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Medford loses power, which makes Orange Line riders sour
By adamg on Fri, 05/29/2015 - 7:36am
A morning power failure that hit parts of Medford and Malden (and at least one Dunkin' Donuts in Everett) also brought the Orange Line to a crawl, with the T announcing the dreaded "severe" delays. While the trains run off the T's very own power supply, the signals that control the trains get their juice from National Grid.
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Comments
Damn you Old Man Winter!!!
Damn you Old Man Winter!!!
I blame myself
This is all our fault, for not giving them more money.
Boston 2024!
The Olympics will fix EVERYTHING! And cost NOTHING!
hope they get it back in time
hope they get it back in time for the Olympics.
Proper signal systems
are supposed to have battery backup systems in case of emergencies like this - it's been a design standard from the day such systems were first invented over 100 years ago. Guess the T forgot to include that in the specs for the "high tech" signal system they supposedly installed on the Orange Line a few years back.
all that bussing
On nights and weekends, for what?
Because management is obsessed
with running busses instead of trains (perhaps they were National City Lines executives in a former life) and will look for any excuse to do so - like the current "oh, they're building a mall (Assembly Row) adjacent to our property, so we can't run trains despite the fact that our tracks aren't being obstructed or impeded by the work." BS they're using to justify the latest round of bustitutions.
And, yes, there were activities related to the signalling project that called for shutting down train service. However, it's still clear that the MBTA milked the whole "bustitution" business for all they could get out of it.
Busses Ain't that bad
Buses get a bad rap because they get stuck in traffic so they have all the downsides of driving with few of the upsides of public transit -- mainly "fast" trains that can move someone from two points without traffic lights and delays.
If city, state, and MBTA planners worked at ways of revamping intersections so that busses had dedicated lanes at times, priority traffic signals, express routes, etc this would go a long way to making buses less disliked.
Of course such ideas would never be considered as they would require agencies to work together and would result in longer delays for passenger cars even if the busses where sped up.
Your point's well taken
But we are talking about bussing from T stations replacing the rapid transit for ill-defined reasons, and the north end of the Orange Line seems to have borne the brunt of it for years. The busses only stop at T stations as opposed to local busses that make regular stops. Aggravating to ride the bus by your block for another quarter of a mile because the driver can't make a stop there. I understand why they can't stop except at the T stations, but it is irritating nonetheless.
I'm going to call BS on this.
I'm going to call BS on this.
There's a lot wrong with the T. But they're not adding the huge expense of running shuttle buses just for the fun of it.
thanks, anon
How is running shuttle buses a huge expense versus the cost of running the regular trains?
It takes a lot of bus drivers
It takes a lot of bus drivers, on overtime, to move a trainload of people. And each trip takes longer by bus than by train.
In other words, lower operating cost is a major reason why trains exist where there's the ridership to support them.
Ok then
Please explain to all of us what major work the T is doing on the upper end of the Orange Line these days that necessitates routinely shutting down train service after "approximately 8:45 pm" (that phrase alone shows how bad the T is at scheduling) many nights. The signal work has long since been completed, and Assembly Station is currently in service.
And if work is still ongoing at Oak Grove, then logically the bustitution would begin at Wellington, not Sullivan Square.
Here ya go.
http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/t_projects/default.asp?id=22873
"The Assembly Project performed station work during six evenings in April 2015, where Orange Line trains bypassed Assembly Station. The project also scheduled weekend diversions in April and May 2015 so that crews could continue station construction. Tasks performed include electrical work, elevator and accessibility improvements, glass installation, and platform work. MBTA Track, Signal, Power, and Facilities Departments additionally utilized these diversions to perform important Right of Way enhancements. The last scheduled weekend diversion for the Assembly project is May 30-31."
Tasks performed include
Apart from the fact that all of that work should have been done BEFORE the station was even opened, it is idiotic that ANY of those activities require a full shutdown of service instead of doing the work during the normal overnight shutdown.
But that's the MBTA's way - for the benefit of our enployees and contractors.
Ok, so first you said there
Ok, so first you said there was no more work to do on the station, but now that there's proof of it, you backpedal and say it should be done during the 4 hour night shutdown.
I don't know if this work needs more time than that. If you really want to know, maybe you should contact the T, or a Globe reporter who covers the T.
It's very common to open a transportation facility before all the finishing touches are done. I think it makes sense to let people start using it. The weekend Orange Line diversions would happen one way or the other.
What backpedaling?
Based on the information you provided, I simply acknowledged that perhaps work does indeed continue on the station itself (as opposed to the adjacent mall) - although as one who passes by the station twice a day, there's not much evidence that any significant work remains to be done on the station, especially work that necessitates full closures beyond the normal nighttime shutdown periods.
And, with respect, I would hardly consider electrical work, elevator work, etc. as mere "finishing touches" that are "options" to be completed after a station enters service.
You'd think having two power
You'd think having two power suppliers would provide redundancy. But in this case, they're two separate single points of failure.
Cause?
Does anyone know the cause? In Malden, the power went out and a few minutes later, there were sirens galore which continued for quite a while. I couldn't find out if they were reacting to the root of the problem (major accident? Explosion at a transformer?...) or the resulting lack of traffic signals.
According to the early reports on WBZ
the outage was due to an unspecified problem at NStar's substation in Everett.
Very widespread outage
It had to be something fairly big and central, as it hit pretty much all of Medfrood and Malden. Our power came back on around 8am, but the damage was done to the rail commutes.
At least the weather is spectacularly good - a couple of those "gee, I'd really like to try bike commuting sometime" people we know in Medford and Malden took the plunge this morning. That wasn't a possibility when the system shit the bed last winter.
Wondering if Revere was
Wondering if Revere was affected by this outage. Came home from work to find the clocks blinking.