolling death traps by today's standards. They'd be crucified for putting "convenience over safety", even if is truly the most logical course of action.
 #1344895  by srepetsk
 
MCL1981 wrote:Politically, they could never replace anything else first but the 1000s. Those things are rolling death traps by today's standards. They'd be crucified for putting "convenience over safety", even if is truly the most logical course of action.
The 4000's are barely safer, if at all. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/pos ... -about-it/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acci ... AR0601.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They have the same general construction:
The cars involved in the accident were from the 1000 and 4000 series built by
Rohr and Breda, respectively. The carbody is composed principally of aluminum alloy
extrusions and formed shapes with welded steel subassembly components for certain loadbearing
structural elements. The front-end cowl assembly is fabricated of molded
fiberglass incorporating a pair of collision and corner post elements. Aluminum sheeting
makes up the exterior skin of the roof, sidewalls, and rear-end panels.
And they appear to suffer the same stresses as the 1000's
The original contract specifications for the 2000-, 3000-, and 4000-series cars
show that the car collision posts have the same section modulus and yield stress material
as the 1000-series cars, but the ultimate shear value was increased by 50 percent. No
crashworthiness improvements were required in the recent rehabilitation of the 2000- and
3000-series cars.
I agree the 1000's probably would be replaced first due to political and oversight pressure, but it doesn't really matter. Similar to how bellying the 1000's doesn't matter and doesn't increase safety at all (see: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acci ... AB1204.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
 #1344980  by Sand Box John
 
I have a different view on the subject of what cars should be retired.

Instead of everybody worrying about the crashworthiness of the various series, they should be demanding that the hardware in signaling system be maintained to designed specifications with absolutely no exceptions to prevent any future collisions.

I think the practice of "bellying" the 1k cars is nothing but theater and should be discontinued.

I am not a fan of trashing the 4k cars. I believe they should be rehabilitated in the same way the 2 and 3k cars were rehabilitated.

The 5k cars should be rehabilitated before they reach mid life.

The 1k cars that are in the best physical condition should be retained as reserves.

WMATA should, when possible, avoid the mixing of cars from various series when assembling consists. The propulsion systems of the various series tend to fight one another making the ride less smooth. I happen to believe the fighting places unnecessary stress on various structural and mechanical shortening the service life of the cars.

I have a sneaky suspicion that after roughly 150 of the 7k cars are put into service the mean distance between failures fleet wide will go down because the folks in the shops will have more time to address and correct the minor problems before they become bigger problems that result in cars crapping the bed out on the railroad carrying revenue passengers.
 #1345036  by MCL1981
 
Sand Box John wrote:Instead of everybody worrying about the crashworthiness of the various series, they should be demanding that the hardware in signaling system be maintained to designed specifications with absolutely no exceptions to prevent any future collisions.
Metro would need a major employee, union, and management shakeup for that to be realistic. The current atmosphere of laziness and rewarding stupidity will never allow this. The union would never allow for actual productive work and discipline/repercussions. It's be come more of a jobs program than a transit system. Management doesn't care. The board of directors is clueless. The politicians are all talk, no bite. And the customers have no other choice but to use the system regardless. What motivation is there to do better? None. There are no consequences for their actions and inactions. Maybe they can hire a consultant to form a committee to create a report. Then hire another consultant and form another committee to evaluate the report and decide what action not to take.

What's sad is there are lots of good people working for Metro. Good people that like their jobs and do it well. It must as frustrating for them as it is for us as customers.

Sand Box John wrote:I think the practice of "bellying" the 1k cars is nothing but theater and should be discontinued.
I agree completely. Unless it will cause me to wait around for another 10 minutes, I refuse to ride them. I take the first/last two cars every time. In addition to not dying in the next crash, they're always less crowded and have better AC too. People got scared after the 2009 crash and bum rush the middle of the train. Too bad they don't realize the car collapsed due to design, not because it was in the front. Anyone who understands a little bit of physics can see those cars will collapse just the same regardless of where they are in the set. Didn't this happen in the yard a few years ago where some bellied 1000 series goes got wrecked?
 #1345037  by srepetsk
 
Sand Box John wrote:Instead of everybody worrying about the crashworthiness of the various series, they should be demanding that the hardware in signaling system be maintained to designed specifications with absolutely no exceptions to prevent any future collisions.
In a perfect world I think this should be the case, but protecting against crashes has generally been the US mindset for a few decades now. The FTA, even NHTSA/others push crashworthiness almost more than crash avoidance, unlike some of the European modeling. With the track record WMATA has, I don't think they'd be the one to push that shift from crash reaction to prevention.
Sand Box John wrote:I think the practice of "bellying" the 1k cars is nothing but theater and should be discontinued.
100% agree.
Sand Box John wrote:I am not a fan of trashing the 4k cars. I believe they should be rehabilitated in the same way the 2 and 3k cars were rehabilitated.
I'm against rehabbing the 4Ks since the MDBD data shows they have just about never been reliable. In the data that I have, they only meet/exceed WMATA's target MDBD of 60,000mi for 3 months since 2008 (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oBnfSe9fjz8/V ... l-mdbd.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). The 5Ks are better and have some pretty decent monthly averages, but neither have been phenomenal even before mixed consists.
Sand Box John wrote:The 1k cars that are in the best physical condition should be retained as reserves.
I believe they are already going to be keeping 50 as reserves once they're phased out of revenue service, so yes that is part of the plan for at least a few years.
 #1345042  by JackRussell
 
Sand Box John wrote: I have a sneaky suspicion that after roughly 150 of the 7k cars are put into service the mean distance between failures fleet wide will go down because the folks in the shops will have more time to address and correct the minor problems before they become bigger problems that result in cars crapping the bed out on the railroad carrying revenue passengers.
My own suspicion is that they will be pulling the 1K cars from service by that point on a 1 for 1 basis as the 7K cars arrive and are placed into service. That might in fact start to happen once the initial 64 7K cars are in service.
 #1345139  by Sand Box John
 
"srepetsk"
I'm against rehabbing the 4Ks since the MDBD data shows they have just about never been reliable. In the data that I have, they only meet/exceed WMATA's target MDBD of 60,000mi for 3 months since 2008 (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oBnfSe9fjz8/V ... l-mdbd.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). The 5Ks are better and have some pretty decent monthly averages, but neither have been phenomenal even before mixed consists.


Rehabilitating the 4k cars will make the cars more reliable then they are now, and most importantly increase the fleet size without awarding a contract for new cars.

As you may remember the original schema for the 7k car procurement called for the 4k cars to be rehabilitated to 7k car design specifications. To my knowledge WMATA never published those exact specifications and they may have allowed the operation of 6 car consists.

Contrary to the believe of some on the WMATA board, overcrowding will be reduced and fleet reliability will be increased with a larger fleet.

I believe they are already going to be keeping 50 as reserves once they're phased out of revenue service, so yes that is part of the plan for at least a few years.

Possible makings of a heritage fleet.

"JackRussell"
My own suspicion is that they will be pulling the 1K cars from service by that point on a 1 for 1 basis as the 7K cars arrive and are placed into service. That might in fact start to happen once the initial 64 7K cars are in service.


If it happens at all it will happen after all 128 cars for the Dulles route have been put into service.
 #1345326  by YOLO
 
Why on earth would anyone consider rehabbing 4k cars when they can get new 7ks for a little bit more money? The costs of rehabbing 4K and buying new 7K to replacement them was basically around a similar price range and it was totally pointless to do so.
 #1345815  by dcmike
 
Just about a foregone conclusion at this point. See the Statement of Work, page 73, of this RFP for car disposal that is now closed: http://www.wmata.com/business/procureme ... lcars1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The 1000 series Rohr railcars will be retired first. Once all 1000 series Rohr railcars are removed and disposed of, the 4000 series Breda railcars will be retired.
 #1345816  by JDC
 
dcmike wrote:Just about a foregone conclusion at this point. See the Statement of Work, page 73, of this RFP for car disposal that is now closed: http://www.wmata.com/business/procureme ... lcars1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The 1000 series Rohr railcars will be retired first. Once all 1000 series Rohr railcars are removed and disposed of, the 4000 series Breda railcars will be retired.
Nice document. How did the 4000-series get almost 8,000 lbs heavier than the 1000-series? See pg 75 of the document.
 #1345829  by dcmike
 
I'm guessing that Rohr figure was pre-rehab; the cars are probably closer in weight today than there were on delivery.

Other factors may include: the fabricated Breda trucks, which weigh about 1500 lbs more each than the cast trucks on the Rohr, the chopper propulsion system which employs significantly heavier components (inductor coils, cap banks, semiconductor modules) that were not found on the original Rohr cam propulsion system, improved collision energy management design of the car body, more complexity and redundancy in the pneumatic friction braking system versus the relatively simple hydraulic system on the Rohr.

The 7000s are pretty chunky at 82,500 each. But that's not unexpected given the greater mass of the stainless steel bodies over the old aluminum construction.