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New Orange Line cars: Better late than never?

By adamg on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 12:54pm

WBUR reports the MBTA has once again pushed off the start of the ten new Orange Line cars it now has on hand, this time to the summer, due to a software glitch involving how the cars interact with the T's signaling system, which at least sounds like the kind of thing you'd want to hold off a rollout over.

Topics: 
The T
Free tagging: 
Orange Line


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Comments

By Michael on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 1:47pm.

glad i was sitting down when i received this shocking and unexpected news

By Waquiot on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 1:57pm.

But wasn't this the problem 3 months ago?

Even I'm losing patience over this. I guess the good news is that they'll have two complete trainsets to go online if/when the problem is fixed. Then again, perhaps they'll have 152 cars ready by the time the software people figure it out.

By Jethro on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 2:36pm.

In January the delay was because the signaling system needed to be tested. That testing was supposed to finish up right around now. This new news is saying the testing found issues that needed to be fixed and now they need to be re-tested.

By Waquiot on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 4:18pm.

But considering that Boeing has not solved the software glitches that caused a Lion Air 737 MAX to crash last October, I'm going to assume it will take a bit.

By KellyJMF on Wed, 03/27/2019 - 9:51am.

The issue with the Boeing planes is that they have a physics problem that they are trying to fix with software but screwed that up too.

By cybah on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 2:05pm.

Should we start a pool to see if it will be pushed back to Winter 2019?

By BostonDog on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 2:07pm.

I have 2020 vision

By Bobp on Tue, 03/26/2019 - 9:26am.

2020 it is

By anon on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 4:14pm.

I'm not exactly looking forward to the new cars. While increased reliability is great (if it actually happens), I'm sure the new cars won't shut the hell up, and will bombard us with the same endless robo announcements over and over, every single day of our commutes until we retire.

Precedent: the Blue Line cars, and the new Green Line car.

By carol on Tue, 03/26/2019 - 1:32pm.

what kind of announcements do they make? i hate that

By THE_WIZ on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 5:11pm.

IN THE CONGO.”

By Nobody on Tue, 03/26/2019 - 8:20am.

Nobody beats THE_WIZ!

By Ari O on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 6:07pm.

See, when they said "early spring" they didn't mention the year. I assumed it was 2020 or 2021.

But this quotes them as saying "this summer." That's months, maybe even years, earlier!

By necturus on Tue, 03/26/2019 - 3:40pm.

They'd have done better to go shopping in Europe, methinks.

By JonT on Tue, 03/26/2019 - 5:37pm.

From the Globe's article on the subject:

The holdup is a problem with a system within the car, manufactured by the French firm Alstom, that helps trains interact with the Orange Line’s signal system, which controls speed and vehicle spacing.

Full article at https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/03/25/mbta-orange-line-trains-bum...