New Orange Line cars could be a step up

The model is 1:1 scale; they just only built 2/3 of the length of the car.

T slams delays in Blue Line upgrade
Says train maker lags on delivery of 94 cars

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | November 29, 2006

The MBTA's plan to replace its aging Blue Line fleet is nearly three years behind schedule because of repeated delays and problems with the first of 94 new cars, including leaking doors and smoking air-conditioning systems.

Yesterday, the T's top official sent a fiery letter to the manufacturer, Siemens Transportation Systems, demanding a firm schedule for delivery of the new cars and threatening to freeze payments on the $174 million contract.

Siemens had been seeking an $8 million payment, saying it has reached another benchmark on the contract, even though it hasn't delivered four prototypes. The MBTA has paid $47 million to Siemens in the last five years.

"It appears to me that your company is far more interested in demanding money for work you have not performed, rather than completing the job," wrote Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

The letter demanded that Siemens submit a revised schedule "that it unequivocally commits to achieving." Grabauskas also said the T's general counsel has started reviewing the contract and Siemens's "record of poor performance to determine what remedies are available to the MBTA."

Oliver Hauck, president and chief executive of Siemens, said the Blue Line project has been one of the most confounding in the company's history. The firm is based in Sacramento.

"We are both justifiably frustrated over the progress, and we will do whatever we can to finish this project as much on time as it is possible," he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The 94 new Blue Line cars are slated to replace 70 existing cars that carry fewer passengers and subject them to a jarring ride. Some have leaking roofs. Most of the current cars were put into service in 1979 and 1980 and are among the oldest in the T system.

Expanding the Blue Line fleet would allow six-car trains that would ease overcrowding on the popular line. The new cars, renovations at several stations, and longer platforms to accommodate the six-car trains are part of a $750 million project to modernize the Blue Line, which carries 55,600 passengers on an average workday.

The T board approved purchase of the new cars in November 2001, with delivery of the first ones scheduled for January 2004. The T agreed to delay the date to September 2004 after a company making the cars' suspension system went out of business. Also, the upstate New York company that was starting to assemble the cars changed ownership twice during the contract, Hauck said.

"There were a number of events that were not foreseen by us, and we were not able to manage," he said. "Overall, it was a very challenging contract. We are just as unhappy as the MBTA."

Siemens wanted the Blue Line to be the cornerstone of its efforts to get other subway and rail contracts around the world.

The first four cars that Siemens will deliver in Boston are prototypes that will be tested by the T to spot defects before the rest are built.

Grabauskas said he met with Siemens officials in March and was assured of the "timely delivery of the cars." But in August, he said, Siemens changed the delivery schedule again, saying the first pair of prototype cars would be shipped in October, followed by another in November and the last in December. In October, however, Siemens revised the schedule again, for delivery of the four prototypes early next year.

T officials say they have had no choice but to go along with the delays so far.

The price of cars has remained unchanged at $174 million. With engineering, spare parts, and other services, the T estimates the total price tag to replace the Blue Line cars at $200 million.

The dispute between the T and Siemens is similar to a quarrel with another company over new trolleys for the Green Line.

The MBTA ordered 100 Breda trolleys from an Italian manufacturer in 1995, but problems emerged. After paying about $143 million of the $222 million contract, T officials halted payments in 2004 and refused to take delivery of 53 vehicles not received by then. The T finally worked out a new deal on the Breda cars in December 2005, and they are being put into service on the Green Line by January. By yesterday, 70 of 85 Breda cars had been delivered.

The standoff with Siemens is worse, Grabauskas said. "It has been perhaps the most frustrating procurement that we've engaged in a long time," he said in an interview yesterday. "This makes the Breda car fiasco look like -- " He trailed off.

"I guess the thing that upsets me most on this is that we are spending more than $200 million on this . . . and with a procurement of this size, you'd think people would be taking this seriously," Grabauskas said. "I've been yesed to death, and I'm sick of it. This is a major multinational company, and they can't seem to deliver on something as simple as a rail car."

T officials are considering waiving a host of problems with the prototypes, discovered by Siemens during early testing, just to get them delivered so the T can begin its own trial runs.

Both front and side doors in the prototype cars leaked during water-tightness tests. The seams of floor coverings didn't meet smoothly and had to be whittled down with knives, T officials said.

"It looked like a kid had done this," Grabauskas said. "This is the equivalent of having linoleum installed in your kitchen, and they can't even do that. . . . The word, in plain English, is sloppiness."

Several Blue Line passengers interviewed yesterday said they can't wait for more modern cars on a line that serves some of the poorest communities in Boston and on the North Shore.

"It's not as updated as the other ones," said 20-year-old Arielle Zair, a sophomore at the Art Institute of Boston. "The Orange Line's a little bit worse to me, but [the Blue Line] deserves new trains."

Christian Marcus, 20, of the West End agreed. "It's been like this for 10 years," he said. "If it's for people that are unfortunate, and it's public, they just leave it the way it is."

April Simpson of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Mac Daniel can be reached at [email protected]

Ah, that's a good look at what they'll likely be used for, yeah. I was mostly wondering if we'll see any of them in service, but I guess only time will tell.

Cities that care have stainless steel interiors and exteriors.

The photo included in the post isn't a great one. The cars are definitely not as beige in person. Here's my own photo from yesterday:

https://onefoottsunami.com/hosted/20170404NewOrangeLineCar.jpg

Additionally, all the curves on the Red and Orange Lines are much tighter than anything on the Green Line, so purchasing modern Red and Orange Line trains would be impossible. Don't even consider it! The Boston subway is over 300 years old, so to keep everything compatible it always must use an old fashioned, obsolete design when ordering new equipment.

Although you cite a potential disadvantage of the modern design, it hasn't been a big problem in other cities that have adopted it. There are so many advantages to the open plan that far outweigh that one tradeoff. The two most significant are:
   

• Increased passenger capacity per train
• Shorter station dwell times (more passengers off and on faster)

If the Ⓣ didn't need to increase capacity during rush hour, this wouldn't matter. Even if there were an unlimited number of trains, there's a limit of how close together they can run.

Increasing the passenger capacity of each train, and spending less time stopped at each station is the easiest way to increase capacity of the overall system.