2016 Commuter Rail Delay Discussion Thread

Yeah, the Westwood one is actually the more notorious of the two when it comes to truck strikes. Guess its Dedham counterpart got jealous

As problematic as it is, I kinda hate to see it go.

csor2010 wrote:Yeah, the Westwood one is actually the more notorious of the two when it comes to truck strikes. Guess its Dedham counterpart got jealous

Over 1-1/2 ft. difference on the tape measure.

Westwood: https://goo.gl/maps/yN7zek3wENA2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dedham: https://goo.gl/maps/j7JoNAcAwWz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Takes a special kind of stupid to see those and their warning signs coming up in the distance on a tangent road with middling speed limit, blow right past the adjacent intersections where one could turn out if things started looking hairy, and decide--right before the dip in the road where the bridge I-beam is eye-level with the cab--"Hey, I got this" and power right on through.

Medford St., Malden, I get it...most trucks have just made a turn and are watching their backsides when they hit. Storrow Drive/Grand Junction, I get it...high rate of speed + abutting vegetation makes it come up pretty quickly and a driver who's only mostly brain-dead can blow through those Low Clearance mudflaps and panic when they've missed the breakdown turnout. Here...I'm not sure what set of neurons have to misfire to not see an obvious problem afoot many, many seconds before impact.

Oops, didnt realize how badly I got away from myself there 1050, sorry. Last im saying on that topic.

Framingham-Worcester delays this AM

P504 died at Worcester station. It is a turn of outbound P501, so it made it all the way from Boston to Worcester.

They eventually cancelled P504. P582 departed ~20 min late and operated as a local instead of express. It only had 3 doubles and 3 flats, so they sent out the protect set from Boston.

The extra got to Framingham and turned to operate inbound between late P582 and almost on-time P506. They actually held the extra at Framingham for about 2-3 minutes so it could depart on the schedule of P506, with the 'real' P506 holding just east of the station to allow the extra to go ahead.

The plan (per dispatcher chatter with trains) was that if and when P582 got overstuffed, they would have sent it express and had the extra and P506 sweep up the skipped local stops. With much lower ridership (St Patrick's Day? Evacuation Day? March Madness? Friday?), P582 never got overstuffed, although it was SRO after the Newtons. So it never went express. There were interzone Newton-bound passengers on P582.

The extra and P506 were VERY empty as per rider reports.

Given the information they had at the time they had to make the decision, it's hard to second guess the idea to send the extra out, even though it wasn't really needed and didn't really help. But they should have sent P582 express from somewhere east of Framingham, even if it wasn't full, since the extra was only 10 min behind P582. Tough call, and no easy solutions.

Final answers:
Passengers trying to take P504 were about 27 minutes late
Passengers trying to take P582 were about 20 minutes late
Passengers west of Framingham trying to take P506 were about 12 minutes late
Passengers at Framingham and east of Framingham trying to take P506 were on time.


P504 usually has ~550 passengers, and P582 usually has ~800 passengers. So you can see why they got scared and sent the extra out - 1350 passengers won't fit on a 3 double - 3 flat consist.

Dave

On the 512 today we were lucky to get a 6 car double set headed by 1705. The normal set for the 512 is a 5 car flat (or maybe a bit bigger), but it is usually pretty tight by the time you get to the Wellesley's.

Of course, the question is who got screwed out of this bigger set? Apparently, the original set for 512 broke down out of Readville. And then, the backup set also had a mechanical. So they routed the 1705 set to Worcester, screwing the Providence riders out of their normal 6 car set. Play the wa-wa-trombones.

351/352 cancelled again. Apparently a victim of the two HSPs that failed yesterday, resulting in not enough sets.

harshaw wrote:On the 512 today we were lucky to get a 6 car double set headed by 1705. The normal set for the 512 is a 5 car flat (or maybe a bit bigger), but it is usually pretty tight by the time you get to the Wellesley's.

Of course, the question is who got screwed out of this bigger set? Apparently, the original set for 512 broke down out of Readville. And then, the backup set also had a mechanical. So they routed the 1705 set to Worcester, screwing the Providence riders out of their normal 6 car set. Play the wa-wa-trombones.

2005 was the culprit this morning in Readville in the wee morning hours....was there when I left and in the same spot with 5 flats when I returned about 930am

also the 2015 was having HEP issues this morning on 509

Most Lowell line trains were delayed 15-40 minutes this evening due to a gate crossing strike at West Medford. A tractor trailer truck took down the entire assembly, and it blocked track 1. And so not only did the crossing need protection, but only track 2 was available for use between Somerville and Winchester Center. Conga lines of trains waited to use the single track. I was on 331, and we waited 30 minutes at Somerville Junction for four sets to come by. Strangely, the T-Alert for 331 (that came out 20 minutes into the delay) stated that it was late due a late turn of equipment. Not so -- the set was at North Station in plenty of time for its usual 5:10pm departure, and ran on-time until the stop signal at Somerville Junction.

Oh boy, lovely. Serial HEP inverter problems now for the HSPs?

352 cancelled again this morning. The set was sent to Rockport to cover something that was unhappy at running on a Monday morning.

T-Alerts saying 811 died near Hyde Park, and awaited 813 to "assist." 811 reported as 110 minutes late and 813 40 minutes late.

Rumor is it was another HSP inverter issue, though I cannot confirm this...

D

Not a delay, but not sure where else to put this.

It seems the T is running 5 extras on the Worcester line on Marathon Monday: outbounds to Ashland and Wellesley, and 2 inbounds from Ashland, 1 from Wellesley.

I don't remember any extra CR service in past years - is this new?

GP40MC1118 wrote:Rumor is it was another HSP inverter issue, though I cannot confirm this...

D

I saw the double draft pass through Canton Junction, and it was indeed an HSP46, although I didn't get the number.