2014 Discussion for Commuter Rail Delays

There was also a bridge strike somewhere on the NH Route which pretty well messed up Saturday morning for the Lowell line. Rough day on the north side yesterday even before the storms started.

deathtopumpkins wrote:Train 1170 appears to have gotten caught in today's nasty storm. Tracking doesn't show it, but T-Alerts say 60 min delay due to "track problem", and I observed it sitting south of the Linebrook Rd crossing north of Ipswich station earlier.

Hundreds of trees are down across Ipswich, so it wouldn't surprise me if the line was blocked.

Yes 1170 got stuck east of Ipswich. They eventually returned to Newburyport for a while. They ran a passenger extra to North Beverly or Hamilton from Boston to cover as a late 1170. Once the tree was cleared at Mineral St in Ipswich 1170 was allowed to operate west again from Newburyport. At that point my train, 1169 was on the single track headed towards Ipswich. Well we hit a tree shortly after Hamilton, but made it by fine. Then we came up on another, we got permission and pushed that one out of the way. After getting by the second tree we were stopped about a half mile up by two more trees down in front of us! At that point we were pretty much forced to sit and wait from a crew to come and cut the trees up. It was a long ride for us, but nothing compared to 1170s passengers! We met 1170 at Ipswich, we took the passing siding while 1170 held the single track for us to pass.

sery2831 wrote:

deathtopumpkins wrote:Train 1170 appears to have gotten caught in today's nasty storm. Tracking doesn't show it, but T-Alerts say 60 min delay due to "track problem", and I observed it sitting south of the Linebrook Rd crossing north of Ipswich station earlier.

Hundreds of trees are down across Ipswich, so it wouldn't surprise me if the line was blocked.

Yes 1170 got stuck east of Ipswich. They eventually returned to Newburyport for a while. They ran a passenger extra to North Beverly or Hamilton from Boston to cover as a late 1170. Once the tree was cleared at Mineral St in Ipswich 1170 was allowed to operate west again from Newburyport. At that point my train, 1169 was on the single track headed towards Ipswich. Well we hit a tree shortly after Hamilton, but made it by fine. Then we came up on another, we got permission and pushed that one out of the way. After getting by the second tree we were stopped about a half mile up by two more trees down in front of us! At that point we were pretty much forced to sit and wait from a crew to come and cut the trees up. It was a long ride for us, but nothing compared to 1170s passengers! We met 1170 at Ipswich, we took the passing siding while 1170 held the single track for us to pass.

Wow. My friend SERY the Arborist! I guess if this had to happen, it was good it was off-peak. Can you imagine the disruptions if it had been a weekday rush hour?

sery2831 wrote:

deathtopumpkins wrote:Train 1170 appears to have gotten caught in today's nasty storm. Tracking doesn't show it, but T-Alerts say 60 min delay due to "track problem", and I observed it sitting south of the Linebrook Rd crossing north of Ipswich station earlier.

Hundreds of trees are down across Ipswich, so it wouldn't surprise me if the line was blocked.

Yes 1170 got stuck east of Ipswich. They eventually returned to Newburyport for a while. They ran a passenger extra to North Beverly or Hamilton from Boston to cover as a late 1170. Once the tree was cleared at Mineral St in Ipswich 1170 was allowed to operate west again from Newburyport. At that point my train, 1169 was on the single track headed towards Ipswich. Well we hit a tree shortly after Hamilton, but made it by fine. Then we came up on another, we got permission and pushed that one out of the way. After getting by the second tree we were stopped about a half mile up by two more trees down in front of us! At that point we were pretty much forced to sit and wait from a crew to come and cut the trees up. It was a long ride for us, but nothing compared to 1170s passengers! We met 1170 at Ipswich, we took the passing siding while 1170 held the single track for us to pass.

National Weather Service is going up to Ipswich today to determine if that was a small tornado.

Diverging Route wrote: Wow. My friend SERY the Arborist! I guess if this had to happen, it was good it was off-peak. Can you imagine the disruptions if it had been a weekday rush hour?

That happened a few years ago on the Fitchburg line, where a tree came down in West Concord just shy of the station. You had at one point multiple trains parked along the way from Baker Ave. east under Rte. 2 and beyond. We were there quite a while.

sery2831 wrote:

deathtopumpkins wrote:Train 1170 appears to have gotten caught in today's nasty storm. Tracking doesn't show it, but T-Alerts say 60 min delay due to "track problem", and I observed it sitting south of the Linebrook Rd crossing north of Ipswich station earlier.

Hundreds of trees are down across Ipswich, so it wouldn't surprise me if the line was blocked.

Yes 1170 got stuck east of Ipswich. They eventually returned to Newburyport for a while. They ran a passenger extra to North Beverly or Hamilton from Boston to cover as a late 1170. Once the tree was cleared at Mineral St in Ipswich 1170 was allowed to operate west again from Newburyport. At that point my train, 1169 was on the single track headed towards Ipswich. Well we hit a tree shortly after Hamilton, but made it by fine. Then we came up on another, we got permission and pushed that one out of the way. After getting by the second tree we were stopped about a half mile up by two more trees down in front of us! At that point we were pretty much forced to sit and wait from a crew to come and cut the trees up. It was a long ride for us, but nothing compared to 1170s passengers! We met 1170 at Ipswich, we took the passing siding while 1170 held the single track for us to pass.

Interesting! Thank you for the narration! T-Alerts eventually said 1170 was cancelled, so I'm sure there were some confused passengers. I know some alerts went out for 1169 too. I'm glad I opted to get a ride with a friend home to Ipswich rather than take 1169, but it took us more than an hour to find a road into town open.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote: National Weather Service is going up to Ipswich today to determine if that was a small tornado.

Turns out it was a microburst with 80-90 mph winds.

Hoopyfrood wrote:

Diverging Route wrote: Wow. My friend SERY the Arborist! I guess if this had to happen, it was good it was off-peak. Can you imagine the disruptions if it had been a weekday rush hour?

That happened a few years ago on the Fitchburg line, where a tree came down in West Concord just shy of the station. You had at one point multiple trains parked along the way from Baker Ave. east under Rte. 2 and beyond. We were there quite a while.

They had a bucket loader come out for that one! I have a pic of that tree somewhere...

There's a service alert for 402, but both 402 and 404 were told they would need 241s on and off the Station Track at CPF-GL. They were also told to go to 86-86 (161.400) because of reception troubles on road channel. Dunno about 406 and later trains or OBs.

106 has been having a lot of issues lately. "Signal problems" almost every morning, which always make it slip into 156's slot, holding us up at Salem for it and an outbound, then we get stuck riding 106's yellows all the way to Boston.

Really making me wish the T hadn't been so shortsighted and actually took the new station as an opportunity to double-track Salem, so meets could occur at the station, rather than one late train causing them to stack up.

The 304 ran 10+ minutes late inbound this morning due to signal problems. 351 arrived at Anderson/Woburn first, and the pax waiting for 304 boarded along with 352's pax. But 352's conductor wisely announced on the PA that 304 was approaching and would leave first, so most pax switched.

Then 352 ran on 304's yellows for most of the inbound trip, though arrived at BON only two minutes late.

200 was about 10 minutes late out of Haverhill, or it lost time trying to get through Lawrence. Looked like 202 and 204 were also late.

I get T'lerts for all the north side lines - it seemed like every line had delays due to signal problems, mostly all affecting early inbounds on the outer ends of the lines.

More signal delays this morning. 202 took a 20-25 min delay getting from Haverhill to Lawrence. Made up a little time and only arrived North Station about 20 minutes late.

Sure feels like we're getting more and more signal issue delays again.

This morning is a hot mess on the Rockburyport line.

156 broke down in Rowley, 45 mins late to Boston, and the most crowded I have ever seen a train. The Rockport trains ran express, so we had to pick up several trains worth of people. I am surprised the dispatcher didn't ask the Rockport train right in front of us (108) to make local stops to relieve the crowding a bit.

Then a woman in Beverly tried to jump onto 110 as it was leaving the station. She survived and was transported to the hospital, but that led to even more cascading delays. That train was annulled, and presumably its passengers squeezed into the next inbound.

deathtopumpkins wrote:This morning is a hot mess on the Rockburyport line.



Then a woman in Beverly tried to jump onto 110 as it was leaving the station. She survived and was transported to the hospital.

Absolutely NO common sense. Hope she learned her lesson.

Sounds like a can't win day on the Eastern. Right now Keolis is tweeting that due to fire department activity, #124's passengers are being bused to Beverly to connect to an inbound train.