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New mega-Green Line cars will be a somber, don't-mess-with-me green and gray
By adamg on Mon, 10/16/2023 - 1:41pm
The MBTA announced today that it's going with a severe look for the new Green Line "supercars" a Spanish train company will be building, based on support from people in a poll it ran earlier this month.
The T says that the look received 9,566 votes out of 16,300 cast in public voting.
The new Type 10 cars, to be built by CAF USA under an $811-millon contract awarded last fall will be 40 feet longer than current trolley cars, have "low-floor boarding" and wider doors for people with mobility issues and be equipped with state-of-the-art crash-safety systems and an enclosed driver area to keep riders from bothering or attacking drivers.
The contract will pay for 100 of the stretch trolleys, which will have multiple bendy pivots, unlike the current trolleys, which have one or two.
The T says designing the new cars will take several more years. When the T board awarded the contract to CAF - which built the new Type 9 cars aimed at the Green Line Extension, at least when the extension is in use - officials estimated the T would get a batch of four pilot supercars in 2026 for testing. Delivery of the new cars to actually carry passengers would then start in 2027 and run through 2030, assuming production doesn't run into any of the issues that have slowed delivery of the new Orange and Red Line cars - which come from a different company.
The MBTA’s Vehicle Engineering team is currently in the process of engaging with the public and all MBTA stakeholder groups in order to incorporate the customer experience into the Green Line Type 10 supercar design, including technical specification development. These stakeholder groups include over 15 MBTA departments from teams that include Safety, System-Wide Accessibility (SWA) and SWA’s external support partners, Operations, Training, Customer Technology, Green Line Transformation, and many more.
Safety and reliability continue to be the main priority of the Green Line Type 10 supercar design process with the experience of riders and the operator as the central focus. Lessons learned from the MBTA’s previous vehicle projects are also being incorporated as part of the design process. For example, the technical specifications were drafted for the future technology and safety needs of riders and employees. This technology includes redundant major systems; 100% low-floor vehicles for level boarding in the future; Green Line Train Protection Systems, which combine vehicle and wayside equipment to avoid train-on-train collisions, add red-light signal protection, and incorporate speed enforcement; live screen and announcement updates; increased priority seating; and accessibility upgrades like new bridge plate concepts.
The supercars will be in design for several more years before pilot vehicles are introduced to the system. The MBTA also anticipates a mock-up of the Green Line Type 10 supercar will be available next year for riders and the public to visit and offer their feedback.
For more information, visit mbta.com, or connect with the T on X (the site formerly known as Twitter) @MBTA and @MBTA_CR, Facebook /TheMBTA, Instagram @theMBTA, Threads @thembta, or TikTok @thembta.
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Comments
Futuristic!
Star Wars-ish? I will pay extra if they add green LED lighting underneath to give it that hover-glow effect and the appropriate sound effects.
[Edit] Of course I will pay even more if they WORK FFS!
Needs Offensive Weapons
I was hoping they'd equip them with some sort of car pusher or flipper like you see on Battle Bots so anything stuck on the surface tracks could be moved out of the way. Perhaps that's Version 11.
Sharks with frickin' laser
Sharks with frickin' laser beams!
Drive in front of this train
Drive in front of this train
and you'll be in a world of pain.
It's...
HYDRA!
What changes would be needed to
allow the MBTA to use the same cars on the Red, Orange, and Blue lines? I realize that the Green Line probably would not work.
Would this add any benefit?
every station would have to
every station would have to be rebuilt to account for the floor heights at each doorway for that to work. plus i imagine the tunnel heights are different --- non green line trains are a lot taller than green line ones (i think)
All the changes
The Green Line is completely different from the other lines. Each line has a different loading gauge: Green line vehicles are narrower than Blue and Orange which are narrower than Red. Blue has sharper curves than Orange and therefore needs shorter cars. There are no track connections anyway. Also the floor height are different between each line, and the Green Line uses overhead power.
Other than that, there are a bunch of smaller things.
Thank you
I knew that there was variation in platforms on the blue red and orange lines and wondered why they were never standardized and if there would be any benefit.
Blue Line uses both overhead power and third rail
And the switch happens at Airport.
Learn from the Orange Line
Learn from the Orange Line mistakes. Hard-as-rock, assistance button consoles should not stick out to hit someone in the back of the head as they sit. Or, for those who have to stand, be hit in the back by consoles as the person leans up against the wall for support. We don't want to hear some driver with a bad attitude scream at everyone on the intercom to stop pressing the assistance button console when in fact the console is hitting us riders. I'm sure many of you have other design mistakes to add, but I have to get back to work.
Wow, we'll have those floor
Wow, we'll have those floor to ceiling plexiglass dividers with wooshing doors that match up with the train doors in no time!!
Can they please make them hi
Can they please make them hi-vis orange, so maybe car drivers will notice them and keep out of their way?
Or hi-viz green
Still green, still works.
What makes you think orange would help?
I don't think the problem drivers would notice them if they had flashing lights and sirens.
"Bendy pivots"
I believe they're called articulations. At least, that's what they're called on buses.
Why not
A retro design seeing how old Boston is. Would fit with the city's feel better than this garbage.
Seems a bit odd to be
Seems a bit odd to be concerned about the paint scheme at this point, when so much else about the trains is still "in design for several more years." I guess it's a present-day PR strategy, but I can't see it having much effect if the service doesn't improve in the present.
It's not new
They did the same thing on previous procurement like the Orange and Red. It's kind of pointless but who cares, it's a minor way for the T engage the public.
Let’s hope that when calculating capacity…
… they take into account that an individual person nowadays really occupies the space of nearly 2 what with all the backpacks, shoulder bags, and totes so many people lug around
Back in the old days
Ah, remember when people commuting to work had a desk in the office that they could keep all their necessary stuff in, and a desktop computer that sat on it? Now everyone is bringing a laptop and all their stuff everyday because their office switched to “hot desks” or “flexible seating.” No wonder we all look like sherpas.
yup
Yup I hate this style of desks for this very reason. I'm tired of having to truck a laptop in to the office every day. I take it home for what? So it can sit in my bag in a chair in my front hall until I leave.
And they have these "hoteling" desks now because some big wig a few years ago realized they could save big bucks on office furniture and office space if they just made everyone shared while they sit in an office all by themselves. "Let them eat cake" comes to mind here.
In return they've increased their data loss risk (I wish I had a dollar for every ticket that was "I've lost my laptop / my laptop was stolen") and increased their hardware costs by 4. (a decent powerful desktop computer is 1/4th of the cost of most laptops these days).
So did they really save money. Nope. Its all for show.
Except
If all you had was a desktop, you'd never be able to work outside the office. Work from home, flex schedule - gone. Need to put in some OT, hope you like staying late in the evenings and going into the office on weekends. That said, they don't need laptops for hot desks and flex seating. There are desktop configurations that support that.
You're right, they don't
You are right, they don't. But people are weird about using other people's keyboards. (and trust me if you've seen some of the laptops that have been returned to me, you'd want to wear gloves too!)
but
Maybe that is the point so you will work outside of the office, outside of office hours. Give the company more than 40 hours a week.. more than you are being paid for. Total corporate BS. When you leave for the day, that should be the end of your day. You should have no reason to work after hours or on weekends.
Can work from home with desktops
Use VDIs (virtual desktops). Very common these days - the full sized monitor and keyboard and interface box at your desk have a network connection to a virtual desktop that you log into and can also reach using VPN from work. At this point I always work from home, but before 2020 I did a mix of office and home, always connecting into my same desktop. If I was traveling for work I could connect from a laptop, but at home and office I have 2 monitors and a more ergonomic keyboard.
Done right, they definitely do save money
I can't disagree with your overall assessment that flex worskpace/hotelling type options suck. But the companies that move to that model definitely do save money by significantly reducing the per employee space requirements. That savings in office space more than makes up for the added equipment expense.
Office space in Boston
Runs in the neighborhood of $50/sq. ft./yr. Even if you're squeezing people into 4 ft x 4 ft that's $800/yr. Over a three-year hardware refresh cycle that easily pays for the cost of a laptop over a desktop.
But it's also about getting people to work off-hours or those who have to travel as part of the job. 10 hours of extra work per year enabled by a laptop also pays the extra hardware cost for someone making $100K/year.
Good
Now lay about 50 miles of new, well maintained track so that we have a semi-functional rail based, high speed mass transit system.
Just curious
I wonder if the final design will have space for ads?
Safety and reliability
Supercar??!! Like Gerry Anderson?!! Cool!
Can I drove down the middle of Centre St with that?
"drive"
"drive"