Orange Line held hostage: Day 3
By adamg - 5/15/09 - 4:03 pm
Orange Line commuters tonight once again have plenty of time to wonder whatever happened to those switches the T spent years installing, thanks to switching problems that started Wednesday.
Comments
Medical Emergency
Yesterday the claimed the 20 minute wait at north station was due to a "Medical emergency at Wellington Station".
Someone is deliberately stalling service
There are T officials carrying clipboards at every station, holding up trains until a several minute wait has taken place.
Maybe
They can't tell the time without their electronic devices?
The signal system is still not working.
The reason for the 'several minute' delay is that they are only allowing one train (each way) to occupy the track between stations at any given time. The officials with clipboards are relaying information about trains from station to station via two-way radio.
As I noted in an earlier post, this system is referred to as a "manual block" operation. Once an official at a station gets word that the next section is clear, he/she will release the next train.
Any idea what happened?
And when it'll be fixed?
What happened appears to most likely be some sort
of basic failure in the logic that runs the system (and yes - I know there's a joke in there somewhere), as all the signals I observed last night between Sullivan Square and Oak Grove (from the window of the 5:55 Reading commuter rail train) had power, but were showing red.
As for when it'll all be back to normal, a couple of my co-workers who take the Orange line asked one of the platform officials this yesterday morning. The response they got "Not likely until early next week".
They don't switch tracks between stations
Do they? It seems silly that they would hold a train on a station if one is on the section of track ahead of them coming the other way.
This:
This:
I can believe.
Even on the best of days ...
The orange line is already massively overrun at rush hour. Even on the best days, with no delays, there will sometimes be two or three trains through at Sullivan on in that are far too full to get on.
Yeah, there's a train right behind - and that train is too full to board too.
They need more runs - aren't they due for some new cars too? There simply isn't enough orange line to go around.
I gave up on it unless it is 6am or 10am - and night time can even be worse.
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This morning I took the LRT into Calgary from my hotel. The machines only take the coins, which is a hassle, but the ride was nice and fast. It was full up, but fast. Their system has validated tickets and there was a fare inspector at the bottom of the stairs to the platform that wouldn't let you onto the platform unless you showed proof of payment.
and its still going on
How many days are we at yet? There still having issues this morning. Nothing was on the site before I left my house at 6:40am and I didn't get an alert text til 7:52am. But when I was at Malden Station the intercoms were warning us of the signaling problem. This is getting ridiculous on how long its taking them to fix this.
and on and on...
i think this was ridiculous by day 2 - i don't know what to call it at this point... you're telling me they couldn't get this fixed even over the weekend?? And ok, fine, you're holding up the trains until the entire path is clear to the next station - if you know the path is clear, why are the trains still moving at close to walking speed??
It's so frustrating that there is nothing we as the consumers of the mbta can really do. I'm ready to move away from Mass completely because everyone running anything in this state seems completely inept.
The signal system is designed
not only to display red to warn the operator of another train immediately ahead, but also to display red in the event of a sudden track problem such as a broken rail.
When there is a total failure of the signal system and they revert to manual block operation, the trains are directed to move no faster than 15 mph. The theory is that this is slow enough to enable the operator to stop in time should they notice a track problem.
?
So for all the tax payers money on a new signaling system we get 15mph trains that can only move one train in between stops? I understand politicians don't take the trains but they must know about all these problems either from media outlets or from letters written to them, but how can this be acceptable to spend huge money on projects that seem to break all the time?