Providence Line Electrification

[CRail]

Why is that hilarious? For someone that always touts fiscal responsibility, suggesting that a fleet of equipment be procured and maintained for a single line is pretty outrageous. A reason to make a new line electric is so it will then be feasible to run electric equipment on the one line that’s already electrified.

[BandA]

I'm confused by the last comment. But there is enough activity on the Providence-Boston Line that you could justify having dedicated rolling stock for that one line. Would need more yard space to store it! They could pool the electric locomotives with Amtrak Northeast Regional & have them do the maintenance. I continue to assert that electric locomotives are presently too expensive, due to low volume. If you could buy an electric locomotive for less than a diesel that would be a win as they should last longer & have lower maintenance cost.

[BostonUrbEx]

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Torch the diesels.

MNRR M2s built in the 1970s have a 12-month MDBF equivalent to the highest MDBF the 4-year-old MBTA HSP46s have ever seen, and the rest of the MBTA fleet fails more than twice as often. The M2s YTD MDBF exceeds 63k miles. The new M8s have MDBFs of 215k miles for both 12-month and YTD average.

[BandA]

My 18 year old camry has higher MTBF than these HSP-46s! Although my 10 year old Dodge Grand Caravan is about the same MTBF as a HSP-46!

[Trinnau]

Torch the diesels.

MNRR M2s built in the 1970s have a 12-month MDBF equivalent to the highest MDBF the 4-year-old MBTA HSP46s have ever seen, and the rest of the MBTA fleet fails more than twice as often. The M2s YTD MDBF exceeds 63k miles. The new M8s have MDBFs of 215k miles for both 12-month and YTD average.

While comparing vehicles of similar age, you aren't comparing the whole propulsion system. With a diesel, the entire propulsion system is self-contained. The diesel generates its own electricity, so when something goes wrong with the engine's ability to go, it is blamed on the engine. However, with electric units the power has to be picked up from somewhere outside the unit. When the source of traction power fails in an electrified system, it is treated as an infrastructure failure and not an engine failure. While I agree this is the right way to present it, in order to compare the performance of a conventional railroad and an electrified railroad properly you have to include delays caused by the failure of the electric infrastructure.

MDBF plus power issues has to be considered when comparing electrics to diesels, because ultimately it's about what the passenger experiences in on-time performance. You're only telling half the story when speaking about the equipment. Yesterday, probably the busiest travel day of the year on the Northeast Corridor, was ground to a halt because of plastic wrap caught up in the wires. None of these delays would be blamed on the locomotives and affect the MDBF. But none of them would have occurred if the wires didn't exist.

So there's more to it than just comparing MDBF.

[CRail]

There's also more than one uncommon factor between MBTA GP40s and Metro North M2s. In what I consider to be largely the fault of the way the commuter rail operator is contracted out, maintenance on Boston's equipment has consistently been notoriously poor. A locomotive built in 1956 will run better with proper maintenance than one built in 2008 will without it. Metro North, which doesn't farm out maintenance to a contractor that benefits financially from avoiding investment, undoubtedly spends more on fleet maintenance than what is spent on the T's equipment. If you're arguing the benefits of straight electric equipment over diesel electrics, compare M2s to P32DMs, or compare LIRR or NJT diesels to electrics, keeping all other factors the same.