Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
I'm still not entirely convinced... if we need the them in service and they still run, why not milk those cows a little longer? If the new cars could pay for themselves with a reduction in maintenance then we wouldn't really have to worry about funding them, and if they can't then why do we need to do these replacements?
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The problem is that most of the U2 units are seeing their reliability quickly deteriorating. They can run with maintenance, but break down relatively frequently. The man-hours put into fixing frequent break-downs start to pile up. In addition, with how overcapacity the system is on weekdays, breakdowns and reliability issues are magnified and become cost-increasing factors. When the CT twitter account is reporting a delay on the line, there's a good chance it's due to the older trains.
Wrecked cars (the ones that haven't been Frankenstein-ed into a "new" unit) have been mined for good parts, but that hasn't gone very far. Actually while I was at Anderson garage for only 90 minutes, some of the mechanics that were helping out with the tour had to respond to a call to recover a broken-down train on the line.