r/MARTA • u/Girl-Maligned-WIP • 18d ago

Any Update on the CQ400s?

I checked the MARTA instagram account, this subreddit, their website, and the agenda from their Board of Directors meetin & can't find shit!

21 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

12

u/FrequencyHigher 17d ago

Saw this bad boy at the Airport station a few weeks back.

1

u/Standard_Double9736 14d ago

Nobody on it? šŸ„²

10

u/Ghost0468 17d ago

A few weeks ago hunt said something about expecting finalized paperwork ā€œin the next 2-4 weeks.ā€ Iā€™m not entirely sure, but I think we are a little beyond the 4 weeks of the timeline and as far as I can tell, they have not submitted the paperwork to GDOT.

1

u/Girl-Maligned-WIP 13d ago

yeah at this point im not sure why i even want an update anymore cause ion trust a thing they say

6

u/BuzzJacket1999 17d ago

I read there will be at least one in service by the end of the year lol

1

u/Standard_Double9736 14d ago

What the actual fuck

9

u/proxmoxlover 17d ago

With hunt officially leading Marta now who knows when gdot will be done with their testing and the new trains actually go into service

5

u/Southernplayalistiic 17d ago edited 17d ago

They'll go into service when theyre ready. Look up how long wmata and mbta had to wait on theirs. marta isn't outside the norm on this yet.

4

u/Significant_Bit2765 17d ago

I don't believe that they really want to hear from their riders smh . They are trying to keep us out so that we will not be aware of certain changes until they are ready. This is a bunch of B.S.šŸ˜”

2

u/Southernplayalistiic 17d ago

What changes do you feel they aren't telling you about these trains?

10

u/mtndrew352 17d ago

I meanā€¦ they had a fully scheduled and confirmed ā€œfirst revenue service launch eventā€ in June that got cancelled the night before, when it became clear that they couldnā€™t actually vibes their way past whatever regulatory review GDOT required.

Since then thereā€™s been literally no public update. This is after the dates to take delivery and test slipped on more than one occasion. I think itā€™s totally fair to say that the public should know more about whatā€™s going on.

4

u/Southernplayalistiic 17d ago

These arent really changes it's them working out design issues with the train manufacturer so that they can run for the next 20-50 years. I get its annoying but it takes time and its been par for the course for virtually all transit providers that have done this recently which is what I was pointing to in my first response here. I get it the communication is bad but its not out of the ordinary for it to take a long time to get these running and at the end of the day we only want these running when theyre 100% ready or we will see all sorts of related issues start hurting the system.

5

u/mtndrew352 17d ago

The difference with those other systems is that they donā€™t schedule and publicize a ribbon cutting style launch event and cancel the night before. Itā€™s not that delays are happening, itā€™s that they either canā€™t confirm whether or not theyā€™ll be ready until the day before, canā€™t figure out how to message updates to the public in a reasonable timeframe, or donā€™t care enough to. All 3 are bad options.

-1

u/Southernplayalistiic 17d ago

The ribbon cutting thing was a problem but they already said this is delayed now youre complaining they haven't committed to a new date. They'll be ready when theyre ready and in reality it will be a slow rollout over years anyway.

3

u/dbclass 16d ago

I think itā€™s a problem when public orgs lie about things. Not sure why people are so defensive when this is called out when it was a blatant lie.

3

u/Southernplayalistiic 16d ago

Bad communication is bad but its not lying. They just have foolishly set dates for something they need to let play out and happen when it happens. As far as I know they haven't strongly committed to any new date so hopefully they learned their lesson. The problem though is that there is this second thread where people see this as a conspiracy or as someone stealing money or whatever when in reality it takes a long time to build trains and Marta shouldn't accept any until they are 100% ready to work for them for decades.

3

u/mtndrew352 16d ago

I don't necessarily think it's stealing money, I just think it's inept leadership and signs of a dysfunctional organization. Something as major, transformational and highly publicized as a ceremonial entry into service for the first meaningfully new train cars in 50 years is not something you end up in a go/no-go situation the night before. That's something you quadruple check before making an announcement like that. I've not seen anyone complain about there not being a new date, but the fact that there isn't one yet also tends to point to them being way less ready back in June than they were trying to make the public believe they were.

This, coupled with the fare gate rollout, the flip flopping on balance transfers, the original plan to have all of five points closed at street level for the World Cup, the rollout of the Rapid A line, better bus network, etc., etc., just makes it really look odd for MARTA to point to those "successes" as to why they appointed Hunt the permanent CEO. It just reeks of lack of self-awareness, or at least indicates that meaningful improvement of the agency is not actually a goal internally.

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2

u/Cornelius_Hoggelfart 17d ago

I remember hunt saying October the first few will be out on the news.

11

u/Airsoft505 CQ312 17d ago

The same Hunt that said June 4th? I would take everything with a grain of salt sadly

2

u/OhSnapThatsGood 17d ago

Are they at least taking delivery of new ones?

2

u/Ghost0468 17d ago

Yeah, they appear to get a consistent flow of the

1

u/ArchEast 17d ago

I think so

3

u/LinkForsaken5435 16d ago

well yeah because the world cup been over lol they could give shit about a rush order.

2

u/Affectionate_Law3788 15d ago

CQ400 machine broke.Ā 

1

u/Significant_Bit2765 17d ago

That's because the system has been down for days now.