New Double Deckers

doing a little math, I can't find exact seating capacities on the net.

Bi-Levels - 111 passengers makes 55.5 seats-2 per seat, call it 56 for 1 passenger seats.
Found forum post old cars 16 seats fewer, making 40 seats per car, 80 passenger capacity.

80x 8 old cars 640 passengers
111 x 6 bi-levels 666 passengers

Make some trailer Bi-Levels like the old cars and you have really boosted capacity.

My guess see what the new trains do to the crowded conditions.

dinwitty wrote:Comparable, rather dodgy explanation. I would not think having the double deckers would have increased seating capacity, than just go ahead and order more of the original cars, there has to be a reason for the double deckers.

"Original" cars would have cost nearly $2 million more apiece, reducing the total number that could have been purchased. The fact that the Nippon Sharyo factory was already tooled up to build Metra's new cars (which have been seriously delayed) meant that the staging, design, and other related costs were much less than it would have been to design a new vehicle, retool the factory, and make "original" cars. They were ready to produce for the lowest price - other manufacturers wouldn't have been able to meet the price or the delivery horizon.

dinwitty wrote:doing a little math, I can't find exact seating capacities on the net.

Bi-Levels - 111 passengers makes 55.5 seats-2 per seat, call it 56 for 1 passenger seats.
Found forum post old cars 16 seats fewer, making 40 seats per car, 80 passenger capacity.

80x 8 old cars 640 passengers
111 x 6 bi-levels 666 passengers

Make some trailer Bi-Levels like the old cars and you have really boosted capacity.

My guess see what the new trains do to the crowded conditions.

That's not entirely correct. Trailers and 100-series cars, plus some of the older cars, have 3+2 seating, which means their seated capacities are in the 120 range. A given peak time train has between 900 to 1000 seats total.

so the decision on getting new cars was the most convenient financially than the most adaptable for the line.

Based on the capacities now I see why their gonna get used on off peak times. But that frees the regular cars to do more peak times. It just seems ironic to have doubledeckers and not increase seating capacities.

Just the way you manage your cars and traffic needs. I would have thought the solution would to try to increase single train capacity the the doubledeckers might have done.

dinwitty wrote:so the decision on getting new cars was the most convenient financially than the most adaptable for the line.

No, not really. The decision was made to get the most railcars (and therefore the most seats) for the money.

dinwitty wrote:Based on the capacities now I see why their gonna get used on off peak times. But that frees the regular cars to do more peak times. It just seems ironic to have doubledeckers and not increase seating capacities.

Yes, I see where you're going, but I think in the final analysis it was the right decision. What the South Shore needs most right now is capacity, not compatibility. Plus, ridership is growing in the off peak periods and has declined in the peaks (due to job losses in the Loop).

dinwitty wrote:Just the way you manage your cars and traffic needs. I would have thought the solution would to try to increase single train capacity the the doubledeckers might have done.

Buying single level cars would have resulted in less aggregate capacity.

i was able to get a distance glimpse of the new cars at the shops from Karwick Road today.. there is a small park, you could get closer on foot, but the snow right now is simply too deep, and the parking lot at the park has not been plowed in weeks.

jb9152 wrote:
Buying single level cars would have resulted in less aggregate capacity.

standees 8-D

CTA removed seats in some of their cars just for standee capacity, but they could not remove all the seats because of weight limits.

If they do do another order they should look into trailer doubledeckers, you should already know my thinking on that. Thats been the South Shore trick for a long time.

if they did trailers for the double decks they could essentially modify existing gallary cars, which we all know are plentiful. could that be done? would it be cost effective?

Does anyone know if the new cars have dynamic braking, or did they stick with the air brakes. That was a problem with the original IC highliners.

The singledecks have dynamic and air. I believe the new cars are the same way.

As I understand it with the original Highliners, there was three-mode dynamic/hydraulic/air blended brakes and when working properly were the best brakes out there. That said, they never worked properly. I asked an engineer back in '05 if he liked the new cars at Metra Electric, and his answer was: "yeah, the brakes work".

The hydraulic brakes - supposedly the most likely of the three to fail - were removed when the old Highliners were rehabbed in the 80s/90s and the systems re-calibrated to operate using only the pneumatic and dynamic brakes. Though if that engineer said that in 2005 it would seem that the improvement in performance was only minimal...

superbad wrote:if they did trailers for the double decks they could essentially modify existing gallary cars, which we all know are plentiful. could that be done? would it be cost effective?

If they could search out unused and serviceable cars, put a pantagraph on for power and needed electrical and thru-wire the MU unless the MU is radio.
Sounds very feasable to me. Because apparently the Bilevels draw more current their limited to 6 car runs, inserting 2 trailers they should be able to pull that, don't expect super high speed runs but they should be able to get to speed.

I don't know how much Do-It-All the shops are anymore, having been able to convert NYC units to SS use and lengthen the old cars.

I suspect the shops are still quite capable, as they just rebuilt the entire 1980's fleet in-house.

However, this notion of converting some Metra gallery cars to operate as trailers is pretty far fetched, and to my knowledge has never even been considered by NICTD or RTA brass.

well, ya heard it here, maybe they read this or not.

Tadman wrote:I suspect the shops are still quite capable, as they just rebuilt the entire 1980's fleet in-house.

However, this notion of converting some Metra gallery cars to operate as trailers is pretty far fetched, and to my knowledge has never even been considered by NICTD or RTA brass.

Im with you Tadman, pretty far fetched metra gallery cars low level, all NICTD stations from Kensington to Gary IN and soon to be further East, High level. I doubt NICTD would want to take on modifying and rebuilding stairs, traps, walkways. ETC. of the Metra gallery cars for NICTD use. Might work out more beneficially to just buy new rolling stock.