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Mattapan trolleys collide
By adamg on Wed, 11/26/2014 - 7:29am
Around 7 a.m. at Cedar Grove Cemetery. Bill Forry at the Dorchester Reporter reports seven people - including both drivers - were taken to the hospital for observation for minor injuries, which include back pain and split lips.
Jim Lokay at WCVB has a photo of the scene and another of an injured passenger being removed through the cemetery. Forry gets a closeup of the two newly joined trolleys.
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Comments
Thank gosh
Nobody was hurt. While on one level it's charming that there are still PCC streetcars running , on another we need to get with the program and use the technology that's out there to prevent these kinds of things.
You do realize these PCCs and
You do realize these PCCs and the High Speed Line have been rebuilt to include all the modern safety features, right? That's kinda a requirement to run them in revenue service.
Talking about
positive train control, look it up. Many serious rail accidents would be prevented by it being implemented nationwide. There was (is?) supposed to be a radar-based system for the high speed line owing to its differences from traditional heavy rail and ptc as implemented in those situations, but if it was implemented it obviously doesn't work 100%. You do know that meeting federal crash safety standards doesn't really mean much, since the standards don't require several pieces of technology/design that the NTSB had repeatedly recommended, right?
PTC and the Green Line
At one point a few years ago the MBTA said it was going to use the Mattapan Line trolleys to test a PTC system that could later be applied to the Green Line. I'm assuming that either didn't happen or the system was not as effective as they hoped.
Yes I know all about the PTC
Yes I know all about the PTC mandate. And while I'm not going to get into the reasons here, PTC is not the answer.
However, I also know that it is impossible to prevent 100% of accidents.
And I wasn't talking about just crash safety standards.
What are "all the modern
What are "all the modern safety features"?
As far as I know, there's no law requiring any kind of signal system on a line like the Mattapan trolley.
The PTC mandate only applies to railroads in the national network, not urban transit systems.
I'm really curious what
I'm really curious what happened here. Signal system malfunction? Operator error?
I hope it didn't damage the historic trolleys too badly!
First car went disabled at
First car went disabled at Cedar Grove, started rolling backwards and eventually hit the one behind.
It's pretty scary that the
It's pretty scary that the brakes could totally fail like that.
The PCC cars have hand brakes
The PCC cars have hand brakes that can be set to keep a disabled car with no air-pressure from rolling. Don't know if they failed or if the operator didn't know to set them. The car had stopped at the platform at Cedar Grove when it went disabled and didn't start rolling backwards until after all the passengers had already gotten off (that's why the press reports mentioned that one car was empty).
Red Line Trolley Collision
The doors on the rear car are fully open, but those on the front car are slack, indicating no air pressure. Even then, the electromagnetic track brakes, the four shoes between the wheels, would have held the car in place, automatically, as long as the motorman's foot was off the dead-man pedal, but the pole is clearly down, depriving that system of power. Who pulled the pole, and when? And why was not the car first trigged? Years ago, the T followed the lead of the Seashore Trolley Museum and installed trigs. And, as stated above, there is a manual brake that should have been engaged. Mechanical failure or not, all this implies motorman failure, which preliminary investigation seems to indicate.
.
No signals there
There are no signals on the Mattapan line. It is all line of sight operation like all other surface running streetcars.
And the other red line fail below this post...
Another great start to another great day on the MBTA...
The driver's resume includes
The driver's resume includes service at Fung Wah and Uber.
Well, I never...
took the Ashmont Line beyond UMass/JFK - are those vintage trolleys from the 50s?
Well worth the trip
In a pun-like moment, the trolley died in the middle of the Cedar Grove cemetery.
Yup, it's the home of the PCC cars but on a working line.
If you are looking for an afternoon exploring, with city and nature combined, take the trolley to Central Ave and take a walk along the Neponset River Rail Trail. Sadly it has not been expanded to Mattapan (thankfully, they finally have a plan to get it there) but from Central Ave to Pope John Paul II Park is really nice. If you are really feeling like some exercise, keep on walking along the harbor from there to Castle Island and downtown, but if that mileage is too much, just go back to the trolley for another fun trip.
Additional Fun
I'd recommend taking the entire trip to Mattapan, first, just enjoying the trip (in this way, adding the ride along the Neponset river between Central Avenue and Mattapan) then backtracking to Central Avenue to begin the hike.
If anyone is interested in things to do at various stations (just little stuff, interesting factoids, maybe grabbing a bite to eat; nothing amazing and spectacular, but things I like to reminisce about) write me at [email protected] and I'll answer you sometime after Thanksgiving. It's my favorite public transportation line and I'm always glad to turn anyone onto it.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The trail to Mattapan is open
The trail to Mattapan is open - since earlier this year.
Olympic Quality
This is Olympic Quality Transit! /s
A High Speed Collision!
A High Speed Collision!
or in this case, a low-speed,
or in this case, a low-speed, High-Speed, collision
More reinvestments
Mattapan line needs to be safe like signals with trip-arms and positive train control. Reinvestment in for new trolleys and new communication and equipment gear. Incidents like this should never happen and needs to be safe for all riders.
Sure
Do you have $700 million burning a hole in your pocket?
Because that's how much it was estimated to cost to outfit both the Mattapan as well as the entire Green Line with such technology.
Oh, and bonus: it would reduce capacity on the Green Line central subway. You know, the one that we pump over 40 trains per hour through, and it's overcrowded anyway. No PTC system exists that can handle that throughput (for light rail anyway).
Yeah.... how about that $700 million again?
Oh, did I mention that the MBTA Light Rail is the safest light rail system in the country according to actual data collected by the Federal government? The fewest incidents per vehicle-mile. Now granted, the Green Line runs A LOT of vehicle-miles. But that's still really good.
So again, what's the expected value of outfitting this insanely expensive PTC system, REDUCING capacity on the Green Line? Probably negative.
And if you push people off of the Green Line and they get into motor vehicles instead, that's a lot more dangerous than having them ride the current Green Line. Motor vehicles cause a lot more injury and death. A LOT more. Heck, I've heard about four people struck by cars within the last 24 hours alone.
So we could spend $700 million to outfit the safest light rail system in the country with a PTC system that reduces capacity and causes it to shed ridership leading to more injuries on the roads.
Or we could do something more productive with it.