Railroad Forums 

  • Equipment shortages & cancellations

  • Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.

Moderators: sery2831, CRail

 #1502437  by Backshophoss
 
If MBTA was to order from CRRC a Rotem "Clone",the feds will not allow funding for that build,CAF is somewhat streached thin with the Amtrak View II
order and various light rail builds.
Nipoin-Sharyo "lost face" on the test failure and bailed out of the US market.
Siemens is loaded down with the Caltrain/Midwest state owned fleet order and Amtrak's LD Charger Orders.
Rotem bailed out of Philly,and Kawaski has a full order book with WaMTA 7000's, ConnDOT's M-8 second run, PATH's order,and
the 2 M-9 runs for LIRR.
Alstrom is gearing up for the Acela II order,has barely finished the MBTA K car overhaul contract,and has various light Rail builds in progress.
BBD has ongoing QC issues and 2 stopped deliverlys to deal with.

For now MBTA is stuck on the sidelines for now.
 #1502465  by MBTA3247
 
Under the circumstances, the T's best option would be to place an order with Kawasaki for more K-cars with the desired electronics upgrades (aka, what they should've done instead of ordering from Rotem back in 2008). At least that way, they only have to wait for space in the production schedule to open up, while avoiding the production scale-up and debugging delays that will almost certainly plague any other manufacturer they go to.
 #1502672  by nomis
 
Honestly the quickest way to get multi-level cars onto the property would be to use the Bombardier MLV tried and true design, which is going back into production for NJT MLV-III. Order un-powered [typical] Cab Cars and trailers, ignoring the NJT wishes of an EMU mid-coach car at this time.

Check this thread for more info, the good stuff starts on page 20.
 #1516362  by chrisf
 
sonicdoommario wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:24 pm Is it inspection time again? Lot of short trains the past week or so, Worcester's 9-car train has been reduced to 8 cars, two of the four 8-car sets running with 7 cars, etc.
Needham train 617 was 4 cars tonight, so yeah, there definitely appears to be a shortage again. On the positive side for me, the train was crowded enough I rode for free.