Planned Service Suspensions (Was: Orange Line To Close...)

Could they use track 3 for a Back Bay - Ruggles - Forest Hills ping-pong operation? Maybe free up capacity by re-routing some trains via the Dorchester Branch?

Ruggles is, as of 2018, the 4th busiest station on the MBTA's network, and for people to get back to Ruggles, they'd have to find an outbound train from South Station. That could potentially add substantial delay to their trips.
At peak times there's just not much room to add a shuttle style train, and not even all the Providence trains will be stopping at Forest Hills. That schedule looks very problematic to me, and seems likely it'll get little use because the times the PVD trains do stop at Forest Hills are very irregular and many of the trains stop at times within just a few minutes of the normally scheduled Needham trains.
The temporary Providence schedule is here: https://d2o8eokdkim9o8.cloudfront.net/s ... utdown.pdf

Why are Providence trains stopping at FH, but not Franklin ones? Wouldn’t there be similar moves required for each?

Vendors: Forest Hills is a busy station for bus-to-bus transfers (all the people headed from Roslindale, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park to the Longwood hospitals and schools and to Boylston St. will keep taking an outer bus to the 39 bus and changing at FH), and it will become a busy station for CR, too, so business shouldn't fall off too much for the vendors.

Well, except for this measure that may reduce passenger traffic through FH somewhat, but which is also good news for smooth movement of CR trains and passengers:

They said Charlie Cards would be accepted out to zone 2. That means that people who usually take a bus to FH from Roslindale and West Roxbury can just get to the Needham Line at their nearest station, and that people who usually take a bus from around Cleary Square can catch a train from there (Hyde Park or Fairmount Station). This should help make up for the fact that CR cars take longer to load because they have fewer doors. Hopefully the T will come up with somewhat longer trains for those lines. Are there any compatible cars they could lease short-term? Maybe Amtrak could lease them a whole train or two worth of Amfleets or Horizons, now that some of the Siemens cars are in service?

Afterthought: I am picturing the shuttle-bus options along the Southwest Corridor. I wonder if they will just try to stop at all the stations -- which would lead to a slow, serpentine route on residential streets -- or if they will also/instead bump up service on the 39 (Forest Hills to Copley Sq via Centre St and Huntington Ave) and the 42 (FH to Nubian via Washington St) and then run a line of shuttles from down Washington St. and Columbus Ave, skipping Green St and Stony Brook (which are close to the 39) and getting to Jackson Square a lot faster; from Jackson Square, Tremont Street and Columbus Ave allow a pretty straight shot downtown. I wonder if they will do anything with the E line: it might make sense to have some extra 39 buses that only go in as far as Heath St, where passengers can transfer to the E to get downtown, instead of having to take the 39's roundabout route to Copley.

I suspect a certain number of the employees can be put to good use directing pedestrian traffic at the shuttle stations. Some others COULD be used to create and staff temporary prepayment zones at major shuttle and CR stations (eg check or collect fares before people go down to the CR platform at FH, or before people board shuttle buses at FH, Jackson Squ, etc.

Just want to point out that the Zone 2 cash fare is THREE TIMES the rabid-transit fare. Often for the same distance. Also, I thought I heard on the news that the shuttle buses were free (I was half asleep at the time)

If all of the closer in riders fill up the trains then people going to Needham or Providence won't be able to get on. Just like on celebration day after a team won a championship, regular commuters had trouble getting on the trains to go to work. The regular commuter rail fares and fare structure would prevent too many in town riders from filling up the trains.

I don't think that the station platforms could accommodate longer trains, or maybe could take one more car. But if more double deck cars could be added to Providence and Needham trains that might help.

"Traditionally" when a portion of a rapid transit line was bus bridged, no fares were collected either on or outside the shuttle buses nor on any orphaned section of rail line beyond. For example someone riding in from Forest Hills would be expected to pay at Copley when resuming travel on rail transit.. Outside contracted bus drivers did not have to worry about handling money or learning how to operate fare boxes and delaying the bus passing on the instructions to riders.

BandA wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:48 pm Just want to point out that the Zone 2 cash fare is THREE TIMES the rabid-transit fare. Often for the same distance. Also, I thought I heard on the news that the shuttle buses were free (I was half asleep at the time)

I'm not sure I understand what is being proposed. Are they allowing Zone 2 travel for the price of a subway ride? If so, why? Zone 2 is Needham; everything on the Orange Line, and indeed out to West Roxbury is Zone 1A, is it not?

They're allowing rides in Zone 1A/1/2 if you present a CharlieCard. It doesn't even have to have any value on it and I suspect most commuter rail crews will not even bother checking for any sort of ticket/pass/CharlieCard.
There are a lot of bus routes that generally parallel the Needham Line to Forest Hills where most bus riders get on the Orange Line, and there are similar situations on the north end of the Orange Line as well. Making the commuter rail effectively free somewhat reduces the burden on people in this situation.

Is the work being done by in-house maintenance forces or outside contractors?

Most of the track work is being handled by Barletta on the north side I believe.

JoeD

One group has recorded a parody of a song we all know well titled "Charlie (Baker) on the MBTA".

https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content ... -shutdown/Let's see what how people feel after a month - they'll be going after him with tiki-torches & sporks. The owners of Yankee Line gotta be laughing to the bank

Signs posted have the wrong dates - https://twitter.com/ThomasGRyan/status/ ... TStW-fjdqQ

The contractor probably isn't starting until Monday.

Hi All
This is what happens when the (T) does not perform the maintenance on the line as it should be doing. Now the Orange & the Green line have been ran into the ground for the Lack of Maintenance. Maybe the (T) should take a lesson from the Japanese shut down all subway systems at Midnight until Five or six in the morning so Maintenance can be done, on a regular basis. Maybe that makes to much common sense, Pat.