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The new Orange Line train made her so excited she could yell; but at the second stop, it was taken out of service - oh, well
By adamg on Wed, 01/29/2020 - 11:09am
Hammar's thougts on her brief ride.
At 8:13 a.m., Sam Hammar was one happy Orange Line camper: She got to Oak Grove and there, waiting for her like a shiny new carriage was one of the new Orange Line trains. She was so excited, she posted a video - with hearts on it.
That new-train feeling didn't last long.
Just eight minutes later, she reported she was now on the platform at Wellington because the T took the shiny train out of service.
Guess the new normal isn’t happening for a while.
The T replied:
Hi Sam. We understand your excitement for the new trains & apologize that your ride was cut short this morning. As the new trains come into service, we continue to adjust how they perform & how they are operated. Sometimes, like today, this requires we take them out of service.
Somebody then asked the T and Hammar why, more specifically, the train had to depart for the yard. Hammar, at least, had only a suspicion:
It seemed warm & stable & wonderful- maybe it’s just not that into us.
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Comments
Not the very next stop.
Malden Center is between Oak Grove and Wellington.
Yep
From correct in the headline to wrong in the story, grr. Fixed.
New Trains
What's with the new orange line cars hiding among the dead Red Line trains just south of South Station? It looks like it they haven't moved in weeks or months.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong ...
But I thought those were the first two cars shipped over from China (as opposed to assembled in Springfield) and were meant solely for testing, not actual passenger service.
Why they're being stored in South Boston, though?
Training
The controls on the new OL and RL trains are basically identical, so they're using an OL set to train RL operators in advance of the RL trains' delivery.
New Normal
"Guess the new normal isn’t happening for a while."
Sorry, you misunderstood. This IS the new normal.
It's not really the new normal
I used to live in Malden, and this was a frustrating but not too uncommon practice. Trains will run all the way to Oak Grove and then run revenue service south as if returning to Forest Hills, only to be taken out of service at Wellington as the end of the scheduled run, as that's the location of the maintenance depot and storage yards. They never changed the rollsigns, since (I assume) each one had to be manually rolled, and the motorpersons would rarely make the announcement until arriving at Wellington, but it was common enough an occurrence that regular riders knew what was up. Now with electronic rollsigns, they should be able to let passengers know that the train is only going as far as Wellington.
Now, I'm no choo choo engineer
but it could be routine and mandatory calibration.
I know it seems easy to say "buy train. train go on track. press go." except ill bet there are a multitude of reasons to make minor adjustments before beginning full service
But they're getting more and better
video screens. Pay no attention to the disabled train behind the curtain.
Not art.
Not art.
There must have been two trains going
I was at Forest Hills at 8:03 this morning and there was a new train waiting to go northbound. So they must have had both new trains in service at that time. But here's the interesting part. On the opposite track at FH there was an old train that was clearly leaving first. I decided to take the new train even though it meant a 6 minute delay. I do stuff like that ‘cause I’m something of a transit nut. To my surprise, 10 more people got on my car in the new train before the other one left. If that’s true for all 6 cars, that means 50+ rush hour commuters love the new trains so much they accepted a delay just to ride in the shiny new cars!
If they're in still working
If they're in still working out the kinks, why put the car in service during rush hours?
Is that one of those "very
Is that one of those "very easy to push" emergency buttons in the background of the photo?