Orange Line questions

[octr202]

I haven't seen many signs of use since they put everything back together around Assembly Square, until about a month ago. Since then I'll occasionally see a pair sitting on that track near Wellington, and noticed that the rust has been broken up a bit on that track.

[Red Wing]

I've always wondered why they never used the middle track for the predominant direction of travel. I realize that some of the stations would have to be fixed up.

[MBTA3247]

The middle track was meant to be an express track back when they intended to run the Orange Line all the way up to Reading. That never happened, so the need to run expresses became moot.

[Red Wing]

I realize that. What I'm saying during the morning rush hour move the inbound trains to the center track so that all the doors open on each car and push the morning outbounds with less passengers over to the right hand track outbound. During the PM rush move everything over one track so the outbounds can open all doors like they do now. Admittedly I haven't ridden the Orange Line north of North Station since Assembly was built so I don't know how that station is set up.

[BostonUrbEx]

I realize that. What I'm saying during the morning rush hour move the inbound trains to the center track so that all the doors open on each car and push the morning outbounds with less passengers over to the right hand track outbound. During the PM rush move everything over one track so the outbounds can open all doors like they do now. Admittedly I haven't ridden the Orange Line north of North Station since Assembly was built so I don't know how that station is set up.

Community College has an out of service platform and now Assembly Sq has no second platform. Also, I think the signal system would need investment. It seems that running wrong-iron is incredibly difficult, so I can only imagine what having a bi-directional track would do to the current system.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

I realize that. What I'm saying during the morning rush hour move the inbound trains to the center track so that all the doors open on each car and push the morning outbounds with less passengers over to the right hand track outbound. During the PM rush move everything over one track so the outbounds can open all doors like they do now. Admittedly I haven't ridden the Orange Line north of North Station since Assembly was built so I don't know how that station is set up.

Community College has an out of service platform and now Assembly Sq has no second platform. Also, I think the signal system would need investment. It seems that running wrong-iron is incredibly difficult, so I can only imagine what having a bi-directional track would do to the current system.

I don't think it's all that difficult as set up. When they had to short-turn the Red Line at Harvard for the weekend trackbed work shutdowns on the Alewife extension the trains would really fly going wrong-rail on the inbound side for the turnback. I don't think the ATO system really cares one way or the other as long as it's set up for that purpose.

It's more the fact that there's absolutely no need to run Orange in regular service on the bi-directional track unless something is messed up on one of the other two, so it's not maintained to the same standard. It would need some instructure refreshing to go at full speed.

Assembly is provisioned with the space to add the extra platform track should they need to. The MOW gravel driveway next to the commuter rail track is where things would be shifted over to create the new island, and the overhang to the lobby can have a footbridge grafted onto it over the tracks. There was just zero reason to spend the money on new construction.

[BostonUrbEx]

This tweet shows a track panel being installed on the Orange Line near Forest Hills: https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/627595484194934784" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

IIRC, the Orange Line is rails fastened to concrete in the SWC. Are they switching over to wood ties? Or were there already some sections of ties before?

[Gerry6309]

This tweet shows a track panel being installed on the Orange Line near Forest Hills: https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/627595484194934784" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

IIRC, the Orange Line is rails fastened to concrete in the SWC. Are they switching over to wood ties? Or were there already some sections of ties before?

Certain sections of the southwest corridor had ties and ballast from day 1. Mostly around crossovers. Recently some sections of floating slab have been replaced with ties and ballast. If you are on a car with good wheels, you can tell the difference when you are on conventional construction - noise level goes way down.

Despite someone's comment on twitter, this is related to wear and tear, not snow.

[chrisf]

Certain sections of the southwest corridor had ties and ballast from day 1. Mostly around crossovers. Recently some sections of floating slab have been replaced with ties and ballast. If you are on a car with good wheels, you can tell the difference when you are on conventional construction - noise level goes way down.

I find it fascinating (and deafening) that the concrete slab construction was adopted. The noise of the Orange Line on the SWC would be so much quieter without the slab construction and I have to figure that today this means of construction would never be approved due to the noise.

[BandA]

Have they found cement ties that don't fail in the extreme freeze/thaw cycles of our boston winters?

[Gerry6309]

Have they found cement ties that don't fail in the extreme freeze/thaw cycles of our boston winters?

The T gave up on concrete ties years ago. They has also adopted floating slab construction, with similar results.

Go ride an el (wooden ties on steel structure) or a subway (wooden half ties set in concrete) in New York and note how quiet the ride is. Also note how infrequent the brakes in emergency situations are. Note the absence of excessive thumping from the wheels. Emergency stops kill wheels. Bad wheels kill roadbed which doesn't have a cushion. Note that the floating slab areas are where the T is putting its track work efforts at present. The prosecution rests.

[ck4049]

On NETransit I found the following posted in the Orange Line section:
"Note: Car 01263 is original car 01281 and car 01281 is original car 01263. Cars were renumbered and swapped mates 08/2014."

Does anyone know what the point of this was?

[Disney Guy]

Can a car's motors cut out and the blue indicator light on the outside come on all by themselves while the train is moving?

I was in one of the middle cars of a, outbound Orange Line train when there were two very momentary shudders (less than a second each) suggestive of just that car's motors not pulling their weight as the train moved along. The train stopped at the next station normally. At the very moment the train started up, it seemed as if the car I was in wanted to accelerate faster than the rest of the train and it made one brief "ka-chunk" convulsion that everyone inside could feel. Then the train started up normally and then stopped and ran seemingly normally for the rest of the trip. When I got off, I noticed the blue indicator for "motors cut out" illuminated.

[diburning]

Usually the shudder is caused by arcing on the third rail. The car would cut/lose power momentarily.

[StefanW]

I haven't seen many signs of use since they put everything back together around Assembly Square, until about a month ago. Since then I'll occasionally see a pair sitting on that track near Wellington, and noticed that the rust has been broken up a bit on that track.

Right now (2016-03-31 8:55 AM) there's a pair of cars sitting at Assembly on the 3rd track with all the doors open on the side AWAY from the platform. That's about all I could see, since I was going by on an inbound Rockburyport train.