Hey, there! Log in / Register
Orange Line car prepares to launch from space dock
By adamg on Wed, 11/30/2016 - 9:30am
The T forwarded this photo of an Orange Line car - 1216 to be exact - before rolling out for service this morning. Those are foam blocks on the roof - to test tunnel clearances for the configuration of the new on-order Orange Line cars, which will have their HVAC systems on the roof. In addition to the foam blocks, the car's also been outfitted with seven cameras - six on the roof and one at the front to record mile markers on the trip.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they provide decent public transit in Boston?
Decades of car culture
We have the technology. (see: Europe/Japan) Our leaders decided to focus on moving cars rather than moving people.
"this Orange Line car....
...it's full of sta...uh...holes."
With a few billion dollars..
I think the T could get closer to a 95% on time rating.
Face it people, the problem will continue to get worse before it gets better.
Um, yeah
Vehicles tend not to get better with age, but thankfully (as the post notes) new cars are on order.
Well, finally
They are spending about half a billion a year on capital improvements. The state is willing and able to even spend a bit more, but the T said they are at full capacity for capital investment and can't manage larger investments.
Better late than never, but we should be mostly caught up in about 10 years.
You took the wrong train
Dave.
Um, shouldn't that information
about overall vehicle dimensions have already been included in the contract specifications before the procurement was let out to bid?
They know what the clearances
They know what the clearances are supposed to be, and it's not going to be a matter of hitting the tunnel ceiling or something, but there might be some wires or pipes that have sagged into the loading gauge, and they want to find and correct those before they damage the new cars, which might be making more efficient use of the available loading gauge.
Points taken
However, it still seems odd to me that they waited until production of the new cars was underway before conducting (pardon the pun) a survey of actual tunnel clearances.
You're still missing the
You're still missing the point - this isn't so they can change the height of the new cars, it's so they can fix whatever is fouling the tunnel clearances.
Right. Simply put, the cars
Right. Simply put, the cars were modeled to the tunnel specs, now they need to make sure the tunnel clearances really are what they're supposed to be.
Not how it works
They had the specs, but that doesn't mean that some unmapped object isn't going to snare a roof unit because nobody knew it was there.
Much easier to do this empirically before the built-to-spec vehicles receive their stock units.
Engineers know these things are way more squidgy in the real world than paper pushing wonks would think that they are.
Especially in 100-year-old
Especially in 100-year-old tunnels with god-knows-what hanging and sagging from the ceilings.
Hey now!
We'll see how much junk you got sagging and hanging when you reach 100!
Considering
Considering the T's history of design flaws and such, I am really glad they're testing this is such a cheap and easy way before it's too late.
State Street Limits?
It was always my understanding that the lowest roof-to-tunnel limits were at State Street where the Blue Line passes over the Orange Line. Anyone have different data?
It was my understanding that this was one fo the reasons they abandoned retrofitting Blue Line cars to run on the Orange some years back, i.e. the need to remove the pantos, rebuild the roof decks, and jack up the body to reach the platform. All of these would add instability and be cost ineffective for the short term plans at hand.
Data? T people?
The lowest ceiling point is
The lowest ceiling point is just east of State St., where the tunnel dips under what used to be the Green Line tunnel at Adams Sq. station (demolished and replaced by City Hall's foundation).
They did a simillar clearence run about 15 years ago when consideration was being given to moving some of the old Blue Line cars to the Orange when they were planned to be replaced by the present Blue Line fleet. Blue Line cars would have needed the bolsters raised (to meet the higher platform height on the Orange), some items on the roofs moved or relocated, and cab signal equipment installed. Besides the cost of upgrading the cars, the Dana bridge over the Mystic river may have required some work to accomodate the heavier weight in the same space of an 8-car train of old Blue Line cars vs. a 6-car train of Orange (the Blue Line cars are 17 feet shorter, and would require running in 8 car sets to match the capacity of a standard 6-car Orange Line train). In the end, it was determinaed to be too expensive given what was thought to be the short time that the cars would run on the Orange before a new Orange Line fleet was ordered. Of course, since it turns out that it will be over 10 years between the time the Blue Line cars were retired and when the new Orange Line fleet shows up, it might have been a worthy investment after all.
Excellent safety features!
Now train surfers will have something to hold onto when they are riding on top of the trains.
Hellraiser
It's a hellraiser Orange Line Car!!!
See the eyes of HAL 9000 on
See the eyes of HAL 9000 on the front of the train car?
HVAC system on the roof?
Can there be sufficient protection of the HVAC equipment to keep it working year after year? My layman's thought is that less exposure to the elements results in decreased rate of wear and tear. Are there folks reading this who can provide better understanding?
The Green Line cars, Blue
The Green Line cars, Blue Line cars and the double-decker commuter rail cars all have their HVAC equipment on the roof. It is easier to repair the system, since the entire HVAC equipment can be removed and replaced as a signle module. There is also less trackside dirt, brake dust, ballest dust, etc sucked in when it is on the roof.