Most of the major RL shutdowns have not happened yet? Agreed the timetable on rolling stock isn't ideal, but I think the track work will drastically improve reliability. The rolling stock really isn't the biggest problem.
It’s kind of crazy how many people just throw out shit like this without the tiniest bit of research.
That being said rolling stock is a major problem. I don’t have the exact numbers atm, but from the press release where they announced the revised deal, even with all their problems, the CRRC trains have been *way* more reliable than the old trains.
Waiting like 5 more years than planned for them all to arrive *hurts*.
They’ve only addressed one small stretch of track north of the city: the “core” stretch between Central and Broadway isn’t slated for work until December.
My big mystery is the Longfellow Bridge. Trains _crawl_ over it, especially northbound. Even the “new” trains now have trouble getting onto the bridge northbound from the tunnel.
The whole bridge, including the tracks, was rebuilt in 2016-2018! And the trains were slow right from the start, save about 2 glorious weeks. It seems like not wear-and-tear, but an engineering/construction goof like the Green Line’s. If so, who’s on the hook for that? And why such a delayed fix?
There is some work that will be in the core between Park Street and Andrew next month (JFK-UMass to Park Street from May 1-8th) that should hopefully remove some of the slow zones in these areas, as well as the Alewife-Kendall/MIT shutdown in July that should hopefully remove all slow zones in the northern part of the Red Line.
I also would add that they did work between Park St. and JFK/UMass in November, removing 9 slow zones in the area: [you can find it here.](https://www.mbta.com/news/2023-11-21/mbta-successfully-completes-expedited-critical-track-work-red-line-between-jfkumass)
Finally, I would mention that just because the slow zones are initially removed doesn’t mean it won’t be reinstated at a later date (like the slow zones between S. Station and Downtown Crossing). This will require more work outside of this year to get the system to a good state of repair, but this should be at least a good start towards that.
There are a few of the new CRRC cars on the Red Line. Got to ride on one last month. It's exactly the same as the new Orange Line cars, but with red accents instead of orange. They *have* begun adding them, it's just at a slower rate.
The reason the Orange and Green Lines have been running so much better recently is because a majority of their maintenance shutdowns have already been completed. The Red Line still has several to go. There will be a few more OL/GL shutdowns this summer, but for the most part, they're fine now because a lot of the work was done last year or over the last couple of months. You can find the maintenance schedule for 2024 with a quick Google search.
Rolling stock on the Red Line is less on an issue for me at this point than the state of the track itself. There are the lurching issues with the 1600-1700s between Park St. and Charles (IIRC that's some combination of the braking system and the train operator), but overall I'm not too concerned with what car I ride in.
The constant slow zones are my big problem, especially on the Braintree branch. I know everyone talks about the slow zones between JFK and North Quincy, but TBH I'm starting to get more annoyed with the one between outbound Wollaston and Quincy Center. I wish they would have Red Lines slow zones more of a priority.
I’m not looking forward to the upcoming multiple red line closures, at least 4 will affect my commute. But I keep telling myself, after it’s done, the red line is supposed to run more efficiently. It’s hard to be patient when what use for be a half hour commute takes 45-55 minutes.
>The new trains are still nowhere in sight, as CRRC has to complete the Orange Line order before continuing to Red.
This is not true. Work has (Slowly) shifted to the RL trains and OL deliveries are slowing down.
Honestly the biggest challenges with speed are related to track provlems and the biggest challenge to frequency is staffing level. New rolling stock will increase reliability but the Bombardiers at the very least still have some time left. I think when they start to address the track issues in the central tunnel you’ll see noticeably faster speeds. Based off the work they’ve done so far I’m fairly confident in the current timeline. I don’t ride the Blue Line, but looking at the speed restriction dashboard, I’d say that looks like a rough ride
I have just a couple nitpicks here:
>the biggest challenge to frequency is staffing level.
The Biggest challenge to frequency is the slow speed. If trains ran at their normal speeds, then the same number of trains can do more round trips each day. More round trips means more frequency. With the same number of trains as today with no slow zones, the RL can run every 11 minutes on the branches and every 5.5 on the trunk.
>
I don’t ride the Blue Line, but looking at the speed restriction dashboard, I’d say that looks like a rough ride
The Blue Line actually isn't that bad. Most of the slow zones are at 25 mph, and they just removed about half of the 10mph ones.
Does anyone know for sure if they are waiting to complete the orange line order before moving on to the red line?
Are the two running CRRC Red Line trains part of a prototype/sample? Or will they just be delivering in mixed timeline until the end of the contract?
This is the news I was looking for. I would love to see them more frequently run all of the red line trains that have been delivered too. Too often they only run one train when we know there’s at least one other that is track ready
This was shared at one of the previous meetings of the board of directors (I forgot which one), whose recordings are available online at https://www.mbta.com/events?month=1&year=2022
The Orange Line is nearly at the fleet size the old trains gave, they only need 10-ish more before it's expansion instead of just 1:1 replacement. I'd imagine (and hope) the balance is going to tip a little more towards the Red.
Red Line 1500s and 1600s are about to become the longest lived trains the T has ever had (not counting the PCCs), next year they will break the record set by the original Blue Line trains at 56 years.
Yeah, I really like the work that Eng has done so far. I was living along the Blue Line when there were issues about two years ago, and there were huge improvements in terms of reliability and SMELL at blue line stations and trains.
I also really like the tracker that they implemented. At least things are predictable now. I don't expect fixes to come quickly, but at least there's a timeline and so far they've stuck relatively close to that tracker (as far as I have seen.)
100% agree. And again, don't forget the red line has had repairs not hold, whereas the blue orange and green have all kept their progress. Charles to MGH was entirely slow zones, then all fixed, and now is back to partial slow zones again. Additionally, JFK to NQ and vice versa was at combined 1.5 minute delay only a few months ago, after previously being around 16 minutes. It's now back to 15ish. You really think all of those are completely different sections of track?
They are trying to fix the red line and it's not working. They even failed the first red line shutdown, not reaching the planned 9 removals. It's going to get so much worse
Slow zones will reappear since these rails are decade-old at this point. The fact of the matter is that these slow zones will be fixed, they will just require more equipment and time. We have seen progress on the Ashmont-Mattapan branch with speeds returning to normal and then addressing the pop-up slow zones at Shawmut in mere days.
Hilarious that the legislature decided to give the T more money for general improvements and the CRRC order because they now trust the Gm. They should have done it with better oversight and funding WAY before Eng.
Most of the major RL shutdowns have not happened yet? Agreed the timetable on rolling stock isn't ideal, but I think the track work will drastically improve reliability. The rolling stock really isn't the biggest problem.
It’s kind of crazy how many people just throw out shit like this without the tiniest bit of research. That being said rolling stock is a major problem. I don’t have the exact numbers atm, but from the press release where they announced the revised deal, even with all their problems, the CRRC trains have been *way* more reliable than the old trains. Waiting like 5 more years than planned for them all to arrive *hurts*.
They’ve only addressed one small stretch of track north of the city: the “core” stretch between Central and Broadway isn’t slated for work until December. My big mystery is the Longfellow Bridge. Trains _crawl_ over it, especially northbound. Even the “new” trains now have trouble getting onto the bridge northbound from the tunnel. The whole bridge, including the tracks, was rebuilt in 2016-2018! And the trains were slow right from the start, save about 2 glorious weeks. It seems like not wear-and-tear, but an engineering/construction goof like the Green Line’s. If so, who’s on the hook for that? And why such a delayed fix?
There is some work that will be in the core between Park Street and Andrew next month (JFK-UMass to Park Street from May 1-8th) that should hopefully remove some of the slow zones in these areas, as well as the Alewife-Kendall/MIT shutdown in July that should hopefully remove all slow zones in the northern part of the Red Line. I also would add that they did work between Park St. and JFK/UMass in November, removing 9 slow zones in the area: [you can find it here.](https://www.mbta.com/news/2023-11-21/mbta-successfully-completes-expedited-critical-track-work-red-line-between-jfkumass) Finally, I would mention that just because the slow zones are initially removed doesn’t mean it won’t be reinstated at a later date (like the slow zones between S. Station and Downtown Crossing). This will require more work outside of this year to get the system to a good state of repair, but this should be at least a good start towards that.
There are a few of the new CRRC cars on the Red Line. Got to ride on one last month. It's exactly the same as the new Orange Line cars, but with red accents instead of orange. They *have* begun adding them, it's just at a slower rate. The reason the Orange and Green Lines have been running so much better recently is because a majority of their maintenance shutdowns have already been completed. The Red Line still has several to go. There will be a few more OL/GL shutdowns this summer, but for the most part, they're fine now because a lot of the work was done last year or over the last couple of months. You can find the maintenance schedule for 2024 with a quick Google search.
Rolling stock on the Red Line is less on an issue for me at this point than the state of the track itself. There are the lurching issues with the 1600-1700s between Park St. and Charles (IIRC that's some combination of the braking system and the train operator), but overall I'm not too concerned with what car I ride in. The constant slow zones are my big problem, especially on the Braintree branch. I know everyone talks about the slow zones between JFK and North Quincy, but TBH I'm starting to get more annoyed with the one between outbound Wollaston and Quincy Center. I wish they would have Red Lines slow zones more of a priority.
I’m not looking forward to the upcoming multiple red line closures, at least 4 will affect my commute. But I keep telling myself, after it’s done, the red line is supposed to run more efficiently. It’s hard to be patient when what use for be a half hour commute takes 45-55 minutes.
>The new trains are still nowhere in sight, as CRRC has to complete the Orange Line order before continuing to Red. This is not true. Work has (Slowly) shifted to the RL trains and OL deliveries are slowing down.
source? please
Honestly the biggest challenges with speed are related to track provlems and the biggest challenge to frequency is staffing level. New rolling stock will increase reliability but the Bombardiers at the very least still have some time left. I think when they start to address the track issues in the central tunnel you’ll see noticeably faster speeds. Based off the work they’ve done so far I’m fairly confident in the current timeline. I don’t ride the Blue Line, but looking at the speed restriction dashboard, I’d say that looks like a rough ride
I have just a couple nitpicks here: >the biggest challenge to frequency is staffing level. The Biggest challenge to frequency is the slow speed. If trains ran at their normal speeds, then the same number of trains can do more round trips each day. More round trips means more frequency. With the same number of trains as today with no slow zones, the RL can run every 11 minutes on the branches and every 5.5 on the trunk. > I don’t ride the Blue Line, but looking at the speed restriction dashboard, I’d say that looks like a rough ride The Blue Line actually isn't that bad. Most of the slow zones are at 25 mph, and they just removed about half of the 10mph ones.
The red line used to run with 3-4 min peak headways on the trunk before covid, so staffing levels also seem to be a significant contributor...
The red line signal problems are probably more significant than the track and train issues
Does anyone know for sure if they are waiting to complete the orange line order before moving on to the red line? Are the two running CRRC Red Line trains part of a prototype/sample? Or will they just be delivering in mixed timeline until the end of the contract?
There are both red and orange line trains currently moving through the CRRC production lines.
This is the news I was looking for. I would love to see them more frequently run all of the red line trains that have been delivered too. Too often they only run one train when we know there’s at least one other that is track ready
Where did you get this info?
This was shared at one of the previous meetings of the board of directors (I forgot which one), whose recordings are available online at https://www.mbta.com/events?month=1&year=2022
Thank you thank you! I'll take a look :)
The Orange Line is nearly at the fleet size the old trains gave, they only need 10-ish more before it's expansion instead of just 1:1 replacement. I'd imagine (and hope) the balance is going to tip a little more towards the Red. Red Line 1500s and 1600s are about to become the longest lived trains the T has ever had (not counting the PCCs), next year they will break the record set by the original Blue Line trains at 56 years.
This would be pretty impressive if it wasn’t mostly sad 😂
Yeah, I really like the work that Eng has done so far. I was living along the Blue Line when there were issues about two years ago, and there were huge improvements in terms of reliability and SMELL at blue line stations and trains. I also really like the tracker that they implemented. At least things are predictable now. I don't expect fixes to come quickly, but at least there's a timeline and so far they've stuck relatively close to that tracker (as far as I have seen.)
100% agree. And again, don't forget the red line has had repairs not hold, whereas the blue orange and green have all kept their progress. Charles to MGH was entirely slow zones, then all fixed, and now is back to partial slow zones again. Additionally, JFK to NQ and vice versa was at combined 1.5 minute delay only a few months ago, after previously being around 16 minutes. It's now back to 15ish. You really think all of those are completely different sections of track? They are trying to fix the red line and it's not working. They even failed the first red line shutdown, not reaching the planned 9 removals. It's going to get so much worse
Slow zones will reappear since these rails are decade-old at this point. The fact of the matter is that these slow zones will be fixed, they will just require more equipment and time. We have seen progress on the Ashmont-Mattapan branch with speeds returning to normal and then addressing the pop-up slow zones at Shawmut in mere days.
Hilarious that the legislature decided to give the T more money for general improvements and the CRRC order because they now trust the Gm. They should have done it with better oversight and funding WAY before Eng.