Retirements and Disposition of CR Equipment

They may be newer than the 200s, but the 200s were completely rebuilt and are, IMHO, some of the nicest cars in the fleet.

And he's referring to the oft-discussed Knowledge Corridor commuter rail from Springfield to Greenfield.

Yes. The 200s are really nice.

The 500's aren't bad though. I prefer the wider 2 person seats on either sides. Hate when seats face each other but you can flip the seats if no ones already sitting in them. I prefer them over the 600s where the seats can be like sitting on plywood.


Would the Conn River Knowledge Corridor Commuter Rail be MBTA?

Also, when ever my grandmother visits for the last 4 years or so she's been talking about some kind of high speed railroad to Boston. Sounds like she was talking about the Fitchburg line to Greenfield but I have never heard anything about this.

Also didn't hear about the Knowledge Corridor Commuter Rail. Always thought the tack of western mass train service was just the Amtrak.

I believe the Knowledge Corridor stuff is in the New England forum. MassDOT purchased Pan Am's Conn River Main Line a few years ago and invested a lot of money into it. They're definitely looking at more than just a Vermonter round-trip per day. I believe the ultimate vision right now is improved Vermonter (going all the way to Montreal, too), some sort of New Haven - Hartford - Springfield - maybe beyond (?) regional service, plus a Springfield - Holyoke - Northampton - Greenfield commuter rail service. The caveat is that we don't know which will happen, whether they all will happen, or when we will see official coordination between these separate projects. For now, mothballing the MBB's is some keen forward thinking.

The "Knowledge" Corridor material is spread around at bit,some is in the Amtrak Vermonter thread,some is in the Conn River Line thread
Gulford/PAR forum,some is in the NH,H&S upgrade thread in Amtrak forum. Plus the supposed Equipment for this service is buried at
Seaview Yard(this thread).
The MBB's were put away wet and tired,some may have structure issues,all might be missing parts, pulled to keep remaining MBB's up and running!
Being near Salt Water while in storage,won't help!
Greenfield to Springfield was the "planned" commuter service,with possible shared yard layover with ConnDOT at Springfield.

Since the Pullmans were given a complete remanufacture in '96 they are mechanically the 'newest' of the flats and last slated for retirement in the (now very obsolete) Fleet Plan, despite having the oldest frames by 9 years over the MBB's and Bombardier BTC-1A's.

Because of the reman the 200's are the same service age as the NJT Comet IV's and MNRR Shoreliner IV's, the last 'classic' generation of Comet-class railcars produced new-from-factory (the '02-vintage Alstom Comet V's, the last order by anyone of commuter flats, being a significant design departure from the original Pullman-Bombardier lineage).

Two coaches are back from Delaware Car tonight via PAR LA-2: 239 & 355.

LA-2 is supposed to be picking up the 1812 for Delaware Car.

D

I just noticed we have no 400s coaches. Did we ever? If so would those have been the Bud Diesel Cars or something else entirely?

The 400/1400's were the Boise Budds (RDC rebuilt by MK) and long gone.
There's about 10+ eeking out a living on the Grand Canyon Railroad, other
scattered here and there...

D

I saw South Side Kawasaki 708 coupled on to a scrap metals gon by the old Yard 21 leads yesterday afternoon. Not sure what the comings-and-goings are for it.
JoeD

708's still listed as in-service by NETransit. Might've just been pulled yesterday for prep-to-ship to Alstom for overhaul, since it's a non-rebuild.

Is 010 Out of Service? Still listed as InService on NETransit but has been parked at BET all week.

The 010 has been out of service for a while now (more than a week).

D

Any word as to what's up with 010 and if it will likely return to service anytime soon?

If it's been out of service for while I'm surprised NETransit doesn't reflect that yet.

NETransit usually doesn't mark stuff OOS unless it's out long-term and/or is waiting for a specific parts delivery or specific set of repairs before it's allowed to enter the shop. Day-to-day and week-to-week ailments aren't counted as removals from the active roster.

It's been out of service since May.

D