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The little rubber doohicky that keeps jamming the doors on some Green Line trains
By adamg on Sat, 03/21/2015 - 10:36am
Paul Levy discusses Green Line trolleys that get delayed at stations because they have a little rubber thing at the bottom of doors that catches on the nubbly yellow warning strips on platforms, forcing the drivers to get out and whack the doors - and how complaining about the problem doesn't seem to get anything done.
My friend and I both reported problems with cars in the 3800 series. I see here that these were built by Breda in the period 1997 to 2007. I'm not going to try to do a root cause analysis, but I'm willing to bet--based on our very limited sample--that if we were to look at other cars from this series, we'd see the potential for similar problems. If so, that would suggest that a minor fix to the bottom of the doors could help keep the trains running.
Or maybe there's some other cause and some other solution. The point is that Steve Spear is exactly right. The MBTA needs to get better at "developing the eye to detect even micro aberrations from [the] ideal and investigating the root cause of disruptions, so countermeasures can be developed and their recurrence prevented."
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Comments
Why can't the just trim or
Why can't the just trim or remove the offending rubber do-hickey ?
heat + ac leaking out
heat + ac leaking out
Not the rubber
It's mostly weight distribution on the airbags under the train. If the airbags aren't fully inflated and you have more weight on one side coupled with the platforms at such stations as Copley and Longwood being just a tad too high causes the doors to get stuck.
And to add to that, Levy
And to add to that, Levy states " the platforms have not changed", when in fact they have. The problem happens at platforms that have been raised to accommodate the bridge plates on the Type 8 cars so that wheeled mobility devices can board. The "rubber" is the bottom of the linkage that opens and closes the doors and keeps them from flapping in the wind as the train moves, not a simple piece to change or remove. Replacing worn air bags on the Type 8s and installing air compressors that are more reliable than the ones now on those cars is on the MBTA's wish list of things to do with proper funding.
Thanks . . .
so much for a great explanation!
Mbta stuck door issue
Constant problem at this station and Longwood on the E-line. The fix from the T is to train all drivers to pull up at a different spot . Maybe the T could just reduce the area 1/4 inch to the proper level which would take about 2 hours then put the yellow walk plate back .
"Little rubber doohickey"
is a bit harsh. BC freshmen are people, too.
... these were built by Breda
These are also the trains that have a tendency to fall off the tracks if they go more than a few mph, aren't they?
(Replying to my own post) I
(Replying to my own post) I should also point out that I remember when the MBTA ordered these trains, and the story was that the MBTA buggered something up in the design spec that caused the derailings; it was not Breda's fault. Garbage in, garbage out. Breda makes trainsets for transit systems all over the world and the other ones function just fine. Then, they get hired by the MBTA...
I think this is another case …
… of everyone being at fault. The T has odd track profiles (iirc) and that causes problems, but there should be due diligence on both sides. As far as I know, Breda got raked through the coals pretty well on this, too.
One interesting thing is that nearly all newer light rail systems in the States (and elsewhere, from what I can tell) have gone away from folding doors. The old Boeing cars (remember those? the ones that made the Bredas look decent) had sliding doors which were terrible and actually replaced at some point. But riding cars in places like SF, Toronto, Seattle, Mpls and the like, the trains there have sliding doors. They seem more robust than the old Boeings, and since they only stick out a couple inches, not a foot, there would have to be more of an airbag failure to tilt the train enough for them to bind. Of course, they also have actual level boarding.
The mock-ups for the Type 9s (due for GLX) appear to have sliding doors. I'm still not sure why the T can't have flush platforms a la newer light rail systems (at least at non-curved stations) but it's probably a lot to do with existing infrastructure. Heck, the new cars in Toronto can board wheelchairs from street level.
Of course, they have all door boarding for those five doors …
These?
Farewell to the Boeing cars
The problem with the sliding doors
on the Boeing cars was not that they were sliding doors, but that they had something like 600+ separate parts per pair of doors.
It is indeed the Type 8's only
This problem is limited to the Type 8's and typically only at certain platforms renovated around a similar time period. In particular, Longwood Medical Center on the E Line, where if a Type 8 is leading, they can't bring the train up past the box containing sand for the winter or the doors will catch.
So now you wonder
Thanks, again, for these explanations. So now you wonder why the T, when you tweet the problems, says, "We'll notify our supervisors to get it repaired"? I wonder if they just give that standard answer regardless of the note you send them.
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