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  • Acid tank car leak At Sullivan Square

  • Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.

Moderators: sery2831, CRail

 #12851  by jwhite07
 
Normal Rockport/Newburyport and Reading/Haverhill commuter rail is running again, but with delays (single track and restricted speed through the affected area). Orange Line is still shut down at this time.

FYI, the tank car that puked was GATX 61410.

 #12905  by octr202
 
Do we have any Orange Line or Commuter rail riders on here who were affected by this yesterday, or this morning? Any first hand experiences of how the detours were handled? I rode the Green Line from Lechmere to North Station about 6:15, and then from north Station to Park St. around 8:30 last night, and there were pretty extensive announcements being made on the trains to redirect people.

Any horror stories out there, or any good news about who it was handled?

 #12943  by jrc520
 
It's all open again, as of 11:00

 #12949  by Xplorer2000
 
According to the "Trains" magazine newswire this morning, they found three, quarter-sized holes in the bottom of the tank car...apparently the acid got through the cars' lining and ate its way through the steel shell. Nasty stuff. Good thng they causght it when they did.

 #12969  by MBTA F40PH-2C 1050
 
did they say how it was discovered? someone waiting for the O line or the crew?

 #13020  by Xplorer2000
 
...and in a move that should surprise no one, according to the Boston Herald,Guilford has refused to answer any and all attempts to contact them by the press.

 #13060  by SbooX
 
octr202 wrote:Any horror stories out there, or any good news about who it was handled?
Three words for you: Complete freakin mess.

I now live in Malden, and had to endure the detours three times. The first time was Wendsday afternoon. I boarded at Malden Center, on the outbound track. Very odd. This was going on during the entire time of the reroutings. I would be stunned if someone didn't screw up and find themselves heading the wrong way. At Wellington, I went upstairs to the busway to board a shuttle and found ONE bus with its door closed. Apparently the operator had to take a leak. One bus for a midday crowd. Needless to say, I now know what its like to be a sardine. This bus went through midday traffic, stopping at all Orange line stops from Wellington to North Station. The bus ride alone took about 40 minutes. When our single bus got to North Station, there was easily 500 people waiting to board it. Rather than deal with getting back on the Orange line, I decided to walk to my destination in Downtown Crossing.

At about 6pm I headed for home. Figuring that any problems had been fixed by then, I boarded the Orange Line at DTX where I heard the announcement over the PA system: "Nargle fargle bam foo woo blah yakdfdk sdkur 3.14 delays goo gah mommy inconvenience sevil natas cookies woof meow for riding the T." Yeah, those things work bloody great. After about 6-7 minutes, a train pulled in. The operator made the very complicated announcement about how to get to where you are going. Rockport riders to take blue line to wonderland, Orange line riders have to take the green line to Lechemere... It was just insane. Waaaaay too complicated. I pity the poor non-english speaking tourist. The train stopped several times in the tunnels before reaching Haymarket. And although I'm sure he was just being helpfull/doing what he was told, the operator kept making the very long announcement about how to get to where you are going until I wanted to punch my self in the head repeatedly.

At Haymarket, I switched to the Green Line and didn't even have to wait for a train. Apparently they extended the B & C lines up to Lechemere to accomidate us. Problem is, it caused a ridiculous ammount of traffic. It took about 20 minutes to go from Haymarket to Lechmere. At Lechmere the busway was a disaster. T officials were doing their best, but there was just too much foot and vehicular traffic to have any semblance of order. After shoving my way onto a bus, I had to sit in the busway for about 5 minutes waiting to get out. There should have been a cop directing traffic at the intersection to allow buses priority to get out.

The ordeal was not over yet though. Naturally, the bus was stuck in rush hour traffic. Just to make things better, none of the bus drivers knew how to get to Wellington! They all kept pulling up next to each other, asking who was going to lead the convoy! Funny, but scary!!! At Wellington, we did not use the bus ramp. Instead, the buses took a shortcut THROUGH THE WELLINGTON YARD!!! This seems dangerous to me, but I'm hoping there was a rule against anything moving in the yard during this time. We then unloaded next to the Wellington repair facility. This was by far the biggest mistake the T made. There is no elevator over on that side of the station. There is only a narrow stairway. On my bus alone were a disabled man, who clearly had trouble with the stairs, an elderly couple who seemed confused when the T officials said there was no elevator and offered no help to get over to the elevator on the other side, and a couple with a baby carriage. Then it was back on the Orange Line for 1 stop to Malden. Again, boarding on the wrong track.

This morning I again took the Orange Line (on the wrong side) 1 stop to Wellington for shuttle buses, which were this time bound for Haymarket. Much better idea since Haymarket at least has a busway. Even though I left a half hour earlier than normal I still wound up 15 minutes late for work. The buses took forever, were cramped (no surprise there), and turned away riders at all stops past Sullivan Sq. And yes, they made all the stops again.

All that said, I guess I can't really blame the T too much. They could have made things easier for rider with simpler plans, but they did have tons of staff everywhere directing people where to go. I would like to see better plans developed in advance for situations like these, but again, I can't really see how they could have done too much better this time around. The confusing plans were probably thought up in an attempt to get us home faster, it just didn't work perfectly.

 #13174  by fm535
 
This was best described as a dry run for the DNC!

 #13257  by Ed Canney
 
I am not surprised that Guilford has not responded to calls about the leak as they will be responsible for the cost of the cleanup. What is surprising is why they stored this car in a residentail area. I always thought that those running tracks were to be used for getting to and from the railyard just beyond Sullivan Station and not for storage. Another question is why wasn't this car sent directly to Kodak in Peabody.
 #13322  by GP40MC1118
 
First off, the two tracks that go to old Yard 21 are the 3rd & 4th Iron.
They have been used for car storage, shifting and train makeup for
over 40 years. Even the MBTA's Work Trains use it to access their
materials yard there. The only customer left in Yard 21 is Spaulding
Brick (those two Southern boxcars on either side of the tank car
were probably their cars).

Secondly, the area is not totally residential. Its mixed use at best.
But much like the Brickbottom Artists Colony situation over on the
Acton/Fitchburg Line in Somerville, a building or former warehouse
in industrial zoned land is suddenly residential and its how dare you
run freight trains and passengers by my building. Now the area
at Sullivan Square is a little different, but this part of Somerville has
been a railroad freight operation for over 100 years.

The GATX tankcar in question came into Somerville off LOSA during
the overnight. The morning local, BO-1 discovered the leak as they
were making up their train for Salem & Peabody.

BTW, the car was headed to Eastman Gelatin in Peabody.

Dave

 #13510  by CSX Conductor
 
It's kinda ironic that I saw that drag of cars while on the Orang Line running a quick errand downtown, and I thought to myself "I'm glad I don't have bombs on my train"............ awefully weird co-incidence that after work that night I found out on the news that on of the tanks i had seen had leaked.

And I'm sorry if they get upset, but as far as people who live next to train tracks, if you don't like the trains close to your property, why did you move there? The rr's are not forcing you to stay there, are they? I only say this because nowadays it seems that 90% of homes next to tracks were probably built after the railroad was there.