#14 Orange Line Cars 1400-1551 (From Red/Orange Procurement discussion)

Head-end View wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 7:51 pm Overhead?.........Aren't Red and Orange Lines, 3rd rail powered?

Of course they are. But we're talking about the T, part of which used to be called the Boston Elevated Railway even though it mostly ran underground.

How come they have only been running up to 3 new train sets at a time? What happened to their promise of doing 14 during peak rushour?

Maybe they are afraid they will break down again and are playing it safe?

Could also be that they aren't entirely certain all needed repairs/fixes are satisfactory and are trying not to have another PR disaster like the new OL cars were.

They’re only running a max of 3 new OL trains each weekday. The one new RL train set that has gone into service only operates on a very sporadic schedule, and hasn’t operated for 9 days. The new OL and RL trains still are a PR disaster as far as I’m concerned.

Chrisf, humor us here. Why are they a PR disaster?

How much is it costing the MBTA having these new cars out of service?

There hasn’t been any further issues with them that I’m aware of. Maybe only 3 runs is because they are upgrading the substations that houses the third rail electricity. Other than that, it’s better if someone that works for the railroad answers the question as they have better information than I do at least.

Has anyone else noticed that they have been running 5 new orange line trains regularly? I still think only 3 of them run full time while some aren’t there yet.

They seem to be running five trains simultaneously during morning rush. I haven't noticed if that's also the case in the evening, but during the rest of operating hours, they wouldn't need as many.

Having ridden a set of new cars for the first time today, I noticed that they have no audible warning that the doors are about to close - on account of the doors beeping constantly when they're open. That is really obnoxious to listen to, in addition to it probably being a safety hazard.

The beeping pattern changes (gets quicker) when the doors are closing. Having an audible warning that the doors are open is for accessibility concerns.

Waiting for a Green Line train at North Station Saturday night, I heard the automated voice say that the next Orange Line train to Forest Hills would be a set of brand new cars. Sure enough, one of the new Chinese trains pulled in about a minute later.

Interesting that they tell you that in the announcements. Wish other transit systems would do that.

Zero new Orange Line cars out right now. That is highly unusual - it is now common to have four or five sets in use all day long, every day. There were several sets in service earlier today (as was the one new Red Line train, which is also not running now). They all seemed to vanish around the same timeframe. Something up?

This is why: https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/1527359951563198482

"Earlier today, a new Orange Line train experienced a mechanical problem in one of the train’s multiple braking units. While we work to determine the exact cause of the failure, we are proactively removing all new Orange Line trains from service out of an abundance of caution."