July 4th Weekend

SEPTA could have done alot better on the RRD's. This is where through routing really ruins the system. Trains just packed on one delay after another.

There should have been a special schedule for today too. While they made the right moves in making longer trains, that still did not meet demand. To supplement, at key times, extra trains should have been added. The Wilmington train should have had a p/p set that stopped only at the far out stations such as Wil, Marcus Hook, etc. and then a MU set for the closer stations.

Overall, I think most out of towners were happy. The operation at the Mann Music center went very well. We had 13 buses to dispatch between there and the MFL 52nd St station. 13 Buses were probablly too many, but we had no capacity problems and had 3,000 people park there and ride into town.

The limiting factors on the RRD was probablly labor and equipment.

After expecting a disaster on my way home from work yesterday I was surprised to see business as usual. I got on the MFL at 13th expecting a Tokyo style crowd at 15th but that didn't happen. It was SRO after 15th but it was less crowded then the 4 car trains SEPTA was using earlier this year on weekends. The botched announcements (the voice said we arrived at 60th street at least 3 times) got the new riders confused and they weren't sure when we got to 69th street but I herded a bunch of them out of the car. Of course they all exited the same door rather than turning to the closest door to leave.

Got to 69th st and there was a 109 bus waiting so I hopped aboard rather than waiting for the 102. As we pulled out of the terminal an inbound trolley arrived with 2 cars.

So no problems for me at all yesterday.

Bob

A few points for consideration about service on July 2:

Were there issues, technical or labor related, which prevented SEPTA from running weekday-type peak level service on RRD? Why could it not have been replicated between, say 9:00 am and 12:00 noon, and then again between 5:00 pm and 8:00 PM, slightly shifted from the normal weekday pattern?

Although the City of Philadelphia received money to provide services for the concert, will SEPTA receive any reimbusement?

How much interaction really occured between SEPTA and the city/concert promoters when planning for additional transit services?

Several posts note a surprising lack of Lex IRT-style crush loads. The post-concert passenger loads may have been moderated by some people moving to Penn's Landing to watch the fireworks display later in the evening.

It will be interesting to see what happens on July 4th.

I think, considering the opportunity they had here, they should have gone all out and added extra trains (maybe some expresses, too), at least during the times leading up to and at the end of the concert. Since the city didn't mess up at all, all the heat for things going wrong fell on SEPTA, when it could have been a chance to shine.

By the way, did anyone see any push-pulls?

PARailWiz wrote:By the way, did anyone see any push-pulls?

I remember seeing three yesterday - two up on the trunk marked as R3 West Trenton (one inbound, one outbound) and a third heading towards Suburban from Market East on track 2, I forget which line it was. Interestingly, this push-pull set had an extra cab-car - the second "coach" was a cab car. There was also one at the end. I didn't note whether the other two sets had this misplaced cab car.

Would have been nice if they had all 8 push-pull trains running.

reldnahkram wrote:
this push-pull set had an extra cab-car - the second "coach" was a cab car. There was also one at the end.

There are a total of 10 cab cars in the fleet, but only 8 trains worth (only 8 engines), so theoretically there should be 2 misplaced cab cars in PP consists out there. You were lucky enough to see one of them.

I'm actually surprised they had the Bombers running at all yesterday.

Aren't there 35 coach trailers, 10 cab cars? With 8 locomotives, they can make 5 six-car trains and 3 five-car trains. Two of them will have a two cab cars.

One-off events like this are hard to plan for. With weekday peak schedules, you have time to tweak and test the times and train lengths, but SEPTA just wasn't prepared for what happened yesterday. In retrospect, the one-train-per-hour schedule was woefully inadequate for the number of people, even with 6-car trains.

I think the Regional Rail system wasn't designed for these numbers of people. What was it like when the City Division went on strike? Normally, the RRD has about 104,000 passengers, or about 52,000 people going to and coming from work each day. Contrast that with the El which carries 173,000 passengers each day, or about 86,500 people. Even a weekday peak schedule would have been inadequate.

They should have had trains running at least, at least every 15 minutes with a push pull set on each branch. What when down yesterday was totally irresponsible on SEPTA's part.

I heard the R6 got slammed pretty bad. They should have had the Cynwyd line running too. Too bad 52nd Street is closed, as its right next to the Mann where the shuttle buses we're running people to the MFL.

It doesent take a rocket scientist to figure out that between 10-12 and 5-7 tbat mobs of people would be moving in and out of CC. Should have been easy on at least the R6, R5's and R2Wil/R7 Trenton to run at least 30 minute service with maybe a few 15 minute headways somewhere.

Overall they could have done better, but I even heard the head of service planning say that he had no idea this many people would be taking SEPTA down. Roads were closed---duh! Get your heads out of your a&$es guys!

Do they have enough equipment to run 15 minute headways with 4- to 6-car trains?

SEPTA should have had every P/P coach with center doors on it out there. Would have greatly sped up boarding times. They also could have boarded at suburban on track 0 where there is a platform on either side to allow double the boarding capactiy (granted only helps on the PRR side).

I just returned from the elton john concert and I had the worst trolley experience of my life. 22nd street station was packed and getting restless as no trolley appeared for over 10 min and when they did they just zoomed past full. When they did stop people pushed and struggled creating very dangerous conditions in attempt to get on. This only resulted in slowing up the trolley as the would stand in the stair well, keeping the doors open. They were not running any short turns that I saw like during live 8, It would have helped. I also had the pleasure of sharing my ride with some of the most ignorant people I have ever come accross in my years on septa. One 'gentleman' was insisting very loudly that the young woman that he was sitting with should take off her shirt while a 12 year old repeated every disrespectful thing he said. Combined with the woman who would yell every time the operator opened the doors even though it was clear that someone wanted to get off, and the two preteens that were threatening each other from across the car. I was very glad to get off to say the least.

Time to go to bed,
Sean@Temple

Various websites on the web give fleet size as follows:

SII: 53
SIII: 20
SIV: Unclear
Bombers: 45

I'm going to estimate 150-200 SIVs, if someone has an exact number, that'd be great. That's 12 6 car SII/III sets (1 spare), 25-33 SIV sets, and 8 P/P sets. That assumes the fleet is completely operable - let's say 8 SII/III sets, 20-24 SIV sets, and 6 Bomber sets were actually available - that's 36-40 trains. That doesn't seem like enough for sustained 15-minute headways across the system.

What would have stopped SEPTA from running essentially a weekday schedule, with "AM rush" being 1000 to 1400 (instead of 0600-1000) and "PM rush" being 1700-2000 (instead of 1600-1700)? That leaves 3 hours to turn the system over and setup for the evening rush. Would that level of service have been enough? Probably not, but it would have been better.

From the Inquirer: "Maloney said that the system used every bit of its available rolling stock." I know there were three trainsets sitting in Lansdale at 1600, so something doesn't quite add up. I suspect that there weren't enough train crews available, so they used as many trains as they could operate, but there were cars that went unused. Was this a union thing, is there no way to get extra train crews for a day?

Alternatively, would it have been better to essentially split the system for the day - turn most of the ex-PRR side trains on the stub tracks at Suburban and use the four through tracks split 3/1 instead of 2/2 for ex-Reading trains terminating/originating at 30th St. Some lines (R8, R1) could run through, but most trains would stop downtown. This might have eased the crush at the end of the concert, as there'd be a lot more through capacity with at least three trains able to board in each direction simultaneously at Suburban.

An editorial in the 7/5 edition of the Inquirer:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news ... 053842.htm

bounces SEPTA as the one failure in an otherwise generally well-handled holiday weekend.

To paraphrase Bugs Bunny - What a bunch of maroons!!!

What p----s me off is that (again) no one will be held accountable, and the whole situation will be dismissed as having been too overwhelming to deal with.