Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

wbur.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#11

Post by rchowe »

floatrock wrote: post #5

The Atlantic did a great longform piece last year all about NYC's (also past-useful-life) signaling infrastructure by asking a simple question: why is it so hard to build a train arrival countdown clock? They go into a lot of detail on how the past-useful-live infrastructure works, modern replacement technologies, and even a race between infrastructure-giant Siemans and a bunch of hackers kludging together a countdow…

For most of the (new) equipment procurement the MBTA does now, they actually own the specifications for the equipment, which means that if they want to make more, they put out an RFP for companies to manufacture new equipment based on their spec. The downside to this is that the T likes to over-customize their orders, which drives costs up compared to buying more standard "off-the-shelf" equipment, and if no responses to the RFP come back, they have to relax some of the requirements and put it out again.

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#12

Post by a2tech »

rchowe wrote: post #11
floatrock wrote: post #5

The Atlantic did a great longform piece last year all about NYC's (also past-useful-life) signaling infrastructure by asking a simple question: why is it so hard to build a train arrival countdown clock? They go into a lot of detail on how the past-useful-live infrastructure works, modern replacement technologies, and even a race between infrastructure-giant Siemans and a bunch of hackers kludging together a countdow…

For most of the (new) equipment procurement the MBTA does now, they actually own the specifications for the equipment, which means that if they want to make more, they put out an RFP for companies to manufacture new equipment based on their spec. The downside to this is that the T likes to over-customize their orders, which drives costs up compared to buying more standard "off-the-shelf" equipment, and if no response…

While its true that they own the specification, in practice the large company (i.e. Siemens in this example) is the only one capable of producing the product at a non-prohibitive rate.

I suspect what they'll find when they finally rip out all this equipment is that the new system will be unrepairable without huge long term contracts with the original vendor.

These old mechanical systems have their own problems, but repairability is not one of them. Almost any competent machining shop could duplicate one of the switches in the article.

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#13

Post by giarc »

I work in a 50 year old hospital. There was some work on the nurse call bell system and the maintenance staff had to scour eBay for old parts to fix the outdated system. I think procurement had a fit when they saw eBay receipts show up.

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#14

Post by Symbiote »

floatrock wrote: post #5

The Atlantic did a great longform piece last year all about NYC's (also past-useful-life) signaling infrastructure by asking a simple question: why is it so hard to build a train arrival countdown clock? They go into a lot of detail on how the past-useful-live infrastructure works, modern replacement technologies, and even a race between infrastructure-giant Siemans and a bunch of hackers kludging together a countdow…

The Atlantic article was on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10566776

102 points by jsomers 114 days ago | 21 comments

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#15

Post by floatrock »

a2tech wrote: post #12
rchowe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of the (new) equipment procurement the MBTA does now, they actually own the specifications for the equipment, which means that if they want to make more, they put out an RFP for companies to manufacture new equipment based on their spec. The downside to this is that the T likes to over-customize their orders, which drives costs up compared to buying more standard "off-the-shelf" equipment, and if no response…

While its true that they own the specification, in practice the large company (i.e. Siemens in this example) is the only one capable of producing the product at a non-prohibitive rate. I suspect what they'll find when they finally rip out all this equipment is that the new system will be unrepairable without huge long term contracts with the original vendor. These old mechanical systems have their own problems, but r…

Is owning the specification really the same thing as owning the hardware source? Why is it that you need the long-term vendor contracts? If you go beyond the spec and make all the hardware control boards, software, etc. open, could you lower that cost?

Boston has one unique feature that makes public-ish ownership of specifications and the hardware running more plausible than other cities... it has a large number of technically-sophisticated potential stewards for such a program who aren't going anywhere: all the colleges and universities.

MIT and Harvard are something like the largest land owners in cambridge and boston... they're not leaving anytime soon, and ideally they have an interest in maintaining relationships with their community. They're invested in the area, and as academic institutions, inclined to support open source initiatives like this (how many of you use the MIT keyserver for your PGP keys?) Imagine a "civic service" initiative where the area universities are stewards of the open source implementation for the city's infrastructure.

Not at all saying you want the T to run on overworked grad student code -- outsource that in a professional RFP -- but if the concern is that technical stewardship might be out of the realm of a municipal infrastructure agency, Boston's academic population could make for an interesting partnership.

Hairbrained stream-of-consciousness idea, but hey, that's what internet forums are for ; )

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#16

Post by roymurdock »

acomjean wrote: post #6

live in MA and take the T (what we call the subway/bus service here). Public transit is a major problem in this city and surrounding areas. It what make this city OK and expensive vs being great and affordable. While the transit system here needs upgrading badly, this piece is very political. The quoting of Charles Chieppo is a give away. "For many systems, Chieppo said, the focus is on improving stations or opening…

Green line expansion (two stops) initially budgeted at $954M in June 2010.

5 years later, costs estimated at $3.09B and project is terminated.

  A Reliable Project Budget is Defined as being
  within +10% and -5% of what it would Cost
  to Design and Construct the Project
Costs went up over 300%. The level of incompetence on display here is borderline criminal. Have a friend who works at one of the big 4 who is being called in to audit this failed project. Should be interesting to get an insider perspective on where taxpayer money was spent.

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings...

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#17

Post by Symbiote »

codys wrote: post #2

> It’s not as simple as just changing the signal. In order to change it out and modernize, you need to update the entire system. Does anyone have any idea why this is? What prevents new signals from being backwards compatible with the old system? And if this were true, wouldn't all of the signals need to be the same hundred year old type? How would line extensions ever be able to be done in that case? Is the system s…

Further segmenting the existing system probably means a huge amount of changes to the existing system — more expensive than replacing the whole lot.

The old system will be based on detecting trains in "blocks", sections of track insulated from each other where the train's wheels make the circuit. I was about to say this would use relays, but Wikipedia says the first all-relay system was installed in 1929. So it's at least partly mechanical (levers moving in the way of other levers). The logic implemented in this will prevent the signalman from sending trains on a collision path, but only if drivers obey all red lights.

The new system will either be something similar, except implemented in electronics and stopping the train if the driver doesn't. But for a metro system, in order to get higher capacity, it will probably do away with the "blocks" altogether, instead ensuring that every train has a safe distance ahead of it. Maybe they will also automate the trains, so the train drives itself.

Either way, they'll probably upgrade the trains to support the new system, then install the new system in whatever sections allow it, then remove the old system once the new system is working correctly. I'd expect there's a huge amount of sunk cost once the project starts (design, modifications to trains, staff training etc) so it doesn't make any sense to stop halfway and keep the costs of both systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#18

Post by sschueller »

roymurdock wrote: post #16
acomjean wrote: post #6

live in MA and take the T (what we call the subway/bus service here). Public transit is a major problem in this city and surrounding areas. It what make this city OK and expensive vs being great and affordable. While the transit system here needs upgrading badly, this piece is very political. The quoting of Charles Chieppo is a give away. "For many systems, Chieppo said, the focus is on improving stations or opening…

Green line expansion (two stops) initially budgeted at $954M in June 2010. 5 years later, costs estimated at $3.09B and project is terminated. A Reliable Project Budget is Defined as being within +10% and -5% of what it would Cost to Design and Construct the Project Costs went up over 300%. The level of incompetence on display here is borderline criminal. Have a friend who works at one of the big 4 who is being calle…

3.09B!!! That is insane. I would think after the big dig disaster they would have learned their lesson.

In Zürich they just finished a huge expansion with a complex 10km tunnel und a 3rd underground 4 track station. Project cost was 2.0B up from 1.8B. At one point a drill got stuck and they had to abandon it.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durchmesserlinie_Altstetten–Zü...

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#19

Post by acomjean »

roymurdock wrote: post #16
acomjean wrote: post #6

live in MA and take the T (what we call the subway/bus service here). Public transit is a major problem in this city and surrounding areas. It what make this city OK and expensive vs being great and affordable. While the transit system here needs upgrading badly, this piece is very political. The quoting of Charles Chieppo is a give away. "For many systems, Chieppo said, the focus is on improving stations or opening…

Green line expansion (two stops) initially budgeted at $954M in June 2010. 5 years later, costs estimated at $3.09B and project is terminated. A Reliable Project Budget is Defined as being within +10% and -5% of what it would Cost to Design and Construct the Project Costs went up over 300%. The level of incompetence on display here is borderline criminal. Have a friend who works at one of the big 4 who is being calle…

MBTA has huge project management problems to be sure, of course it should be looked into.

But its really the only subway the city has, plus I think they're required by consent decree to build sometimg (Part of the "big dig" project (putting highway in a tunnel), another fine example of poor project budget control in the commonwealth of Massachusetts)

Re: ‘They Don’t Make These Anymore’: Maintaining the MBTA’s 100-Year-Old Signals

#20

Post by enumBoss »

acomjean wrote: post #6

live in MA and take the T (what we call the subway/bus service here). Public transit is a major problem in this city and surrounding areas. It what make this city OK and expensive vs being great and affordable. While the transit system here needs upgrading badly, this piece is very political. The quoting of Charles Chieppo is a give away. "For many systems, Chieppo said, the focus is on improving stations or opening…

To be fair in regards to the late night service cut, it was only a test program when they rolled it out and supposedly ridership was declining since they introduced it. Plus, it was only available on the weekends (two days a week) anyway.
Post reply on HN