01700 UTDC Midlife Rebuild

1. The wheels are in fact brand new on the overhauled 1700s.

2. Spin/slide is fully functional on these cars, with valves that release and reapply the brakes rapidly when a slide is detected. These valves operate on a per-car basis and regulate only brake cylinder pressure (which is not trainlined), so there's no reason why they won't play nice with other cars.

[quote=diburning]The way that the brakes work on the red line cars (from what I can see, on all types of cars) is that when the air is released (brakes released) the brake shoes don't appear to spring back away from the wheel. Instead, the brake shoe stays in place (with little to no force applied) until the wheel pushes it out of the way as the train is accelerating so that the brake shoe is very close to the wheel when the air is applied to start braking.[/quote]
The brake shoes do come fully off the wheels, but probably not more than an inch off them. Might be hard to see from afar. It also takes a few seconds for them to back off all the way, so the train might start moving before the shoes are visibly clear from the wheels.

01728-01729 have entered service a couple weeks ago, and I heard 01708-01709 will be next!

Oh good! Hopefully when I catch them at least theoyll perform like they did in late 1986 when they came onlie (simultaneously as Washington MetroRail's Breda 3000-series although they were outsourced to Alstom for midlife rebuild)

Robert Paniagua wrote:...Washington MetroRail's Breda 3000-series although they were outsourced to Alstom for midlife rebuild)

Speaking of this, is it more costly to do in-house midlife rebuilds as opposed to outsourcing to industry giants like Alstom or Bombardier? Seeing as how every decision at the MBTA is now cost-based, rather than a reasonable balance of quality and cost, I'd assume it is, but what do we get as an end-product? They may ride better and be fully refurbished, but how well will they be running as they continue to age as a result of an in-house rebuild?

NETransit now lists 01756/01757 in service, only about half way don with the overhaul
I also noticed that the overhauled 01700s have their B end lights removed what is the reason for the removal of thise lights?

JonY12 wrote:I also noticed that the overhauled 01700s have their B end lights removed what is the reason for the removal of thise lights?

Probably in recognition of the fact that they never run as singles so there's no need for the B end lights. If they removed the lights, they probably removed the B end controls as well.

They didn't remove the lights on 01706/01707, 01712/01713, 01728/01729, and 01736/01737 but the rest of the overhauled cars had their lights removed.

JonY12 wrote:They didn't remove the lights on 01706/01707, 01712/01713, 01728/01729, and 01736/01737 but the rest of the overhauled cars had their lights removed.

It's possible they isolated those 4 pair as future work car candidates when the 01700's are retired. It's useful enough for the various configurations they could run as work motors to not totally preclude singles running, even if they're unlikely to ever be split up in real practice. On "you never know" grounds it's wise not to totally preclude it. For the rest of the fleet it probably makes them easier to maintain to strip out the B controls and eliminate the possibility that those never-used things will cause a fault.

Yes, Ive also noticed that the B end headlights have been stripped but not sure about it's Hostler controllers. And Ive also noticed that more UTDC #2's have been rehabbed/refurbished. Also, Ive seen them rinning in solid consists without Pullman #1 cars, especially the rahab ones. But the Classic 01700s are still running with #1 Pullman 015-1600s railcars

Robert Paniagua wrote: And Ive also noticed that more UTDC #2's have been rehabbed/refurbished. Also, Ive seen them rinning in solid consists without Pullman #1 cars, especially the rahab ones. But the Classic 01700s are still running with #1 Pullman 015-1600s railcars

I see consists of all 01700s more often than I used to like a recent consist I saw of all overhauled cars with 01728/01729, 01754/01755, and 01706/01707

Yeah that's what's been happening lately however they recently paired a set of rehabbed 01700s with with a pair of 01600/1500s as I saw recently.

Anyone know why the very last pair in the rebuild program, 01714/01715, is taking so long to finish up? The next-to-last rebuilt pair returned to service 5 or 6 months ago.

Don't kill the job?