by BandA
Historically they rented from GO Transit (Ontario) in the ?80s? Eventually some stuff had to go back due to electrical fires. I also read somewhere that Canadian HEP needed adapters and/or voltage change.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: sery2831, CRail
Arborwayfan wrote:Could Keolis (or the T) rent a whole set or two (locomotives and cars) from someone to ease the shortage while they catch up on inspections and repairs? I'm thinking of renting from IP, or the Providence and Worcester, or one of the many tourist lines within a couple hundred miles, or even from Canada (even if they are spare Canadian LD coaches), and keeping the foreign equipment together in a couple of trains so as not to have compatibility issues between coaches.The problem is Keolis can't keep up with the maintenance because staffing is so anemic. That's the whole reason we're in this emergency situation of coaches slipped hopelessly behind inspection schedule and RFP's having to be issued because the F40PH-2C dead line has hit double-digits with no hope of internal bandwidth to mount that many major repairs. Introduce any foreign vehicles that need prep time and it just makes the problem worse. It's not a situation where material reinforcements are going to help, because labor is the problem. Labor is why the stored MBB's aren't an option. If the active roster isn't keeping up with inspections, prep-for-service on stuff that's been sitting in Rochester and Davisville for 14 months missing multiple inspection cycles is doubleplus futile.
Operationally impossible b/c no heat and/or no ac?
Operationally impossible b/c crew training needed?
Operationally impossible b/c speed restrictions?
.... south side b/c no cab signals?
....b/c no cab cars?
....b/c equipment not in good enough condition for constant use?
....b/c equipment not up to ADA?
....b/c some other reason?
Too expensive/not enough incentive in the Keolis contract?
Tourist lines need all their cars in the Christmas season and obviously in the summer and leaf season?
Some other reason it can't work?
BandA wrote:How did Keolis develop such a labor shortage when MBCR didn't have that problem?The media only did a soundbite of a story when they mentioned a handful of mechanical employees being fired for stealing time. It was merely the tip of the iceberg.
BandA wrote:So it does sound like "tip of the iceberg" combined with bad timing when the economy is improving and probably good mechanical folks are hard to find.This understaffing wasn't a new thing when MBCR left town, either. The FCMB is in it up to its eyeballs at every meeting about major positions at each of the agency's major divisions that have been unstaffed for ages...and unstaffed all the way up the chain such that they don't have the hiring managers who are supposed to hire the most decimated and mission-critical front line ranks. And it's up to its eyeballs in decisions about what's a fair price to pay for acquiring talent. Because it's not the bus drivers they're shortest on or positions that can be filled by reassigning some auto-promoted rapid transit div. inspectors somewhere more useful...but the certified machinists and engineers and procurement managers who have the most competitive job market in decades to choose from at railroads and transit agencies across the East Coast megalopolis. The T and prior CR operators have poached plenty of talent from other roads back when they were the ones offering the best pay, career advancement, and job environment. The market giveth and taketh away...and the market piles on once an exodus of high-skill employees starts to snowball. So it was bad before Keolis stumbled and staggered out the starting gates running the Purple Line. It was/is bad in the rapid transit division. It was/is bad in the bus shops. It was/is bad in the procurement department. It was/is bad with every project management arm who was supposed to provide oversight to some outside contractor, from GLX right down to inventorying the lugnut in the parts warehouse.
Diverging Route wrote:Article in today's Globe.Blanked jobs have to go very deep to really be an impact on day-to-day service. There are several crews assigned to non-revenue service that get pulled into revenue service when a revenue job is blanked. If all available crew options are exhausted Keolis can call on front-line managers to cobble together another half a dozen or so more crews.
Interesting, no mention at all of jobs "blanked" due to crew shortages, that I understand have occurred on a number of occasions.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Does this include doing the much-delayed cab signal + PTC installations to the 1600-series cabs so they no longer have to be bottled-up exclusively north? I'm sure it's not helping this mix-and-match game of desperation to still be hamstrung by classes of equipment that are non-portable across the whole system.