3911 has arrived at Riverside according to NETransit
Railroad Forums
Green Line Type 9 Thread
- Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
Ha. Nice job type 7 3684. You came before I was gonna announce that. Good game.
Why aren't they all listed in service? I have seen every single one of them on the new trains tracker multiple times at least 10 to be honest. Just put them into full time service, they work fine and people need the ada accessibility that the other cars don't have.
They need to undergo a certain amount of testing before they can be accepted for service.
That is correct. The testing is to ensure that they are good enough for service. As a matter of fact, 3909 has been accepted.
I think what Mr. 1050 may be saying is why are the cars that have been accepted not in service more often... that's a really good question and I don't understand why either. Lately they've been favoring running one or occasionally two two-car trains, usually 3903-3905 and/or 3902-3904, during the AM rush but rarely into the afternoon, and always on the Riverside Line. I don't quite get why they're being so cautious and not using as many cars as available as often as they can and wherever they can. The T needs to make a big deal about the improvements they are making!
The type 9s that have been entered service are not running full-time service yet due to the vehicle engineers watching how the cars perform in service. They are fine-tuning the software of the cars to ensure the reliability of the cars. This is done to new train vehicles in the early process of procurement like how they only have 11 of the 24 type 9s delivered and it's a way to learn the small bugs in the cars if you know what I mean. This is happening to the 2 new orange line trains that have entered service. So I guess when the engineers feel that the cars have no more bugs (small tiny problems), then they will allow the cars to run full-time service. This is also to make sure the future cars of the type 9s delivered don't have the same bugs. Think of this as like a BETA of a software. It's kind of like that.
The T has every right to be gun shy considering their (pardon the pun) track record with rail vehicle acquisitions, but this prolonged semi-testing-semi-revenue-service thing is new. Used to be you tested the heck out of whatever number of pilot vehicles you spec'd, which would tell you what mods you needed to make, then the production vehicles would come out with those mods and for the most part all you'd need is a few thousand miles of burn-in and then release the hounds for full unrestricted service. There was little need to limit service of production vehicles because the bugs were supposed to be just about all worked out by then - that was the whole point of intense and exhaustive testing of pre-production or pilot cars. Sure, even after that, there might be some hiccups along the way and you might need to pull cars briefly, but they should be relatively minor things that are easily rectified at that point. That's how it was with the subway/light rail acquisitions I was relevant enough to witness (Type 7s, 01700s, 01800s, 0700s).
Note no mention until now of the Type 8 utter debacle, which is I suspect what really changed things. Maybe this is the "new/better" way of doing it. I don't get that, but I'm not a highly paid consultant either, I'm just a guy who pays for and uses the service and wants to see the new cars improve it. I guess in the end if it results in solid, reliable vehicles and service, all's good. In the meantime it's painful and aggravating to watch the tentative half-steps. If a vehicle is accepted for revenue service it should be fully and absolutely able to operate in unrestricted full time service, not limited to a couple of trips and scurry back to the barn for a download.
Note no mention until now of the Type 8 utter debacle, which is I suspect what really changed things. Maybe this is the "new/better" way of doing it. I don't get that, but I'm not a highly paid consultant either, I'm just a guy who pays for and uses the service and wants to see the new cars improve it. I guess in the end if it results in solid, reliable vehicles and service, all's good. In the meantime it's painful and aggravating to watch the tentative half-steps. If a vehicle is accepted for revenue service it should be fully and absolutely able to operate in unrestricted full time service, not limited to a couple of trips and scurry back to the barn for a download.
Jwhite you interpreted my question correctly and thanks everyone for the inspired answers! 
jwhite07 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:07 am The T has every right to be gun shy considering their (pardon the pun) track record with rail vehicle acquisitions, but this prolonged semi-testing-semi-revenue-service thing is new. Used to be you tested the heck out of whatever number of pilot vehicles you spec'd, which would tell you what mods you needed to make, then the production vehicles would come out with those mods and for the most part all you'd need is a few thousand miles of burn-in and then release the hounds for full unrestricted service. There was little need to limit service of production vehicles because the bugs were supposed to be just about all worked out by then - that was the whole point of intense and exhaustive testing of pre-production or pilot cars. Sure, even after that, there might be some hiccups along the way and you might need to pull cars briefly, but they should be relatively minor things that are easily rectified at that point. That's how it was with the subway/light rail acquisitions I was relevant enough to witness (Type 7s, 01700s, 01800s, 0700s).Could it be that it's slightly more effective to do it this way, so that the vehicles are sort of in service, operators are being trained on the new type, AND the cars are tested for issues at the same time? With these cars being more computerized than the previous generations, more testing might be required, as there are more systems to test, and more things that can go wrong.
Note no mention until now of the Type 8 utter debacle, which is I suspect what really changed things. Maybe this is the "new/better" way of doing it. I don't get that, but I'm not a highly paid consultant either, I'm just a guy who pays for and uses the service and wants to see the new cars improve it. I guess in the end if it results in solid, reliable vehicles and service, all's good. In the meantime it's painful and aggravating to watch the tentative half-steps. If a vehicle is accepted for revenue service it should be fully and absolutely able to operate in unrestricted full time service, not limited to a couple of trips and scurry back to the barn for a download.
3908-9 are now in service. 3910-11 left before the current green line cars are all in service. Until the rest come from production this is true.
It's not listed on NETransit but 3913 is at Riverside now.
At some point, if it hasn't happened already, 3900 and 3901 will likely be sent back to Elmira for mods and upgrade to production spec. Neither of them have been in service for quite a long time now.
That's why they aren't in full time service yet. Hopefully once they do that and test it enough that it will be applied to the rest of the fleet and they will all be allowed to run full time.
So 3909 has been running on the line but only by itself. But 3908 has been put as an active car so it's 9 type 9's active.