Amtrak may detour into GCT - 11/25

A 630am Amtrak Burro crane derailment on Spuyten Duyvil ("DV") swing bridge has the Empire Connection blocked. Detours expected, trains may detour into Grand Central Terminal, or possibly dump their passengers at Yonkers or Croton-Harmon and turn trainsets at Mott Haven ("MO") wye with pasengers transferring to Metro-North trains to complete their journey into New York City. No firm details at this time.

It looks like they're running again, but with long delays

I see...that explains an Amtrak I passed on my way up to Southeast. This was about 11AM (I was on the 10:48).

Any GCT detours? I'll run over there if their are!!

Looks like they're going out of NYP and are down to about 1 hour delays... not the best day for this to happen, but it looks like they cleared it for the main rush...

According to reports, Amtrak service into Penn Station via the Empire Corridor is back to normal.

-otto-

Can anyone explain why the crane was where it was at 1 a.m. when it supposedly derailed? And was it a complete derailment that necessitated nearly 12+ hours of delay. I also don't understand why they didn't release the combined Adirondack and Maple Leaf via Hell Gate Bridge - New Rochelle - (then reverse move to) Hudson River Line. It took them until about 10 a.m. to finally get the Maple Leaf and Adirondack passengers loaded and off when clearly these trains have a LONG journey to our northern neighbor!

Did someone forget to get the ruler out to measure the dimensions of the crane and the bridge?

While this material appearing in Today's New York Times is only tangential to the "Spitting Devil" (once knew how to spell it; a requisite to graduate from the Second Grade) incident, such is mentioned within:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/nyregion/26gct.html

Pertinent brief passage:

• Best-laid plans are made for surprises, and this Wednesday was no exception. Sal Lupi Jr., the stationmaster on duty, arrived at his desk at 6:30 a.m. to learn that a late-night accident on a bridge in Upper Manhattan had snarled the heavily trafficked Amtrak route to Albany. Some 1,500 passengers would soon find themselves stranded 15 miles north of the city. Three Metro-North trains were dispatched to pick them up, and customer-service agents were reassigned to meet the incoming trains and direct disoriented riders.
  
  “You have to scramble,” Mr. Lupi said.
  
  Among those seeking assistance were Joseph and Sabina Prusan, who had planned to meet their granddaughters, Jillian Griesmer, 10, and Alexandra, 13, around noon at Pennsylvania Station, where they were informed that the girls had been rerouted to Grand Central.
  
  “We were nervous,” Ms. Prusan said after a conductor helped reunite the group. “It’s the only time the girls ever went by themselves.” The girls were more sanguine. “We had to stay seated and wait for 20 minutes,” Alexandra said with a shrug before returning to her BlackBerry.
  
  The Amtrak outage took more of a toll on Jim Fahey, Grand Central’s assistant chief rail traffic controller, who spent his morning coordinating the extra trains that transported the Griesmers. “I got a headache to kill three people,” he said in his gravelly voice. (Amtrak service was restored by early afternoon.)
  
  By 12:30 p.m., the controllers had quarantined the station’s westernmost track — the closest to Penn Station — for exclusive use by the displaced Amtrak customers. Meanwhile, one of the four main tracks leading to the terminal was out of service for repairs

Unless this was some sort of emergency repairs, the crane should have never been
out there in the first place, just ahead of Amtrak's busiest travel period of the year.
Further, it seems an excessive amount of time was required to remove the crane.
Possibly, there was some major track damage that required prolonged work, but no
mention has been made of that in any articles I have seen.

Let's hope the coming Sunday return rush goes smooth.

Dick

Regardless if it was the day before Thanksgiving or a slow weekend, railroads run 24-7. Trackwork is a never ending chore. Its ridiculous to read comments that the crane shouldn't have been there it why was it out. The fact is Amtrak was doing work and it derailed. End of subject. I ran train 133 down to DC yesterday and saw trackwork being performed, freight trains running so because its the day before Thanksgiving I guess none of this shouldve happened. When trackwork is being performed, no one plans for a work train to derail....yesterday CSX had a derailment in DC so I guess that train shouldn't have been running because it was thanksgiving eve? Yeah right

jp1822 wrote:Can anyone explain why the crane was where it was at 1 a.m. when it supposedly derailed? And was it a complete derailment that necessitated nearly 12+ hours of delay. I also don't understand why they didn't release the combined Adirondack and Maple Leaf via Hell Gate Bridge - New Rochelle - (then reverse move to) Hudson River Line.

Obviously Amtrak knows Thanksgiving Eve is the busiest travel day of the year. Do you really think they'd purposely risk their schedule with "non-essential" track work the overnight before?

As for why they weren't rerouted through Hell Gate: if you read the NY Times article referenced by Gilbert (here it is again: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/nyregion/26gct.html ) Metro-North had several extras on top of their already-busy weekday schedule. It was already enough of a PITA for Metro-North to run three shuttles to "rescue" Amtrak's passengers and bring them to GCT.

Rerouting these trains to Hell Gate would have been an even bigger logistical problem, especially on short notice. Amtrak's engineers may be qualified on MNR's territority as far as the DV bridge, but beyond that, if they are not qualified, they must have a qualified Metro-North engineer in the cab. (Even if the Amtrak engineer is qualified, it may still be required to have an MNR engineer present, since Amtrak normally doesn't run that route. You may recall MNR personnel were required when Amtrak ran a train out of GCT for a special "Good Morning America" series recently.)

On top of the staffing issue, you get the train turned around, facing northbound up the New Haven Line. When it gets to New Rochelle, it's ready go to south, except the southbound end of the train is now the END of the train. There's no other wye to turn them around a second time. So either they crawl in reverse all the way down to Penn, or Amtrak scrambles to pull some extra locomotives out of thin air to bring these trains back to Penn. But then you're dealing with coupling/uncoupling, which then ties up the tracks at New Rochelle, impacting both MNR and NEC service.

By handling things the way they were handled, Amtrak only interfered with one Metro-North line, rather than all three (and itself on the New Haven Line). The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Guessing there's a lot more people on the three MNR lines and the NEC than there were on the Adirondack and Maple Leaf.

I am not out to hang Amtrak for this event; there's other posts out there pretty harsh on Amtrak on the issue. However, I've yet to hear a reason as to why the crane was where it was on the Empire Corridor. I would have dropped the issue by now, but reading through all the stories this event produced, I am not even more curious! No doubt this was an inconvenience for Metro North, Amtrak and Amtrak passenger. Appears Metro North may have come through on a pinch here, but Amtrak kept its Adirondack and Maple Leaf delayed. If these were short distance trains, it would be less of an issue. But by say 5 a.m. when Amtrak probably knew it was going to have an issue in getting the Maple Leaf out on time, it should have been ready by the time the Adirondack was ready todepart to get the alternative in place (i.e. via New Rochelle). Since the bridge is so close to where Amtrak merges with Metro North, I would think Metro North had a pretty good idea on what was going on with Amtrak.

Its always easy for railfans to quarterback, despite never having run a locomotive or a railroad in their life.
my advise stick to running around christmas tree.
Maintenance happens 24/7, why was Burro Crane there ?? maybe to replace a broken rail or bad insulated joint, maybe a fallen boulder to close to a track.
maybe just cleaning out a drainage ditch, or replacing a worn frog at a switch.
both S*** and maintenance happen, live with it.

DutchRailnut wrote:Its always easy for railfans to quarterback, despite never having run a locomotive or a railroad in their life.
my advise stick to running around christmas tree.
Maintenance happens 24/7, why was Burro Crane there ?? maybe to replace a broken rail or bad insulated joint, maybe a fallen boulder to close to a track.
maybe just cleaning out a drainage ditch, or replacing a worn frog at a switch.
both S*** and maintenance happen, live with it.

Well Said...

I'm not going to blame Amtrak for having a maintenance car on the tracks.

I think railroads accept derailments too easily. A well ran railroad should have zero derailments. I don't accept derailments on my model train layout, I don't think railroads should in the real world.

I doubt there will be an investigation as detailed by the NTSB if the crane car had been a passenger car, and a few passengers were killed or injured. Every accident should be investigated that seriously, no matter the costs; if safety is really number one!