#4 Red Line Cars 1900-2151

Universal Hub reported Friday that the first two pilot Red Line cars from CRRC arrived in New Jersey by ship and will be trucked up to Boston.

Driving north on I-93 through Dorchester pre-dawn yesterday, I thought I saw LED taillights on a train in Cabot Yard. Perhaps those are the RL pilot cars.

A pair of Orange Line pilot cars was sent to Cabot for familiarization prior to the Red Line getting their own, too. If those cars are still there, that's another possibility.

Pics in this Reddit post--one pair of OL and two pairs of RL cars
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comment ... s_instead/

The RL cars are sometimes turned on but I haven't seen them move. The OL cars frequently have a few people in them during the morning (that I can see from my CR train as we roll in).

There are 2 orange and 2 new red line cars that I can see in the Cabot yard when Im on the commuter rail daily.

Looking at the new trains website, it appears they are starting to be tested on the line.

1900-2151 suggest 252 cars. That would be sufficient to finish of the No. 3 (01800s) from 1994, though with a
lifetime of less than 30 years.

You are correct. 252 cars are on order. The 01800s are being replaced as well, since the propulsion system is no longer produced, requiring in-house fabrication of parts which is expensive and takes time, leaving cars out of service longer than if they simply had replacement parts to swap in. The new cars use a fairly standard MELCO (Mitsubishi) propulsion system that is used on other rail equipment around the world, which means great parts availability down the line.

GE is out of the rail transportation business, having sold it to Wabtec(formerly Westinghouse), but GE had decided before that to get out of the rapid transit business. There are quite a few 01800s going for the ride only, with no propulsion active.

I'm more than sorry to hear of the impending demise of the 1800s from 1994. They still seem like the "new" cars to me as I watched them being delivered 25 years ago. And I liked them from day one. Good looking, functional cars that had a great front window view originally at least. Considering that MBTA usually keeps each generation of cars almost forever, it's a hard pill to swallow that these best (in my opinion) cars they ever had are getting retired before they even hit the 30 year mark.

typesix wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:13 amThere are quite a few 01800s going for the ride only, with no propulsion active.

Dead in tow trailers?

The GE AC traction on the no. 3/01800 class originally debuted on NYCT's R110B in late 1992 and is of the now
dated GTO type.

Here's the GE Rail Transit products catalog as of 1997 from the Wayback Machine showing their offerings in the
mid 90s.

Yeah Ian, I also remember when the 01800s were coming in by truck to replace the antiquated 01400s, 27 years ago in early 1993 and it would b another year before they debuted. No I’m looking forward to the new CRRC red line cars hopefully they’ll be in service by the holiday season at least one or two train sets.

Yes, some 01800s have their blue propulsion disable lights on. One of the reasons to replace the 01800s is difficulty in obtaining propulsion control system parts.

The blue light on the side of the carbody indicates a propulsion fault. The limit of how many blue lights a train can have before being removed from service has increased over the years, probably because the higher standard would mean a major shortage now for the reasons discussed above.

What is the car availability rate for the 01800 class?