CRail wrote:Their condition isn't nearly as deplorable as some are touting. Gerry's point of idle equipment is quite valid, but these cars haven't been in storage that long. The fact is that they were retired from MBTA service although it certainly isn't unheard of for retired equipment to get pressed back into service. The one point of F-line's 3 above that holds any merit is the one about the motive power; The Commuter Rail isn't short on cars, they're short on engines. Pressing these back into service (which is quite feasible especially given that there are plans to use them second hand on another MassDOT service) would do nothing to avert the shortage the T is experiencing.
They'll have been sitting in Seaview for 5 years before MassDOT has a chance to transfer them to Western MA...assuming there is a budget for that, which there isn't because Patrick's transportation plan was underfunded by a third by the House. CDOT isn't even going to be running a full schedule's worth of Hartford Line service until 2020, so connecting service is going to be too uselessly sparse to mount a north-a-Springfield effort even if they did want to get it going fast. By the time NHHS is scaled-up enough into Springfield Union from the south that it'll even matter, the significantly better-condition and more economically-rebuildable Bombardiers (as well as a few hundred nearly identical Comets and Shoreliners from NJT and MNRR) will be available. Please stop repeating some Patrick flunkie's one free-associative moment to the press about that proposal re: how these cars are supposedly infinitely reusable. They are not even at the most deleriously optimistic projections for what year that service will commence...projections which are nowhere near as optimistic in 2015 as they were last year with a brand new budget deficit passed onto the new admin. and all that's hit the fan with transportation spending priorities this winter.
The only scenario in which those MBB's are ever going to roll in revenue service again is if a significant portion of the Rotem fleet has to be withdrawn because of more problems. Which is not altogether implausible, but is practically speaking a this-year concern because they get harder to prep for service with each passing month they're in the Seaview dead line with wheels locked and gradually collecting graffiti. Those things are razorblade fodder--no more, no less--once the Rotem warranty modification encampment leaves Seaview some point before the year 2036 and the risks to the new fleet's availability are declared as settled as they're ever gonna get.
