Railroad Forums 

  • Downed wires on "main line", 6/3/04

  • Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.
Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.

Moderator: AlexC

 #23687  by R3 Rider
 
I was on train #4007, an R3 express from West Trenton to 30th Street. Between Noble and Jenkintown, the train stopped and sat for about ten minutes. We then passed Jenkintown and sat on the other side of that station for about half an hour with the power off.

During this time, no conductor came to tell us what was going on; when we finally reached Center City, there were no apologies, nor did they remind passengers about the refund slips you can fill out.

I only found out what the problem was by calling home and asking someone to turn on the news; it turned out that there were downed power lines somewhere in the area, because the only lines being affected were the R3 West Trenton, R2 Warminster, and R5 Doylestown trains inbound to Philly.

Anybody have any more details about what went on? I'm really PO'd -- not so much because I was over an hour late getting to work (the train didn't get to 30th Street until 8:56), but because they didn't tell us jack crap.

 #23936  by R3 Rider
 
Somebody pointed out to me over e-mail that I might have misused the term "main line," at least in the way you guys understand it. I was referring to what SEPTA considers their "main line" -- the area up through Jenkintown where it branches off into the ex-Reading R2, R3, and R5 lines.

Still, I'd be interested in finding out if anybody knows anything more about this. SEPTA's silence yesterday was deafening.

 #24009  by RDGAndrew
 
My wife also got caught unawares in the "downed wire" fiasco and said she did not hear anything either, before boarding or once onboard the train. She finally asked another passenger if he knew what the deal was and he said he had heard a PA announcement before he boarded (I think she was on the R5). Why can't SEPTA communicate????

 #24133  by Umblehoon
 
And on a SEPTA forum, using "Main Line" to refer to SEPTA's main line is reasonable.

 #24263  by JeffK
 
RDGAndrew wrote:My wife also got caught unawares in the "downed wire" fiasco and said she did not hear anything either, before boarding or once onboard the train. She finally asked another passenger if he knew what the deal was and he said he had heard a PA announcement before he boarded (I think she was on the R5). Why can't SEPTA communicate????
"Failure to communicate" was one of the major weaknesses cited by the Clean Air Council riders' focus groups. Many heavily bureaucratic organizations (not just SEPTA, btw!) have the perverse worldview that because information has worth, it is like money: if you hoard it you have more control, power, whatever, than you do if you spread it around. If you give it away you have diminished yourself and your position.

Unfortunately your wife's experience was anything but isolated. Perhaps the worst case in recent memory was that horrendous day a couple of years ago when wire problems halted many trains for 2 or 3 hours. Riders were permitted to board and trains continued to be sent into the "dead zone" without any warning that they would be stranded. Check the DVARP archives for the whole ugly story.

I know we try to steer clear of cheap shots in this forum, but there is more than a little justification for those who refer to the agency as "INEPTA".

 #24289  by Matthew Mitchell
 
JeffK wrote: Perhaps the worst case in recent memory was that horrendous day a couple of years ago when wire problems halted many trains for 2 or 3 hours. Riders were permitted to board and trains continued to be sent into the "dead zone" without any warning that they would be stranded. Check the DVARP archives for the whole ugly story.
It was September 9, 2002. Jere Downs and I spent the better part of a morning trying to reconstruct the situation for our respective stories. As bad as the original incident was, the months of stonewalling we got when we tried to confirm our findings and ask what SEPTA had learned from the situation and what they would do differently was even more telling about the state of the system.

Our big writeup was in the March 2003 newsletter (we were waiting for SEPTA to respond to our questions before publishing our analysis), but as Jeff said, the story played out over a number of months, and SEPTA did finally respond.

Back newsletters and DVARP membership information can be found at http://www.dvarp.org

 #24331  by R3 Rider
 
^I just tried to access that newsletter from the DVARP website, and came up with a 404 "This page could not be found" error. :(

 #24618  by jfrey40535
 
SEPTA's communication solution is to spend millions of dollars on "Smart Stations" that include digital signs, like the one at 30th Street (MFL) that constantly reads "30th STREET STATION" next to the "30th Street Station" sign. Guess so us slow folks don't forget where we are.

 #26689  by R3 Rider
 
I know this is a bit of a big favor to ask of you guys, but does anybody remember if there was a mention of the 6/3/04 service disruption on the 6/4/04 SEPTA News Page in the Metro? I've tried calling Metro's offices and keep getting voice-mail for people who never call me back.

Thanks in advance. :)