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Why the Fairmount Line should be electrified
By adamg on Thu, 10/15/2015 - 9:20am
Ari Ofsevit makes the case that adding electric wires and buying electric-powered cars would make a lot more sense on the only in-city commuter-rail line than the individual diesel cars the T proposed buying until the governor put the kibosh on them: Electrification would be cheaper in the long run and the trains would get to and from downtown faster.
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Comments
Question for those who know more about trains
Would electrifying allow the T to run trains with a smaller number of cars? Or have more flexibility with how many cars they're running on the line -- maybe more during rush hour and fewer in the middle of the day? Would this help save money?
Labor costs make running
Labor costs make running smaller train sets not a net savings. That's why the CR/red/orange/blue run full length cars all day.
Breaking up and recombining
Breaking up and recombining sets in the yard quickly chews through any cost savings. It's easy with Red/Orange/Blue to stay at 6 cars always now because they've all gone to one-person operations. On commuter rail it's still a balancing act with the 1 conductor-per-2 cars rule, and the need to run some super-long and super-empty sets late at night simply to restock the outskirts of the system with equipment for next morning's rush hour.
Generally speaking, you can stay disciplined with commuter rail operating costs by. . .
-- Going to bi-level cars. More seats per conductor. Now that they make bi-levels that fit the confines of Penn Station and Grand Central, every commuter rail operator in the country still left who's running single-levels is rapidly purging them (Midwest, West, and Canadian commuter rail have already long been 98% bi-level). The T's own fleet plan calls for them being 100% bi-level by 2025. Unfortunately the "Brokems" were such pieces of crap they passed on the +75 car option order, and there's no way in hell they can afford to retire all 200 single-levels on-schedule.
Yes, there are bi-level DMU's and EMU's. On DMU's the bi's are still too bulky and fuel-inefficient for prime-time in this country, but somebody will eventually produce a winner and mainstream them. On EMU's you'll probably see every future order in this country from here on out be for bi-levels, except for Metro North and Long Island RR which share car orders and are limited by LIRR's unusually tight vertical clearances.
-- Closing off cars and loading from the front at far off-peak. It's not wasteful to run a 5-car train with 3 cars blocked off. It's just the engineer + 1 conductor. The locomotive barely has to work at all to pull an empty car, and a high % of the load put on the locomotive comes from the electricity draw of the cars...all the heating/AC, all the wall outlets people are plugging their gadgets into, all the automatic doors, all the WiFi. No people in the car = no electricity usage except for the mood lighting. Watch one of the 5:00pm sardine-pack Worcester trains with 7 bi-levels struggle like hell to get moving out of Yawkey station. Watch the same exact 7-car set being moved out to Worcester layover at 10:30pm for the next morning with 12 people onboard suddenly haul ass out of Yawkey. That's way more the result of lower electricity load than lower weight.
-- Even-numbered train lengths, even-numbered open cars. What's infuriating? When one of those empties opens up three cars, not two, and carries the extra staffer. They'll usually make some excuse about how they're just dropping off a conductor at their home stop at the end of a shift. Only the same train stays staffed that way all night or all weekend. That's waste. Putting together 5 cars for a Sunday when 4 would do is a waste. Putting together 5 single-level cars when mixing in some bi-levels is more than enough padding to shrink to 4 is a waste. These are all just lame excuses to carry the extra conductor with fewer seats worth of responsiblity.
-- Closing off cars and
Agree with closing off cars. What is not necessary is loading from the front. Loading should be from the rear (i.e. the cars closest to the station), at least for trains leaving fron North and Station. Far more convenient for passengers, who don't have to walk half a train length (or more) in order to board.
It is because of the High
It is because of the High Level Platform locations at the indivdual stations that are necessary for handicap access. They are located at the far end of low-level platforms.
http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/accessible_services/default.asp?id=21541
And these platforms
(which are still not provided at all CR stations with low level platforms) are just as accessible by stopping the back of the train at them as they are by stopping the front of the train at them.
Also note that the information you linked to indicates that the portion of a train accessible to these "mini-high" platforms can actually be on either end of the train, and is not automatically one end or the other. So, I give you plus ten for creativity, but minus several million for accuracy (with apologies to Zaphod Beeblebrox)
Generally speaking any double
Generally speaking any double-tracked stop with opposing platforms will always have the mini-high matched to the front car for the inbound and outbound directions, so first car always lands square on the ADA access. Exceptions are when it's a single-track station (like Ipswich) or just some misc. oddball configuration. In those exceptions they're *supposed* to still stop front car at the mini-high after hours even when that means all other cars of the train hang behind the station. Porter's center island platform, inbound direction, is such an example. Proper platform signage about where to board after-hours (such as the sign at Porter) and announcements on-train usually make that pretty self-evident, and obviously these closed-car trains aren't in any way crowded. Only place where that doesn't work are aforementioned single-track stations where the mini-high abuts a grade crossing and train would block the crossing if they went first-car boarding (e.g. wouldn't work at Ipswich). Don't know what the common practice is for those cases. Those would be high-priority stops to git 'R dun re: double-tracking.
Of course, the train staff has to actually obey procedure here. And that's kind of a crapshoot. As for lagging ADA compliance and lack of full-high platforms at enough stops...well, "because it's the T. . .".
There are a few lines where because of permanent freight exemptions for wide-load cars they can never install full-highs at most stops: Lowell (all), Franklin (Endicott-Walpole only), Worcester (Framingham-Grafton only + Lake Shore Limited points west), Fitchburg (Ayer-Wachusett only), Haverhill (Ballardvale-Haverhill only + all Downeaster south of Portland). And Fairmount's Readville platform has to be moved a couple hundred feet north away from the freight turnout before a full-high is allowed there. Full-highs on those lines can only happen in places where there's room for extra passing tracks, like Anderson RTC, Lowell, Lawrence, Worcester Union, Wachusett-to-be. There'll always be a few lingering mini-highs in constrained spots on those lines where 3rd track isn't possible. Those stops they'll have to keep doing this front-car thing forever even if every other line on the system got 100% perfect high platforms. But except for Lowell and inner-Franklin most of those affected stops are way outside Route 128 and not a big concern. Systems like NJ Transit and SEPTA have way higher/more problematic percentage of freight-affected stops than we do, so if they'd just @#$% fund full-highs everywhere else instead of blowing their wad on white elephant parking garages the T would be sitting pretty.
You know what's funny?
You know what's funny? Watching someone who's never boarded the Franklin Line at Readville before try to follow the rules. They walk up, read the sign that says "Board only at high platform," go stand on the high platform, then get angrily berated by the conductor for attempting to board at the high platform, which is not allowed.
I Hope It Would
I find it odd when on a packed commuter rail train and looking over at a Readville train and noticing only two cars in use in a five to six car train.
Also, would the T please lower the fare from Readville? $6.25 from Readville but only $2.10 from Fairmount? The T spent many millions (again) trying to spruce up a line that didn't need sprucing only routine station work and then jacked up the fares from the place that has the most parking and the most potential for TOD. I'm sure that Newmarket station is doing great, yeah great.
I'm pretty sure that if the
I'm pretty sure that if the Fairmount line gets electrified, the T will drop service to Readville. They could still use the tracks to get equipment to the Readville yards and interconnect with the Northeast Corridor, but there's no way they will open the doors. We'll be left with Zone 2 on the Franklin forever and ever amen.
Was that a Ben Folds Five
Was that a Ben Folds Five reference there? (referring to album title "Whatever and Ever Amen")
Yes.
Electrification would allow the T to use multiple-unit cars instead of locomotive hauled trains. This would give greater flexibility to run shorter and more frequent trains than is currently (no pun intended) possible. Of course, they should already be doing this on the Providence Line, but for an idiotic management policy of "all equipment we procure must be capable of operating on all CR lines".
Electrification of the Fairmount Line has one other major benefit - it gives Amtrak a bypass route into South Station should something go wrong on the Southwest Corridor between Readville and South Station. Of course, Fairmount should have been electrified for this reason when New Haven to Boston catenary was installed (the incremental cost of adding Fairmount to the larger project would have been minimal) - but that's another matter.
Eh...there's some logistical
Eh...there's some logistical constraints to why they're not "already" running Providence electrics.
Amtrak only left enough electric capacity in the 1999-2000 New Haven-Boston electrification to run its own trains. T's got to pay in to expand the substation capacity by a lot at the two NEC substations located in MA for there to be enough juice to run commuter rail electrics. More capacity for EMU's than electric locomotives because each pair of cars is drawing power instead of just the locomotive. Rhode Island...ditto with its substations if it wants to run Providence-Westerly commuter rail on electrics.
The 2 outer platform tracks at Attleboro aren't wired at all. Again, Amtrak was only looking out for #1 fifteen years ago.
Rhode Island's going to have to spend a lot of money upgrading T.F. Green station. The current lone platform track is on the freight track where P&W hauls 19'6" tall autoracks from Davisville to Worcester every day. They won't clear the wire. That track is about 2 feet lower than the wired-up Amtrak tracks so those autoracks can clears the nearby overpasses. To fix all that RIDOT has to built Track 4 + a northbound platform on the opposite side, wire that up, temporarily shift all Amtrak traffic over there, drop the trackbed under the Amtrak tracks by about 4 feet so the freights can clear under-wire, then wire up the current platform track so the T's got an inbound/outbound pair of platforms that can take an electric. Not Massachusetts' money, but a prerequisite for getting the diesels off the Providence Line.
The large Pawtucket layover yard has to get all its tracks wired up. And since it's also got to be expanded when RIDOT starts running T-mercenary trains to Westerly that's a bit of pay-in from both states.
Southside needs a yard and a maintenance facility that can service electrics. Boston Engine Terminal in Somerville isn't equipped to do that, and they're overstuffed as is tending to a whole system's worth of diesels so you have to build a second location from the ground up somewhere south to handle future demand. Maybe a full-service shop at Readville and a big storage yard at Widett Circle taking up space vacated by an (I don't know...Seaport?) relocated Food Market where they can just take a permanent easement at ground level and have that whole "Midtown" narnia leftover from Boston 2024 decked on top of them with (emissions-free!) trains out-of-sight/out-of-mind below.
It's not trivial to dip one's toes in electrified commuter rail, even on the line that's already got the Amtrak wires. The main selling point is that once you do those painful initial investments the electrification can scale up quickly from there. Like, plant the flag with Fairmount + Providence EMU's and all you need is a Worcester electrification for almost 60% of the southside schedule to be running on EMU's.
The T right now has a blanket
The T right now has a blanket 4-car minimum requirement on the commuter rail, with anything less than 4 being considered a "light engine move" that's heavily speed-restricted. This is because of the way the signal system is laid out, and concerns that 3-car or smaller sets wouldn't shunt the track circuits properly enough for the signal system to detect the trains (i.e. there may be momentary lapses where train loses signal, forcing a stop). It's not necessarily a permanent restriction--Metro North in diesel territory and Amtrak on the Springfield Line run small sets with exactly the same signaling--more than they haven't tested each line intensively enough with 2-3 car non-revenue sets to see if each and every line's signals pass the "100 out of 100" test for any gaps or faults. They could indeed certify individual lines for short sets that way without needing to spend capital money, but it's effort only worth pursuing when they know for damn sure DMU's are 'the' plan going forward. Obviously that's not something they're going to waste time on with, say, Providence where any train day or night is going to need 4+ cars.
Fairmount's got known problems with that, however. It operates under a special bulletin with a 5-car minimum, not 4-car. Because after all that cash dumped into the improvements project, the new signal system had problems shunting track circuits even at the 4-car minimum. Oops. So these DMU's, which were supposed to be ordered as articulated triplets (A/B/C sections)...well, you can't run them as singlets above 30 MPH. You have to lash up 2 of them, waste nearly 6 empty cars of capacity, and burn diesel on 4 engines at once to make the schedules set forth in the service plan. Which would bleed money even worse than the empty diesel push-pull sets they run today. Double-oops.
Some amount of $$$ has to be appropriated to fix this. Could be trivial, could be not-trivial to fix what the signal contractor bollixed up. But work that was supposed to ready it for handling economical-to-run single DMU's...didn't. I would imagine Baker's folks got the lowdown on this little...uh, problem...and that was why things got indefinitely tabled. It would be rather quite embarrassing to present this very expensive purchase to the public with an attached mea culpa that they have to spend more Fairmount money to fix a brand new thing that doesn't work right. So burying that lede suits their purpose while they figure out how to fix this without humiliating themselves.
It has nothing to do with speculative bidders, everything to do with the T tripping on its own shoelaces. Again. Would you trust them to get a heavily-customized car order right when they can't get the basic-ass signal job right on the line that's supposed to take those cars? Yeah...Baker and Sec. Pollack aren't exactly going out on a limb calling for time-out here.
Required PTC overlay will
Required PTC overlay will take care of the signal concerns with three car trains. MBTA has been sitting on two bids for PTC system installation for over a year. they will eventually have to find the money and award a contract to one of the two bidders.
You mean the PTC overlay that
You mean the PTC overlay that's required in 2-1/2 months before the T starts getting fined into oblivion by the Federal Gov't for non-compliance? The one that'll cost two-thirds billion dollars which they've done zilch/zero to plan for? The PTC overlay where they under-spent their FY2014 planning budget because they couldn't even issue that stack of bidding papers in time?
Yeah, that's not very convincing a "yo, we got this" reassurance.
The PTC installation contract
The PTC installation contract is going before the Control Board for their approval at their November 2 meeting:
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/PTCBriefing...
Planning for it has been going on for several years, they have been reviewing bids for over a year.
No, it won't. PTC is just an
No, it won't. PTC is just an overlay that works in-tandem with the existing signal system like an extra onion layer. It doesn't reinvent the wheel in places where wheel doesn't need reinventing, it just adds useful safety and density-packing features on top of what's already there. If the track circuits on the Fairmount Line or elsewhere don't properly detect a 3-car train or A/B/C married-triplet DMU without signal drop-outs you have to spend money to fix it all the same.
Again, they'll probably be OK on several lines on that 2024 DMU map if they had enough time and reason to do those signal shakedown tests. But Fairmount?...they legitimately screwed that one up and have to take their medicine.
PTC has to be able to detect
PTC has to be able to detect and stop trains on its own if the existing system fails, including failing to detect a proper track circuit.
On the money - so to speak
This is why running a railroad is left to the pros and not the public wannabees and "I want that just because" types. Eveyone would love to see it electrified but it's not as easy as it sounds on paper. Cost and capacity are major factors. I mean... geez... they are having enough trouble running what they have. Let's not forget that electrification of the NEC was seriously opposed in many abutting cities and was in several courts before it happened. Can you see that along the Fairmount branch as well? Also, have all the bridges been raised to the 17.5 meter height to allow for catenary clearance? I think so... but...
The need for a repair facility alone is enough to kill it and there is no place to store the equipment. South Bay (Southampton Street Yards) is already out of room. Also, it remains NOT COST EFFECTIVE to have a dedicated set of trains that only run on certain parts of the system. Ask NJT and SEPTA. They have to consider this as well.
What the T may want to look at is GENSET locos and run short 2-3 car trains with hold-over equipment that they plan to scrap but may still be functional. They are already planning to hold over working coaches in storage after retirement for possible expansion of rail to Buzzards Bay. A GENSET can be wired to provide enough power for motive power and still have one generator isolated for HEP.
For the uninitiated, a GENSET locomotive is a locomotive that has several small generators in the body rather than one large unit for the electricity that powers the movement of the trainset. Each generator kicks in as more current is needed, and shut off or idle when not needed. They can usually power a small train at 40 mph and a little higher in some cases. All of Boston's subway trains are locked down at 40 mph by the way. Gensets usually operate at a major savings in fuel costs, and produce less particulates. Most make Tier3 standards. The T has 2 Genset locos now but are only used for short yard moves as low-power work locos or for short maintenance trains.
HEP is "head end power" or the generator or inverter that provides the electricity to the coaches for heat, AC, etc.
The same mindset wanted Fairmount to be a subway line but again, no place to store the trains, no place to hook into the Red Line, no real estate to connect anywhere to South Station. Why not run them on the commuter rail tracks? FRA regulations forbid the mixing of subway trains and heaver rail commuter trains. It's amazing I keep posting this when rail discussions bring this up and no one seems to get it yet. Gotta love this medium. Then again I've explained this to people in person... get the "deer in the headlights" looks.
Show me the money
While I agree with electrification.. like any good ideas...
"show me the money" and how we plan on paying for the initial upgrades to this line.
Anything is possible, it just comes at a cost.
In the scheme of things, it's not that much
First of all, if the DMUs actually cost $240m, that would pay for the electrification and the cars. If you are going to spend that much money, spend it correctly.
Again, the estimation is $40-80 for 8 miles of electrification and $75-100 for ~30 vehicles. Total cost of $115-$180 million.
The Longfellow Bridge alone is $255 million. The Whittier Bridge (95 in Amesbury) is $300 million. The Route 2 bridge over 128 is $50 million.
And this would be an investment: the vehicles would be cheaper to buy and operate, would attract more passengers, have less pollution and save money going forwards.
okay
You really didn't answer the question. Show me how you plan on paying for it. New Fares? Taxes? Gas Tax? (and of course, getting the Pol's to agree to such things too)
Look, I agree with you. I didn't say I didn't. But you know, we have far bigger fish right now. The Red Line dies almost daily now. GLX is on the chopping block. Tons of backlogged maintenance. And winter is coming, and if this summer was an indication of what this winter will be like, we are in for a long, hard winter on the T.
But where would the investment money come from?!? I think that's what I am asking. And what gives this project priority over things like the GLX, SLG, RL/BL Connector, BL to Lynn, and many other more important projects that we've been asking for years that would have more impact on far more riders than this one would. There's only so much transit money to go around.
Priorities, Ari, Priorities.
Like I said, I don't disagree with you, but we have to find a way to pay for it, and pay for other projects also. It's all a balancing act.
I'd like to see this project and many other projects, and it's nice to dream. But at the end of the day, we have far more reaching transit priorities than (IMHO) this one. It's time to decide what we really need, not what we'd really want.
Open Road Tolling Of All Highways Leading Into Boston
See
See comment about "getting Pol's to agree to such things"
ORT on all controlled-access highways
is not a bad idea. However, to get it on roads other than the Massachusetts Turnpike would require not only agreement among the local pols, but a change in Federal policy that currently forbids tolling of Interstate highways, with the exception of existing toll roads that were grandfathered into the system.
Good luck getting that - Pennsylvania proposed tolling Interstate 80 several years ago and were immediately shot down by the Feds.
yup
I stopped short of saying "Good Luck With That", more because there's a lot of reasons not to (mostly economic). But you've pretty much put the nail in the coffin with your reasons why it will never pass.
All Right Then — ORT On All State Highways And City Streets
If the Interstates must be free, toll all the entrances and exits.
Wait then how does New
Wait then how does New Hampshire get away with the tollbooths right over the border?
Because the highway was constructed
before it was desginated as part of Interstate 95, so the tolls were grandfathered in. Same deal as with other toll roads (the Massachusetts Turnpike, the NY State Thruway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, etc) that have Interstate designations.
And while these toll highways now receive some Federal funding, it can only be used for very specific purposes (similar to grant funding to the MBTA, but even more restrictive and limited).
Non-sequitor
Not sure what the criticism of Ari's post here is. He's saying this is better long-run policy (which it undoubtedly is). He's not making any determination about whether short-sighted pols would fail to see the value of those long-run benefits. And poor performance of some of the lines is not a reason the T should make poor investment decisions with an entirely separate line.
I think that's what I am
So there's no avoiding the question of funding, money is the root of everything and you're right - transit funding is hard to come by at both State and Federal levels and when it is available, the MBTA has been too disorganized to administer it effectively. Cost overruns are to-be-expected with large projects - and the inputs to these overruns stem from long implementation times (longer it takes to plan, certify, community approval, procurement, build, and test - the more it'll cost), from a tradition of low-balling cost estimates when pursuing Federal funds, and bread and butter project management issues. Yet the scale of the overrun with GLX is so severe that I think it's warping your perception a bit, it was projected at $438 mil back in 2005 (but that was only a spec analysis, so it was never the true cost of the project), by 2009 it was revised upwards to $1.3 billion, which is a bit high, but reasonable. Blue-Lynn has been spec'd out at around $750 mil (but with a proper analysis it'll push up into the billion range), and Red-Blue had a similar spec cost of $700 mil, but again, a true cost in the order of a billion + change.
So, if the money allocated was administered more efficiently we could have Blue-Lynn + GLX, or GLX + Red-Blue (which should come first anyways). Funding is still too low, but we do actually have more funds available than I think people perceive, and thus more agency in executing more projects.
With that in mind, what about priorities. It sounds good to say "focus on SGR", but SGR requires purchases of new rolling stock, new signaling systems (for Red, Orange should be okay for now), full-priority signals for the GL, more layover and yard space and maint facilities for CR, more garage space for busses, purchase of more efficient rubber-tire rolling stock (60 footers vs. 40s for the heavy-duty carriers), changing travel lane geometries across the board to that busses have access to their own lanes and other bus-priority infra. SGR doesn't just mean the mechanics need to scurry into the shops and go about welding, painting, papering over cracks, etc... (basic maintenance is part, but not the majority of SGR capital projects). And the MBTA is prioritizing those things - we're new RL + OL rolling stock, new busses, priority signaling at some point on the GL. The only MBTA expansion projects the State is engaged in are GLX, SCR, and SSX. (SLG is programmed through the Highway Dept with MassPort contributions)
Fairmount's time might not be today, but in a year or two or three or five - absolutely yes. It takes time to plan and implement services, takes time to bring them up to a reasonable operating efficiency - and that clock should start now. I haven't even gotten to the tact that the OL relocation obliterated Roxbury's and Dorchester's traditional commute patters (patterns which also played a role in instigating dense development, even for a streetcar suburb), and yeah, we kinda own 'em one after all these years. The upshot is that D/EMUs have a broader applicability across the system, Fairmount is Indigo 1, SS=Yawkey-West-NB-Newton Stops-Riverside will be Indigo 2, Waltham could be Indigo 3 and Woburn/Winchester Indigo 4 if the MBTA is able to manage both northside and southside D/EMUs. So yeah, I do think this is priority worth pursuing.
Ari, you are mixing apples and oranges again..
The Longfellow Bridge, to cite one bridge from your example, seriously needed upgrades and/or infrastructure repairs. And, in general, our bridges are in bad shape and should take priority in the scheme of things.
So I am not sure why you are using their costs in your analysis for electrifying the Fairmont line.
To quote Cybah: Priorities, Ari, Priorities
Merely providing price points
As requested.
As for priorities: is providing much better transit service to a transit-dependent community which has long gotten the short shrift as far as investments a priority?
is providing much better
Yes. And I think a Fairmount rapid-transit-lite service is worth pursuing....but here's some pushback that it might not be the best project for attacking transit dead zones in Boston. There are 5 traditional rail corridors through Roxbury and Dorchester: Old Colony, Ashmont RT (which has a interesting history of planning alternatives, but another story for another day), Dorchester Branch, Mainline El RT, NY&NH mainline. The three rr's carried significant passengers at the turn of century, but by the time that BERy completed the Ashmont ext and El, those services sucked up all the traffic from Rox/Dot and the streetcar feeder-node system developed to accommodate these patters (as you well know, since you've written about it). By the 1930s, only the Old Colony drew any significant ridership from Rox/Dot. So the traditional patters are: streetcar-to-rapid transit-node, with a smattering of OC boarders on the eastern side of Dot. You well know the history of what happens next, so I won't repeat, needless to say that the only high-capacity corridors that remain are Ashmont, the OL, maybe SL just so it won't feel left out.
So a Fairmount "Indigo" is not an absolute shoe-in for success. The Dorchester branch is not a traditional corridor, hasn't been trafficked significantly by Rox/Dot residents (with a bit in the 80s/90s) for over a century, and is too far east to be a replacement service for Roxbury's lost El. Are bus commuters going to move to mode with less frequency than the RL/OL? If they don't, then western Roxbury, and central Dorchester are out of the picture for a catchment area. That leaves the Rox/Dot borderlands, and there's a lot be had there, but an Indigo line is going to have to rely almost entirely on walk-up density. That's okay, all rapid transit lines are accessed primarily by foot, and not bus, so it's not a deal-breaker. However, 90-95% of the those walking access trips take 15 mins or less, which is about a mile at a decent clip. Closer to 80% of the access trips occur in 10 mins or less, so if Indigo is going to succeed it needs to have access to enough people within three-quarters of a mile of it's stops.
Newmarket doesn't have ton, today. Talbot + Four Corners have good densities, but they're close-ish to a higher-frequency Red Line, it's really Uphams, Mattapan/BHA, Morton, and maybe Fairmount that are dense enough, and far enough from other options, that are going to have to drive ridership. That's where an xMU fails or succeeds, and I think it's a shaky proposition. Worth it, but let's be honest, it's not a "100%" can't fail service enhancements (like GLX is). What would make it, near-100% can't fail, are land-use improvements, developments, etc... The planning initiative has taken steps to this end, but it's still a theoretical service so we can't really say for that land-use, gap-filling, or other projects to provide a market for an Indigo are going to be supported in the future.
Let's at least, just say that Fairmount is not a replacement for the El, it's not replacement service for anything - it's a new service, and it favors Dorchester and Mattapan more than it favors Roxbury.
It would be an extremely
It would be an extremely cheap upgrade to the line. Tracks are there in a dedicated row, stations are all there (and new/ADA compliant) excluding Blue Hill Ave, and all the basically need to do is string up the catenary wire and purchase a few EMUs. We basically get a new trolley like rapid transit line into Roxbury, Dorchest, Mattapan, and Hyde Park, and Amtrak gets a bypass route to South Station if needed (so maybe a few Amtrak dollars for this). Its as shovel ready as it gets and adds in a completely new line into densely populated under served areas of the city. Given the potential economic impact of this, the T should do a simple cut and cover along the entire row and put a real subway in it.
Cheap
Yes it's 'cheap to do' but re-read my comment to Ari above about how you plan on paying for it when there's other things that would take priority.
There's lots of 'cheap to do' projects that the T should do, but they aren't being done for the lack of funding.
Like I said above, not against this.. but there's bigger fish to fry right now.
He makes a pretty big mistake
He makes a pretty big mistake in his math, the $240 million that MassDOT allocated for DMUs wasn't just for 30 DMUs, it was for a 30 car base order, options that could include up to 90 more cars, plus the costs to build a small maintenance inspection building for them (which EMUs would need as well).
New FRA-compliant DMUs for an agency in California cost about $3 million per car.:
http://www.nipponsharyousa.com/tp101216.htm
he's full of it on DMUs, indeed
The claims about not being proven in the US are absurd. There are eight lines using DMUs and another 6 proposed not including Boston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_multiple_unit#United_States
Electrifying a short line makes sense, yes. DMUs would be awesome on the commuter rail; the T's idiotic one-unreliable-loco-per-train model is stupid.
No, he's not...
...most of those US DMUs are not operating in mixed-traffic with FRA-regulated railroad equipment. Only the Tri-Met and SMART DMUs are FRA-certified (as are/were Tri-Rail's DMUs, which might be retired). All of the non-FRA compatible DMUs are not going to work for the Fairmont line or elsewhere where they cannot be separated from conventional commuter and Amtrak trains.
Given that Colorado Railcar is defunct, the only current DMU in the US market for FRA compliance is the Nippon Shayro car for SMART and GO. Most of the proposed projects are just as all-talk at this point as the MBTA's procurement.
Contrast with six railroads (Metro North, Long Island, SEPTA, Denver RTD, Metra and South Shore/NICTD) purchasing EMUs from three different builders (Kawasaki, Nippon Shayro, and Rotem) in the last 10 years, in far greater numbers.
Good point
Until President Bernie Sanders ends capitalism as we know it (oh, wait, Socialist Muslim Obama already did that, right?) competition should result in lower prices. And, look! It does! Hooray!
CRRC, who are building a
CRRC, who are building a plant in Springfield and have the Red/Orange line order from the MBTA, stated they are interested in building DMU's as well. Siemens bid on but lost the SMART order that went to Nippon-Sharyo.
Well that settles it! A
Well that settles it! A company that hasn't won any FRA-compliant bids is "interested", and has a lease on a building that will be producing railcars completely different from a DMU where their entire assembly line would have to be rebuilt ground-up to be able to manufacture vehicles that lug around their own fossil fuel power plant. That's as proof-positive as it gets that the DMU revolution is sweeping the land! Book it, done.
They are building an all new
They are building an all new structure in Springfield including a large test track, not leasing a building, and have said they intend to bid on all kinds of U.S. passenger car orders including high-speed rail, with Springfield as their U.S. base
They do build DMUs for the home market:
http://www.crrcgc.cc/g6634.aspx
Rotem never built an FRA compliant EMU until they got the SEPTA order, and that is the equipment being compared to. Every non-U.S based builder has to start somewhere, and the largest passenger car builder in the world seems interested in expanding in all parts of the U.S. market. They should not be discounted.
What part of reconfiguring a
What part of reconfiguring a factory assembly line to build totally different rolling stock does your CRRC boosterism not understand here? Subway cars do not use the same supply chain as DMU's. The components are totally different. They don't use the same fabrication methods. They don't even use the same wheel profile and would have to have all that nifty test track done totally over with a rail grinder each time the factory changed over from a rapid transit order to a railroad order or vice versa.
It's re-equipping the whole damn factory. How many "Buy America" debacles have to go piggishly over-budget to ram this point home? These satellite factories aren't like Bombardier world headquarters up in Canada that have separate assembly lines catered to each type of rolling stock. Even the pre-existing satellite plants have to have their assembly lines done over every...single...new...order that's a different make."CRRC is in Springfield..." blah blah does not automatically net cost savings unless the next order from them is another Red/Orange/Blue job that's a straight rip of the same car type. Click your heels and believe as hard as you want that's not true...it's still a fool's bet based on the last 20 years of "Buy America" history with railcar orders.
Also, Rotem's SEPTA EMU's are just as much irredeemable crap as the T's Rotem coaches. SEPTA nearly took Rotem to court for 9 figures for contract violations, took a bath on cost overruns, took years late getting the cars stable uptime, and are currently dealing with enough lingering aches and pains with the cars that they'll never do another order based on the Silverliner V lineage again. It (and Denver, if they want another parasitic order) has no choice but to start with fresh design when its next big EMU replacement procurement bids out in 5 years. L.A. Metrolink also yanked its Rotem commuter rail cab cars from service over crashworthiness concerns, and Tri-Rail in Florida is unsatisfied with the glitchiness of theirs. Rotem is the new Ansaldo-Breda at completely foot-shooting themselves clear out of competition for U.S. bids for a solid 10-15 years in purgatory because they racked up too many quality control debacles too soon.
Amazing how the CAF facility
Amazing how the CAF facility in Elmira NY will assemble Type 9 streetcars for the MBTA, at the same time it is assembling intercity equipment for Amtrak, and has assembled subway cars in the past.. Meanwhile Nippon-Sharyo is building new intercity equipment in Illinois at the same plant where they proposed to build new subway cars for CTA at the same time. Siemens assembles light rail cars and locomotives at the same plant in Sacramento. Some how the Germans, Spanish and Japanese figure out how to do that but the Chinese can't? The CRRC plant will be all new, on a 40-acre site, with a 2,240 foot test track.
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/rapid-transit/crrc-usa-to-...
This is not a "pop-up" plant for one order like the place Breda leased in Littleton MA. CRRC is the big time compared to Rotem and Breda. There is a reason why Bombardier has been talking about merging or selling off their rail business (including a story earlier in the year that they might sell to CRRC).
Rapid transit cars and railroad cars do use the same wheel profile, its streetcar that use a different profile from subway and railroad. Test tracks are usually built to accommodate multiple wheel profiles and sometimes multiple gauges.
Read the full post, please
I'm making the assumption that the T would overdesign the DMUs and they could cost a lot. I'm not sure where you're finding this information about the full allocation, but according to the T's own press release:
I added a link to that in the post a well.
Maybe they goofed, as this is a ludicrously high number, but that is the T's MO when they don't want to do something (which is pretty much all the time). In any case, $2m per unit you "cite" is likely very low for the DMUs. The SMART DMUs are coming in at $3.5m each (newer link here) and I would expect the T's costs to come in that range or a bit higher. Anyway, here's a parenthetical I included in the post:
Even at $4 million—the average cost of DMUs produced today for other systems—the EMUs plus the wire would come out even. Philly got their Silverliners for $2.3m each, and Denver got theirs for under $3m. They're cheaper, because a) they are way more off-the-shelf than the Nippon-Sharyos (which are the only FRA-compliant cars—other than spectacularly crappy Colorado Railcar DMUS; and the company isn't in business anymore—and they haven't even entered service) and b) they aren't carrying around their own power plants. And why should we use new technology when the existing technology is no more expensive, faster and proven?
Please.
Also, does anyone ever believe anon comments on UHub anyway?
The $240 originally comes
The $240 originally comes from this document:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/198545679/DRAFT-FY2014-FY2018-Transportation-C...
On page 42. The number is a calculation of the then proposed DMU program including the required maintenance facility. It was also lumped in with some Silver Line Gateway(non Mass Highway funded) costs and is identified as a $252 project. The procurement was assumed as more than 30 but less than the full 30+90 car option, most likely enough to run DMUs to Fairmount and Lynn..
If CRRC puts in a proposal (DMU proposals from builders for 30 cars with options for 90 more are still due in December even though there is no money in present CIP), I would suspect there numbers will come in way under $3.5 per car. I also assume one reason why the DMU procurement process has been moved back but not cancelled, despite the lack of committed funds, is to find out just what the cost per car could be.
Needs too be converted to the
Needs too be converted to the equivalent of the Blue Line. Enough with inner city commuter rail.
That's basically what EMUs do
The Blue Line is operated with EMUs running under a catenary. As another poster mentions below, the big cost with converting this to a subway line is the cost of getting it in to South Station, somehow, and then running it in a new tunnel under downtown? It basically is ready to be run like a subway line, it has high level platforms for level boarding and low dwell times (all the doors can open at once!), it has a terminal station and trackage with transfers to the rest of the system (*). All it needs are wires above the tracks to run subway level service and subway level acceleration (which is a big deal: electricity is far better for acceleration at closely-spaced stations). It would still have a connection at South Station, but most of the infrastructure is in place.
* Here's an idea for this connectivity. Apparently, South Station has a basement. If one platform were set aside for Fairmount service, it could have a ramp in to said basement under the current station which would lead in to the fare lobby for the Red/Silver line (not sure of the geometry, but fare machines could move around). There could be fare gates at platform level, too, to, for people coming from South Station (you could certainly dispense with the underground connection and have people walk through the station, but would have to allow this to occur with a Charlie Card fare). And it could even be set up as a sort of SIR fare system: you would pay a fare (or transfer) in and out of the system at South Station, while the rest of the line would be barrier free (with perhaps periodic fare inspections, but most customers would pay their fare getting on or off at South Station).
Here's an even kookier idea: run Fairmount trains straight from the Fairmount Line on to the mostly-useless South Boston Bypass Road (you could keep one reversible peak-hour lane) through Southie, with a transfer at Broadway to the Red Line, a station at the Convention Center, and then somehow get in to the Silver Line tunnel, serving the Courthouse and looping back to South Station. This would provide much better service to the Seaport, and the Silver Line could be put in to a street-running transit lane on the overly-wide streets. But that would cost a lot of dollars.
In fact, South Station was
In fact, South Station was designed with an entire lower/below ground platforms (like Grand Central) which are basically storage/office now. Get that, along with a nice shallow cut and cover down the Fairmount row and all of a sudden we have a pretty nice and easy new subway line. It would be really nice to connect it into the Red's tunnels, but, that would probably be a pipe dream. Of course, the NSRL would change all of this making it even more interesting, but I really doubt that is going to happen. As for going down the bypass road and connecting into the silver line tunnel - from my understanding that there is going to be a huge (and expensive) project with meh returns. The did propose doing a DMU on the basically abonded track already there from Backbay -> the Convention center, but it really didn't make much sense given the logistics of cutting across the width of one of the busiest train yards in the country.
The lower level at South
The lower level at South Station was destroyed when the station was rebuilt and modernized in the late 1980s in preparation for the eventual construction of the bus terminal. Here is a photo of the lower level loop exposed while it was being demolished:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mbta/mbta-loop-ajc.jpg
Well, that sucks. I only had
Well, that sucks. I only had http://www.southstation.org/southst.htm, wikipedia and a few other sources that didn't mention its destruction as part of the 1989 rebuild/refurbish. I figured the approaches/etc would have been removed but that the larger spaces were still there and converted to storage.
Blue Line
So if they go as far as electrifying the line why not turn it into an honest to god subway line like the Blue Line?
Because then under federal
Because then under federal law it couldn't connect to the tracks at South Station, and would need a very expensive separate downtown terminal with its own approach tracks.
Not just the terminal, it won't happen...
...as then you lose the ability to:
A) Schedule commuter trains from Franklin and Providence lines over the Fairmont as needed due to capacity constraints on the corridor through Back Bay.
B) Accommodate equipment moves to/from Readville (regular commuter rail equipment).
C) Maintain a diversion route for Amtrak and Commuter rail in the event of a problem on the corridor.
D) Maintain vestigial freight access into this part of the city.
All of those don't happen if you convert it to rapid transit equipment. If they weren't in play, that probably would have happened already.
Do it as a cut and cover,
Do it as a cut and cover, keep the existing above ground tracks (so 2 rapid transit under ground 2 normal rail above). Connect it into the defunct lower station level that already exists at South Station. The later can probably be mostly paid for when South Station is finally redesigned - which should end up costing basically nothing as the T sells the air rights to developers.
The Big Dig chewed up what
The Big Dig chewed up what was left of those underground lead tunnels, and the South Station basement has been renovated too many times since that unused station was still intact. There isn't a way of re-creating what flat-out isn't there anymore. Certainly not on-the-cheap.
And you can't strip Fairmount off the RR network. CSX has to back up onto it multiple times a day every day to get in/out of the Readville freight yard, there's an overnight freight job once a week to the cold storage warehouse at Widett Circle, and when Massport gets its planned container transload up and running at Marine Terminal that weekly Widett job is going to expand to 6 nights a week from Readville to the Seaport.
The state wanted CSX off the inner Worcester Line that badly it paid them $100M to go away. This is the last viable freight gateway into Boston-proper, and you can't easily re-route that traffic up the Middleboro Line instead without losing too much capacity due to low-clearance overpasses in Quincy and having to climb the commuter rail's single-steepest grade at the Neponset River Bridge. Like it or not the inside-of-128 economy benefits just enough from freight that it would be nuts to get rid of all of it. Especially when one doesn't have to in order to satisfactorily serve the neighborhood's transit needs.
Want subway not railroad? That's a job for Orange Line to Roslindale and West Roxbury + Green Line from Newton Highlands to Needham Junction swallowing the (Hersey-excepted) halves of the Needham Line. Or Orange going Oak Grove-Reading and Haverhill trains reverting permanently back to the Woburn/Downeaster routing like we were supposed to see 40 years ago. Those don't cannibalize any mission-critical common carrier routes or have problems intermixing with conventional commuter rail/Amtrak equipment on their only paths to/through downtown.
Yeah, I was unaware that the
Yeah, I was unaware that the underground was totally lost. Still wouldn't stop an above ground station I suppose, or adding in an underground as part of the South Station expansion (if that ever happens) given the tower will probably need some excavation work even with the existing pilings.
Note that I didn't say just junk the existing line on the top - that can stay. While construction of the subway underground will disrupt this service, its not permanent, as one would retain the two top rail tracks which can be used by the MBTA or for freight (and we don't have to worry about mixed use with EMUs/FRA requirements). The top should be electrified, too, so Amtrak can then benefit from it. I just think that the Fairmont line is probably one of the last places that are as shovel ready as you can get for a new actual subway line.
OL to West Roxbury should happen anyways, but, the NIMBY is strong there (and even in Rozzie). Plus, doesn't the Needham row go down to one track after Roslindale Square? Is there enough in the ROW to do two without taking more land? Plus, the bridges will all need to be redone, too.
Routing past Oak grove would probably pretty easy though (should have room for a 3 track ROW all the way, right?). I guess I would rather just do a cut and cover with a temporary disruption to the freight than deal with NIMBYs in Westie ;) But then again, I have a feeling you know a lot of what you are talking about and post regularly elsewhere :)
You're getting subway and RR
You're getting subway and RR tech a little jumbled up here. Mainline railroad EMU's are not as nimble as a Blue Line car. Even the European EMU's that aren't hideously overweight from pointless regulations are heavy enough to crush a Blue Line car like a soda can in a slow-speed collision. And slow-speed collisions do happen within yard limits such as the T and Amtrak yards downwind from South Station. At sub-10 MPH human control overrides the signal system, so whoopsies from trains switching tracks can happen. You never hear about them because the trains are almost always empty when they bump and the scrapes are superficial enough to not knock the cars out of service for more than a day or two. But a 5 MPH 'whoopsie' between an Acela pulling into the yard and a Blue Line train coming off the Fairmount is going to total the Blue Line car it hits, no question.
Coexist with common carrier traffic like Amtrak or freights that could be hauling anything anywhere between all 3 NAFTA countries and a car needs to be damn sturdy all the same. The Blue Line only coexists with its own kind in a closed system. The only place in the world where there's even pseudo-coexistence of metro cars with mainline rail cars is Southeast Asia, which countries like Japan have so little freight that the weight differential between their subway cars and mainline rail cars is vastly smaller than even the 'lightweight' rolling stock of Europe.
Fairmount has to cross the Amtrak yard at Southampton all day long to get in/out of South Station. You can't dodge it with a subway portal; coexistence starts a full mile south of the terminal. Fairmount has to coexist with CSX switchers puttering around Readville Yard right across the track from the Readville platform. It has to coexist with the T moving big honking trainsets into midday off-peak storage at Readville. It is impossible to avoid coexisting with mainline traffic at any point in a 24-hour day. That's why it's a forever-railroad and not a metro line -to-be. You can do plenty dense and nearly rapid-transit scheduling with it as a railroad, but it's still not a subway line.
This discussion is amazing, but we need names.
I suspect that some of the anons are regulars who didn't have time to login, but it becomes difficult to follow who is saying what when things are posted anonymously.
We get that many of you probably work in the field and are not comfortable using identifiable screen names, but please, for the rest of us pleblians trying to follow the conversation, pick something.
That said, nice work to all on this discussion, and kudos in particular to Ari O., who is once again stirring it up with thoughtful commentary.