Orange Line questions

What is wrong with the area around Sullivan Sq that it is a windblown wasteland?

And how did the little part of Boston (Charlestown's westernmost foothold, I guess) that is west of the tracks not get pedestrian access to the station?
This little enclave does a strange amount of backtracking to get to the T
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And as a result most of East Somerville (Cobble Hill?) has all kinds of crazy extra walking to get to Sullivan Sq. They could have had great heavy rail access long ago, without waiting for a Washington St Green Line and for cheaper if they just made it easy to walk to Sullivan.

Arlington wrote:What is wrong with the area around Sullivan Sq that it is a windblown wasteland?

And how did the little part of Boston (Charlestown's westernmost foothold, I guess) that is west of the tracks not get pedestrian access to the station?
This little enclave does a strange amount of backtracking to get to the T
https://goo.gl/maps/WmuiM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And as a result most of East Somerville (Cobble Hill?) has all kinds of crazy extra walking to get to Sullivan Sq. They could have had great heavy rail access long ago, without waiting for a Washington St Green Line and for cheaper if they just made it easy to walk to Sullivan.

As an ex-East Somerville resident who used to live up the hill between Washington St. and Broadway, the access to Sullivan really isn't that bad. It's dank under I-93 and could use some better lighting and signage, but it's plenty easy to get there from Washington or Broadway. The missing link is a station egress to Perkins St. where all that hyper-dense residential and the new condos just over the Charlestown line really could use some direct access. Perkins was my walking route to the station, and every time I rounded the corner seeing the station barely 400 ft. away my heart would ache a little for a footbridge there into the fare lobby. Really, it's wall-to-wall triple deckers and condos in that entire Washington-Broadway-McGrath triangle. That wouldn't be some afterthought little entrance with security concerns. There are people out and about all day long in that neighborhood and it would be very well-utilized. Especially now that all the blighted warehouses that used to immediately abut have now been flipped over to more dense residential. Innerbelt's going to get more attractive development when GLX comes through and the McGrath/McCarthy overpass comes down. While GLX is going to be the primary driver and beneficiary of it, it's transformative enough to drag all the way down Washington to Sullivan. That should become a much more inviting stretch over the next 10 years, with greater pull towards Sullivan from that side of the halfway point from GLX-Washington.

It's the Main St. side of the square where the access is worse-than-awful. Hopefully when Rutherford Ave. gets remade that's a top accessibility priority because crossing that rotary is a terrifying experience and their access was totally destroyed when the station moved across the street into the bunker in '75. There may have to be a footbridge or something because if the Rutherford-to-Alford underpass gets eliminated in the road project that rotary won't get any less scary. The Charlestown Garage side isn't as bad as it used to be now that the decrepit overpass is gone, and some infill development can help with the traffic calming. They really need to get rid of those parking lots across the street from the station that used to be under the overpass and put some infill development there. It'll help fill in the northern loop around the Square and make it all seem less far away and less daunting a crossing from Main St. Trade the lots for extra parking capacity at Wellington or something; it doesn't belong in the middle of a busy urban square.

The Assembly stop will greatly help people who just need to go to Home Depot, since it'll save a really uninviting walk on Mystic Ave. (or worse...from my old direction a walk underneath the overpass and crossing the merging ramps from 93S to Broadway and Assembly). Although Home Depot is still a physically closer walk to Sullivan than it is the new Assembly stop, so they shouldn't neglect the awful walk down Mystic. And it would be nice if the Assembly path system could connect all the way to Alford St. The T would have to be brave enough to grant an easement for a tall fenced-off riverwalk alongside Charlestown Garage to complete that missing link from the Somerville-side Mystic River reservation to Sullivan. But it's a worthy project and hell of a lot better way to do business in Sullivan and Assembly on foot in one shot without being forced to shuttle 1 stop just to avoid the hellish walk on Mystic Ave.


Little things like that bootstrapping onto the area redevelopment can really help the area and accentuate the less-than-perfect bunker station. They've just got to be diligent about it and execute on the little things.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The missing link is a station egress to Perkins St. where all that hyper-dense residential and the new condos just over the Charlestown line really could use some direct access. Perkins was my walking route to the station, and every time I rounded the corner seeing the station barely 400 ft. away my heart would ache a little for a footbridge there into the fare lobby. Really, it's wall-to-wall triple deckers and condos in that entire Washington-Broadway-McGrath triangle. That wouldn't be some afterthought little entrance with security concerns. There are people out and about all day long in that neighborhood and it would be very well-utilized. Especially now that all the blighted warehouses that used to immediately abut have now been flipped over to more dense residential....Little things like that bootstrapping onto the area redevelopment can really help the area and accentuate the less-than-perfect bunker station. They've just got to be diligent about it and execute on the little things.

Yes, exactly, just a pedestrian overpass from Perkins, over the Lowell Line, and right into the Fare Lobby. Even better, keep it going out the other side to meet the buses that terminate at Sullivan too. Strikes me that Romney/Foy/Grabauskas should have found the $ and showcased it as the thrifty version of smart growth and Big Dig mitigation. It shocks me that Patrick/Davey/Curtatone/Menino didn't do it either.

BostonUrbEx wrote:Does anyone know what is going on with the Orange Line lately? Headways are continuing to get longer and trains are getting more and more crowded.

It has been well reported that the T has been having quite a bit of trouble keeping enough of their 30+ year old rustbucket cars serviceable, and reducing headways is certainly one way to respond to that. Right now, according to the online NETransit roster, peak car count is 96 cars in 16 6-car sets. I don't have my stack of Roll Sign annual inventories with me to track requirements back through the years, but a web archive of the old NETransit site shows that in 2007 it was 102 cars in 17 sets. Even one less set can make a big difference!

It will get worse, probably much worse, before it gets better. New cars are several years away, and in the meantime you have ever increasing ridership, another new station to dump even more people onto the system with, longer trip times due to handling all these people, plus track work, plus breakdowns, and a good possibility of later weekend service to load even more car miles onto the tired equipment.

I am SO glad I no longer live in Boston and rarely have to ride the subway nowadays. The next several years are not going to be fun.

I couldn't find a general Orange Line thread..

1208 has an interior ad wrap. It's all white for some shoe store maybe? I took a picture, but I don't feel like uploading it.

SM89 wrote:I couldn't find a general Orange Line thread..

1208 has an interior ad wrap. It's all white for some shoe store maybe? I took a picture, but I don't feel like uploading it.

I assume you're talking about the Converse wrap:
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/what-w ... d-paneling" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

jwhite07 wrote:

BostonUrbEx wrote:Does anyone know what is going on with the Orange Line lately? Headways are continuing to get longer and trains are getting more and more crowded.

It has been well reported that the T has been having quite a bit of trouble keeping enough of their 30+ year old rustbucket cars serviceable, and reducing headways is certainly one way to respond to that. Right now, according to the online NETransit roster, peak car count is 96 cars in 16 6-car sets. I don't have my stack of Roll Sign annual inventories with me to track requirements back through the years, but a web archive of the old NETransit site shows that in 2007 it was 102 cars in 17 sets. Even one less set can make a big difference!

It will get worse, probably much worse, before it gets better. New cars are several years away, and in the meantime you have ever increasing ridership, another new station to dump even more people onto the system with, longer trip times due to handling all these people, plus track work, plus breakdowns, and a good possibility of later weekend service to load even more car miles onto the tired equipment.

I am SO glad I no longer live in Boston and rarely have to ride the subway nowadays. The next several years are not going to be fun.

The cut-back from 17 to 16 train sets in service was necessary to maintain a reasonable spares ratio. Remember that when the 01200s were ordered, the line ran about 60 cars in four-car trains. As soon as the southwest corridor opened and the guards were eliminated, this increased to 90 cars in six-car trains giving a 25% spare ratio. This is the design goal for the fleet, as there was no provision for service expansion. At 96 cars in service the issue is on the hairy edge of disaster, and if you push it to 102 cars, the shop found it impossible to fill the schedule with only 18 spare cars. The service was thus cut back to 96 cars.

Although the cars appear to be rust-buckets, they operate pretty reliably, considering that they have not had a mid-life rebuild. As with the red-line equipment, the effects of the five major storms in four weeks crippled the fleet with motor failures. This had nothing to do with the general condition of the cars. Fine snow plus dc motors = disaster! As the motors were rebuilt, the car availability rose. There was no effort made to swap motors or re-mate cars to produce more operational sets. The cars were repaired as motors became available. This produced service levels as low as 5 trains, but the equipment rebounded as soon as repaired motors came back from Everett. The fleet is well worn, but looks worse than it actually is.

16 train sets in service leaves 4 at the yard. What does using one more set actually mean? If you can provide better service with one less spare, isn't that better? Say a train breaks down and is taken out of service. You're still left with the same 16 that they think is acceptable to run now. It should make more sense to run better service when they can.

SM89 wrote:16 train sets in service leaves 4 at the yard. What does using one more set actually mean? If you can provide better service with one less spare, isn't that better? Say a train breaks down and is taken out of service. You're still left with the same 16 that they think is acceptable to run now. It should make more sense to run better service when they can.

It only makes sense if they can do so consistently. IIRC, the 17th set is kept as a spare in case one of the first 16 fails on the road; the last 3 sets are in the shop for maintenance and are not available for service. Attempting to run 17 sets in regular service means having no spares if a set does fail, and could mean being short a set the following day as well (depending on how fast the shop can get another set back on the road). Providing consistent service is perhaps more important than frequency of service.

SM89 wrote:I couldn't find a general Orange Line thread..

1208 has an interior ad wrap. It's all white for some shoe store maybe? I took a picture, but I don't feel like uploading it.

Interesting, probably an improvement over the 70's-ass wood grain. Though. I'd say the filthy fluorescent lights are the worst part of the OL interiors.

MBTA3247 wrote:

SM89 wrote:16 train sets in service leaves 4 at the yard. What does using one more set actually mean? If you can provide better service with one less spare, isn't that better? Say a train breaks down and is taken out of service. You're still left with the same 16 that they think is acceptable to run now. It should make more sense to run better service when they can.

It only makes sense if they can do so consistently. IIRC, the 17th set is kept as a spare in case one of the first 16 fails on the road; the last 3 sets are in the shop for maintenance and are not available for service. Attempting to run 17 sets in regular service means having no spares if a set does fail, and could mean being short a set the following day as well (depending on how fast the shop can get another set back on the road). Providing consistent service is perhaps more important than frequency of service.

And I wonder just how often they even have that one spare set. I've been riding the OL from Wellington all month, and most afternoons the yard is empty save for one or two married pairs, usually on the tracks closest to the shop. Either that or they keep the one spare set at Forest Hills.

This seems to be the catch-all thread for the orange line, so...

Shotly before 9 this morning (5/21/15) I witnessed 2 Orange line cars moving north on the disused rightmost track just north of Community College.

Anyone know what's up? Were these perhaps set off from a train due to a mechanical failure, were they doing some sort of testing, or something else? I've never seen a single pair of cars out on the line before, and I can't recall ever seeing anything use that track before either. I wasn't even sure it was actually in service.

That track was used a few years ago for doing break-in testing on the 0700s. I wouldn't be surprised if they still use it once in a while to test a pair that just left the shop.

It has also been used in spotty cases since then (the 0700 testings) for disabled equipment. Usually only when things are incredibly FUBAR'd.

MBTA3247 wrote:That track was used a few years ago for doing break-in testing on the 0700s. I wouldn't be surprised if they still use it once in a while to test a pair that just left the shop.

It's used all the time. When I lived in East Somerville and commuted via Sullivan every morning maybe 2 out of every 5 mornings there was a deuce or quartet running slowly back and forth across the bridge testing something the shop did to it. Occasionally it would even pull to the foot of the Sullivan platform.

Probably was a rare sight the last couple years because of the Assembly construction and temp track arrangement, but now that that's all put back together it's likely same as it was before. Just with a better railfan view of the proceedings from the Assembly platform.