BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has removed its new Orange Line transit railcars from service while engineers investigate an “uncommon noise” coming from beneath the cars.
MBTA spokeswoman Lisa Battison told Streetsblog Massachusetts in an email that the cars were removed from service “with safety as a top priority and out of an abundance of caution … to investiage the issue, any potential impacts, and deploy a fix, if needed.”
The blog sites data from the newtrains.today website, which tracks new MBTA equipment, as showing the cars have not been in service since Nov. 18, the day the last car of a new trainset derailed in the MBTA’s yard in Medford, Mass.
The first cars from the 152-car order, being built by Chinese manufacturer CRRC at its CRRC MA affiliate in Springfield, Mass., entered service in August. The cars have been pulled from service once before, to fix an issue with doors opening while trains were in motion.
The order is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2021.
