|
|
| Re: PHOTOS: MBTA MPXpress Locomotive #010 In Delivery (1024598) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: PHOTOS: MBTA MPXpress Locomotive #010 In Delivery |
|
|
Posted by aem7ac on Wed Jan 12 01:59:43 2011, in response to Re: PHOTOS: MBTA MPXpress Locomotive #010 In Delivery, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Wed Jan 12 01:49:06 2011. If your employer is in Back Bay, it kinda is if you're coming from the Old Colony.This is true, but Old Colony had never gone through Back Bay no matter how you cut it. Supposing that Old Colony was built using some kind of rail rapid and/or electrified light rail technology, more than likely the electric trains would have either terminated at South Station or ran out onto one of the North Station branches. Either way it wasn't going to go through Back Bay and you would still have to transfer. North Station is a bit of a bear to deal with in Boston, Hoboken, Flatbush, and even Penn aren't ideal, Ogilvie and Union Station are on the wrong side of the Chicago River, and the Caltrain terminal is a perpetual walk to the core. Hoboken and Flatbush should cease to exist. But in any case you did not have to use those stations; there are always transfers that would get you to Penn. The Northwestern and Union Stations are about as close to downtown as you're going to get without digging more tunnels, ditto Caltrain terminal. I didn't say that they could not be improved on -- I only said they are within 0.5 miles of downtown, which they basically are. Aren't those all slow diesel locomotives hauling heavy cars? I'd be amazed that they didn't take forever to accelerate to maximum speed. Right, so there is no point in their having a high MAS. So the 45 mph MAS on the electric units really isn't constraining anything in terms of performance. To really improve speed, you would have to do both -- increase the MAS and improve the acceleration. But at some point the frequent station stops are going to become a problem, so you'd have to introduce express service. All this adds up to a lot of money. You're way better off with just the heavy diesel service -- at least the infrastructure would be cheap(-ish) that way, without having to pay for substations, third rail, high platforms, grade separation, and all that jazz. |
|
|
|