MBTA to remove seats from Red Line cars (Big Red)

Yard and shop space is also a constraint when considering fleet size.

Codman Yard has plenty of room for a few more tracks.

MBTA3247 wrote:Codman Yard has plenty of room for a few more tracks.

Even Southampton Yard could have more tracks. There's an asphalt "road" between every other track. Why? The Wellington Yard doesn't have this. And the Wellington Yard also has room for more tracks. Not sure why it appears some were removed. Especially since there's supposedly 'so little' room, that they're 'forced' to store trains at Forest Hills.

Even Southampton Yard could have more tracks. There's an asphalt "road" between every other track. Why?

I don't know what the original thinking was, but it certainly helps yard personnel move more easily and safely between yard tracks.

Why don't they order the next version of cars with interconnecting ends and just run longer trains? If the trains stopped with a few cars on either end inside the tunnel, passengers who are going for a longer ride could move to these cars while people on short trips could stay in the cars that meet the platforms every time.

Articulation is difficult to do for multiple reasons. It works well on trolleys that are limited length and have rear doors for the subway stations, but it would be awful trying to get people through a single door and back into more cars.

Articulation also means you can't separate out single cars easily for maintenance - think Acela versus Amfleet equipment.

I suspect (without professional knowledge herein) that the Red Line could support somewhat shorter headways - currently, there's a lot of space between trains even at 5 minute headways.

As most trains come in married pairs, theres no reason not to have those permanent pairs be articulated.

And I do like the idea of lengthening cars. Perhaps not having an entire car in the tunnel, but adding 10 feet to the final car would be fine, as long as the door is right at the end of the platform. The front wouldnt work because the driver cant be in the tunnel.

Does the driver look out the window to check the station platform? If not, presumably because they use television cameras or mirrors to make sure the operator can see the platform to ensure boarding and alighting passengers are safe, then they might be ok having the front end of the train go past the platform.

By the way, Acela express cars are not articulated, although I assume they don't have conventional couplers. Their vestibules are a lot bigger than conventional coaches, and have a lot more exposed things, like the restrooms and sliding glass doors, which make it inappropriate to have them at train ends, but to maintain high speed service they tend to need 2 power cars, one at each end, anyway.

Patrick Boylan wrote:Does the driver look out the window to check the station platform? If not, presumably because they use television cameras or mirrors to make sure the operator can see the platform to ensure boarding and alighting passengers are safe, then they might be ok having the front end of the train go past the platform.

Even if there is clearance for a TV monitor inside the tunnel, it would be impossible to keep clean.

One of the 'Big Red' pairs was in service on Sunday as the center cars of a Braintree train, with no special announcements. Since these cars have had some of the seats reinstalled, does the MBTA now consider them the same as any other train of 01800's and operate them at all hours?

RailBus63 wrote:One of the 'Big Red' pairs was in service on Sunday as the center cars of a Braintree train, with no special announcements. Since these cars have had some of the seats reinstalled, does the MBTA now consider them the same as any other train of 01800's and operate them at all hours?

Are there now more seats than the few ADA seats which were always there?

I've seen the Big red cars in the late evening and on weekends plenty of times. And the announcements seem to have gone away when the arrival predictions started.

HALF of the cars seats have been returned.