Bye-bye clickety-clack

c604. wrote:

Oh, and btw: Metra could've done a much better job in letting the passengers know that 2720 was going to be boarding on the opposite (outbound) platform, no announcement was made at all. Which naturally led to a lot of passenger confusion, as many of them played an impromptu game of hop-scotch trying to determine what platform to use

Yeah I've seen that too several times there in the last few years, it was exactly as you said; they don't make any announcements or anything on the scrolling signs and it results in a dozen or two people track hopping and standing on the tracks as the train is approaching.

yet notification conveying information that would have been far more useful was non-existent

My thoughts were exactly that. It wouldn't just be for convinience, its a matter of safety; I can think of a few ways where a fatality can result from a situation like this if a passenger gets into panic mode. But like you said, thankfully everytime I've seen it happen the engineer would either stop or get down to an absolute crawl before the crosswalks to let everyone cross. And it isn't just Roselle, when I saw it last year apparently they didn't make announcements at stations further east either because at each station the train again got down to a crawl and let everyone cross (and a few people didn't cross and missed the train - this was a Sunday too )

This incident also made me wonder just how many folks really pay attention to those scrolling signs. Not many, from my observation. I've seen before in similar situations on UP/W whenever the inbound trains are using either the center track or opposite platform where the announcements would be made via the scrolling sign, but with no audio. (And sometimes it's vice-versa). Honestly though, it was one of the more interesting railfan adventures I've had in a while, because I'm heading there to see one thing, but it unexpectedly turned into a crash course on human behavior; specifically, the different reactions people can have when trying to do something with little or no information. No doubt, it was an interesting study. But back to the original purpose of my visit to Roselle: Someone had tipped me off they had spotted one heading west from CUS. Turns out I was an hour early, because I later found out it came through on 2719, the next westbound, but I couldn't stick around to get a pic, had other errands to run. Going to cross that guy off my list of reliable sources...

F40CFan wrote:

doepack wrote:I thought the rail replacement project wrapped up late last year, what's up with that? Or is this some other project?

They have been replacing the bridge over Salt Creek in Wood Dale.

Thanks. Guess they're going to be tying up the railroad on weekends on that line for the second summer in a row...