Posts about 7000 Series

Dan Stessel, WMATA spokesperson, said the 364th 7000-series car, which will replace the last 1000-series, is scheduled for 2016. That assumes nothing changes; he notes, "While we have not adjusted the delivery schedule due to this year's events in Japan, we are closely monitoring supply chains and will be in a better position late this year to know what, if any, impact there may be to the production timeline."

So what will happen with the 1000s? Kurt Raschke has some thoughts:

They'll almost certainly be scrapped, like PATH is doing now with the PA1-4 cars now that all of the PA-5s have been delivered. It would be excellent if at least one married pair were to be preserved (preferably 1000/1001 at minimum), but today's WMATA is not a terribly nostalgic agency.

Then there's the issue of what to do with the preserved cars; you could send them to the National Capital Trolley Museum, but I don't know if they have appropriate facilities for them (considering that they are a trolley museum), and I doubt WMATA would just leave them on the property indefinitely.

As far as using the scrapped cars for various projects, that may or may not happen. As an example, London Underground is in the process of scrapping the 1967 Tube Stock fleet, and the company doing the scrapping has been instructed by Transport for London to not permit any "sizable pieces" off the property (to include whole train cars). It's not clear why this is, but it may have to do with liability, or accounting or tax issues.

But what if some organizations could buy entire cars? What ideas do you have for interesting ways to use them?

Safety staff are now "embedded out in the field," Sarles says at bus and rail shops. These staff are now interacting regularly with superintendents, mechanics and other employees, and are participating on the local safety committee. This is encouraging, though it highlights how awry Metro's safety procedures had gone, if its safety officers were not previously working at the local facilities on a regular basis.

In accordance with an NTSB recommendation, WMATA has also put in a safety measurement system to collect data which can analyzed to uncover trends and anomalies. These data can be better used to identify hazards over time.

Sarles also emphasized that WMATA's new focus on State of Good Repair investment will help promote the safety culture with employees at all levels. "The employees see [our state of good repair investments] and that helps them realize that we, as an organization, are making heavy investments in safety. That encourages people to think more about it."

"We had to really rebuild the capital program management capability of this organization, because it had been lost. Because of the feeling that construction was done, so we just have little to do. Well, we have a lot to do, $5 billion in 6 years."

On escalators and elevators

Sarles brought up the work WMATA is undertaking to implement the recommendations of a consultant for improving escalator and elevator reliability.

We've criticized that report, however, for not presenting any causal analysis of actual downtime, but rather a list of a couple dozen standards that WMATA falls short of.

When asked whether he knows the actual causes of escalator and elevator downtime, Sarles agreed that the report did not provide such causes. Such analysis is being done by the new head of the Elevator and Escalator Department (ELES) using data that is now being entered into the maintenance management system.

With this analysis, they hope to know the causes of downtime "in the next couple months". He pointed out that ELES had been elevated in the organizational structure to help problems be addressed more seriously.

Sarles added that the major overhaul work at Foggy Bottom, where the 3 street to mezzanine escalators are being completely replaced and a staircase added, is indicative of the steps Metro is willing to take to get the vertical movement problem under control.

"I'm an engineer by background," Sarles said. "I started out in construction, so my thing is delivering results, not talking about them forever."

On bag searches

Having told WTOP on Monday that the bag searches are more about deterrence than detection, we asked Sarles to explain how exactly these searches could deter a terrorist attack. Instead, he turned to the example of New York, essentially saying that because the NYPD and Port Authority Police have this policy, WMATA should as well.

"You don't want the bad guys to think everything is predictable," he said, reminded the group of bloggers several times that this is not his rationale, but that of counter­terrorism experts. These experts have advised the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and NYPD policies, where, he says, random searches have been successful, though without offering any clarification of what 'successful' means.

When pressed on how much unpredictability is introduced by forcing a bad guy to go to a station several blocks away, Sarles again relied the authority of counter­terrorism experts. These unnamed experts say that terrorists like to plan, and the unpredictability of random searches may force them to go back to the drawing board. Asked what's to keep a terrorist for planning for the event that their first target station has bag checks, he immediately changed the subject.

We asked Sarles whether WMATA had explored any ways to use the TSA grants to implement counter­terrorism measures that also increase the presence of officers within the station, on the platforms. He answered quickly, "Well, these searches are just outside the fare control line," before changing the subject.

On a positive note, Sarles emphasized that he would not allow random searches to be something that caused any riders to stand in line to enter a station. "I don't want customers to be inconvenienced."

On funding

Sarles voiced far more concern over the future of federal funding, given the new Republican-controlled House, than the future of funding from Virginia or Maryland. He said he would be actively lobbying Congress, as well as working to mobilize other supporters much like was done at the end of 2010 to support extending the $230 transit benefit.

When asked what a drop in federal funding would mean, Sarles was blunt about the impact it would have on bringing WMATA up to a state of good repair. "We will not catch up. It's devastating."

On farecard improvements

WMATA has revealed plans to migrate from SmarTrip cards to an open payment fare technology. Sarles said the agency is just in the beginning phases of exploring these technologies, and will not be rolling out a full scale change until it is sure of the reliability and can mitigate the inconveniences to riders.

When asked about the summer revelation that the agency seemed to be running out of SmarTrip cards, he recognized there were clearly some communication issues that needed to be addressed as the agency moves forward with new fare payment programs.

On improving communication

We asked Sarles how he can help break the barriers between the various divisions of WMATA to improve communication within the agency, and between the operating divisions and the public. He said that he is working to instill the idea of "one message" with his leadership team.

When asked if this unifying approach could result in precluding more communication between the agency's divisions and the public, he said that WMATA is trying to open up communication through data reports and other regular releases.

On customer service

Sarles has been talking with riders at downtown stations over the last couple weeks, asking them what their biggest complaints are.

While the most common complaints he's heard deal with the disrespectful way in which many riders treat the trains and buses, leaving newspapers and trash behind, he acknowledged that the agency needs to make improvements in customer service.

WMATA is having an independent group assess the agency's customer call center, and how quickly and effectively it responds to customer issues. Sarles also plans to reintroduce a "secret shopper" program to get feedback from riders.

On increasing capacity

Major capital investments will be consumed by safety and state of good repair projects. In the near and medium term, Sarles acknowledged that the agency has no plans for major increases in capacity. Instead, WMATA will be concentrating on ways to improve the bus system, working with the jurisdictions to implement priority measures such as traffic signal priority and bus lanes.

On the 7000 series

The new rail cars, expected by 2014, will be 4-car sets, instead of married pairs, eliminating two cabs on each four car set and making more room for riders. The cars will have cameras throughout as well as automated station announcements and electronic information boards very similar to the New York Subway's new FIND systems.

While the "transverse" seating arrangements of the current cars, with forward and back facing seats, will remain, the cars we be built to allow reconfiguring the seating to "longitudinal," where seats face the center, if crowding becomes a problem and the agency decides to make the change.

Sarles said he would be happy to host blogger roundtables in the future, and we also discussed briefly the possibility of having chats with other members of the leadership team who can speak to more specific questions.

Although our time was short, and there were some dodgy answers regarding bag searches, the conversation with Sarles was informative and encouraging. We hope this engagement with the community continues.

Sarles is also appearing on TBD NewsTalk starting at 10 today.

Similarly, Metro decided not to explore having 4 doors per side on each car. Many other systems have 4 doors on cars of this length. New York even has 4 doors on many 60-foot cars, compared to Metro's 75-foot cars. More doors mean the car can load and unload faster, reducing dwell times and keeping trains moving. That increases capacity as well, because the faster each train gets in and out of the busiest stations, the sooner another train can come in and the more trains Metro can run overall.

Why has Metro chosen to forego this opportunity? They say it's because of safety. According to Debo Ogunrinde in a presentation made to the Riders' Advisory Council, the engineers believe there's some safety benefit to transverse seating. Having seats in front of and behind some riders could keep them from sliding into other riders or flying toward the end of the railcar in the event of a crash.

The argument is similar for doors. Fewer doors mean stronger car walls. Of course, the wall strength wasn't the problem in the June 2009 Red Line crash, where the cars telescoped, but there could be crashes where it matters.

That's probably right. But is it worth sacrificing capacity? Consider that overcrowded platforms and escalators present their own safety hazards. And overcrowding is a certainty, while train crashes are hopefully avoidable.

And the more crowded Metro gets, the more people will drive. If they do, they're much less safe. After the crash, BeyondDC calculated that driving Metro is 34 times safer per passenger mile than driving. Is the benefit of transverse seating 34 times greater than longitudinal?

Unfortunately, Metro's engineers don't have (or haven't been willing to share) any sort of quantifiable assessment of the safety value of transverse seating. It's just "some." But we can't tell if it's more of a safety benefit than the safety benefit of less crowded platforms and escalators. And we don't know if it's more of a safety benefit than the benefit of moving a few more people by rail instead of by car.

Mr. Ogunrinde said that Metro felt if there were anything it could do, no matter what, to improve safety, then they would be remiss in skipping it. But is that really true? Why haven't they designed the cars with seatbelts? What about four-point harnesses like on military jets? Airbags? Padded walls? If fewer doors is stronger, why are there still windows on the cars? Why don't the cars have foam peanuts filling their space, which riders can worm their way through? Maybe Metro should run every train at 10 mph?

When the FTA first announced its desire to regulate trainsit safety, I worried that this shortsighted tradeoff is exactly what would happen. Regulators whose sole responsibility is to prevent deaths or injuries in crashes would push transit systems to make changes that reduce the risk of crashes but increase other risks, like crowding and driving. That's what happened when the Federal Railroad Administraton over-regulated commuter and intercity railroads to make cars heavier and therefore slower, harming the overall value of rail passenger service.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff has assured everyone this is not what the FTA would do. He said,

We must remember that, despite WMATA's safety challenges, every Washington area commuter is safer traveling on WMATA than they are traveling on our highways. Thus, we cannot allow any degradation in WMATA's reliability and performance such that commuters opt to abandon Metro in favor of our already congested highways. We must also caution against any proposals that will reduce significantly WMATA's existing capacity, forcing more commuters onto our highways. Any actions or proposals pushing WMATA riders onto our highways simply will degrade safety and worsen congestion in the region.

Hopefully he's right and the FTA will avoid following the FRA's path. But Metro is going ahead and doing the same thing all by themselves. I can understand the viewpoint of the railcar designers as well. If someone is hurt in a crash, people might ask why the railcars weren't designed differently. But if people are hurt in stations, the questions won't revolve around the railcars. And if people die out on the roads, nobody (except maybe us) asks why that person couldn't have been on transit, where they would have been safer.

I don't know if the current political climate allows Metro to design its railcars for the maximum capacity and with the overall transportation safety picture in mind instead of the narrow goal of safest railcars at any operational cost.

Certainly Congress keeps hammering at safety without really analyzing the big picture. Yesterday, a Senate committee approved this year's $150 million federal contribution, but Senator Barbara Mikulski attached conditions that all money be spent on safety and WMATA report quarterly on its progress on safety. The focus on safety is important, but the big picture is more complex than a sound bite.

The Board is supposed to take the broader view. Can they? Is it politically feasible to approve railcars with higher capacity, which will cut down on unsafe overcrowding and reduce reliance on dangerous cars even though some engineers say that transverse seating is safer to some, undetermined and vague degree?

Hopefully they will, asking staff to go back to the longitudinal seating as well as evaluating whether it would bring additional cost to build railcars with 4 doors. Riders in 2030 would be glad they did.

Update: What about articulated cars, where the doors between some cars are replaced with flexible sections creating, in effect, double-length cars or even making the whole train a car? Mr. Ogunrinde said they had rejected that for three reasons.

First, security agencies say it would make things more difficult, perhaps by letting a suspect roam through the train to evade capture. That seems a little dubious. Second, there aren't examples in the US of these working in heavy rail environments. However, there are plenty of examples around the world. But third, and the one that is somewhat persuasive to me, Metro's existing facilities aren't set up to be able to handle articulated cars, making it very costly to switch.

In addition, the Board of Trade/COG task force on WMATA governance is having a public input session in the morning to hear ideas from the public. I've criticized its composition and Penny was skeptical about its value, but like it or not, the businesspeople and former government officials picked for the panel are going to be formulating a report.

I'll be there to give my constructive suggestions. Hopefully they are open to them and not already set on removing elected officials from the Board. That meeting is 9-11:30 am. Sign up at 202-962-3220 or submit written comments.

Some members pointed out that there's definite debate about whether McDonnell is even legally allowed to withhold this money. As a condition of the federal appropriation, DC, Maryland, and Virginia had to certify that the funding from a "dedicated source" was set aside. McDonnell may be on shaky ground now threatening to take it away after telling Congress the money was there.

As expected, the Board also passed its budget including the very large fare hike that has been discussed previously. The only change was to amend the budget to reduce the cost of SmarTrip cards from $5 to $2.50. The differential between SmarTrip and cash will increase on bus and a new differential is being added on rail, making SmarTrips even more important. However, some lower income riders have a harder time affording the SmarTrip cards.

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Retain design element uniformity

Metro was designed with many motifs and unifying elements. That uniformity extends beyond the architecture of the stations. Even the railcars play their part. The color palate used on the current fleet is similar to the standard station architecture.

The brown stripe, which Metro is ditching for the 7000-series, is one of the major common colors systemwide. In terms of the station architecture, the stripe reflects the browns of the columns, signs, sides of escalators, and other elements. Additionally, it reflects many other aspects of the system, from faregates to station agent booths.

The reddish-orange platform tile is mirrored by the orange-brown or maroon carpet inside the railcars. The silver of the train exterior echoes the gray-white of the station vault. This is further reinforced by the backlighting from the platform edge lights, which helps evoke the indirect lighting of the train room.

And when a train is in the station, the red-orange floor, the brown stripe, and the gray-white walls play together to create a unified ensemble.

One of the drawbacks of the 7000-series railcars is their proposed departure from the Metro palate, especially the loss of the brown stripe. Not only will the cars not match the rest of the fleet, they'll be missing a major aesthetic design element of the system.

The 7000-series will make up a very large part of the railcar fleet once all the cars have arrived. Failing to make some of the changes now means that we will be stuck with certain inadequacies for decades to come. At the same time, a failure to consider the design elements standard across the system threatens the uniformity and quality of the experience - a major basis for the popularity and success of the system.

And that success has become a major hurdle. Dealing with the throngs of riders, especially in this funding climate, has become increasingly difficult for Metro. While the design of the 7000-series will allow for longitudinal seating, and more standing room, Metro's failure to consider other improvements is shortsighted.

What other opportunities are being missed by the 7000-series?

The Airports Authority says spreading the design costs evenly across the 64 railcars for Tysons, the 300 for 1000-series replacement, and the 64 cars for the Dulles/Loudoun extension would bring the average railcar price to $2.7 million. That would increase the cost to Metro by about $60 million, but would decrease the cost to MWAA by about $166 million.

Officials at MWAA say that unless Metro eliminates the $75 million increase in the overall price of the first 64 cars, they won't okay the purchase.

If MWAA decides to go it alone on the purchase, they probably won't end up getting a better deal, and they will certainly delay the arrival of the cars.

Commissioning facility delayed

Another rough patch for the 7000 series are delays to the Railcar Commissioning Facility. Because of the volume of railcars being purchased and the short timeframe, Metro needs to construct a commissioning facility.

This facility is expected to cost $60 million, and will be located at the Greenbelt Rail Yard. It will include a 2.25 mile test track between Greenbelt and College Park. It will allow WMATA to process 16-20 new railcars per month and will eliminate the need to single-track revenue trains while cars are being tested. The test track will run along the west side of the Green Line from Greenbelt Yard to Paint Branch Creek, just north of College Park Station. No new land will be needed for the commissioning facility or the test track.

Unfortunately, due to the inability or unwillingness of Maryland to commit to a new capital funding program, Metro is deferring the Commissioning Facility and other projects. This will severely hamper the ability of Metro to test and accept new railcars, and inconveniences passengers.

Without the facility, Metro will only be able to accept 8-12 railcars per month and riders on the Green Line will face single-tracking for long periods, although not at rush hour. With the facility, Metro said they could accept the full order of 748 7000 series cars in 5 years. Without it, only half as many cars can be accepted per month. That could mean that it would take a decade to commission the new fleet.

Delays due to the lack of a commissioning facility will keep new railcars from riding the rails. It will delay new cars for the Tysons extension and it will delay replacement of the aging 1000 series cars.

Delays could threaten Silver Line

Time is running short to order the new 7000 series cars for the Tysons extension of the Metro. Without fleet expansion, the line may not be able to open.

The railcars take time to manufacture and be tested. The 4 prototype cars are expected to arrive in Greenbelt in December 2012. The remaining 60 cars for Tysons are expected to begin arriving in Summer 2013. Without a commissioning facility, Metro will only be able to process 8-12 cars per month. Best case scenario (12 cars per month) means the 60 cars will be ready in November. Of course, Metro's own schedule doesn't call for the base order of 64 cars to be complete until April 2014.

With the Silver Line expected to open in December 2013, any delays could mean that not enough cars will be ready. The line can probably open with fewer than the full compliment of railcars initially, because it will take time for demand to increase, but the fleet does need to increase to some degree initially in order to keep from cannibalizing service on other lines.

Delays could crop up because of manufacturing or acceptance delays, or especially if WMAA goes it alone on the railcars. And that worst-case scenario could mean that even if the rail line is finished, opening could be delayed until enough railcars are made available.

This happened in Atlanta. The initial MARTA segment was supposed to open in December 1978, but the lack of railcars, which were delayed at the manufacturer, pushed the start of service back to June 1979. Even then, service was limited to only a few hours each day, with no weekend service.

This is the real threat facing the Silver Line. The region cannot afford to defer projects like the Commissioning Facility, nor can it afford squabbling over funding. All three of the jurisdictions need to step up to the plate and fund Metro.

And Metro needs to smooth feathers with MWAA. This hiccup over costs needs to be worked out as soon as possible. While the Silver Line has a contingency fund, this dispute is really about the equity of the bill, not the amount. And Maryland needs to fully fund Metro so that as new cars arrive in the area, they can be put into service with all haste.