Septa Train loses power between 30th St & Suburban Stations

Sept 27th:

Regional Rail Service Restored After Power Outage Panic

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/loc ... 36613.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ben

Top notch journalism.

So a train (which one?) "lost power" and stopped. Somehow, this created panic and confusion and (based on the photos) people opened the emergency escape windows on the train and started to evacuate down the railroad tracks?

Then someone (Septa customer service?) started a rumor and started a panic at Suburban Station that the building was on fire?

This half page article left me more confused about the incident than I was before I read it.

I had heard that when the train lost power it sparked or something and that's what caused the people to panic and open the emergency windows. There's a picture somewhere on twitter of people walking along the tracks between 30th st and the tunnel entrance. Definitely created a mess- I got dumped off the R6 at allegheny and had to pick up the BSL, luckily my train was far outside the center city area when it happened.

liftedjeep wrote:Sept 27th:

Regional Rail Service Restored After Power Outage Panic

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/loc ... 36613.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ben

Per Scott Sauer (Assistant G.M. of Operations) & Channel 6 News - an electrical breaker tripped twice on a Paoli/Thorndale train causing two loud bangs around 5pm. About 500 frightening passengers decided (own their own) to get out of the crippled train and onto the tracks. This resulted in system wide delays. The issue was resolved by 6:30pm.
Ben

I was actually in the middle of this mess on another train (9747). There was much more going on during this time, including:

-Train 3448 (5:00 at Suburban to Warminster) was cancelled due to downed wires on the Elwyn Line. Inbound Elwyn service suspended, outbound delays up to 40 minutes past 49th Street.
-Wire train through Center City tunnel on Track 4 at 5 PM, presumably Elwyn-bound.
-Trains stacked up on Track 3 of Center City tunnel to make way for wire train.
-Mass confusion on the platforms since the GVF and the train normally preceding it (Exp Bryn Mawr, Loc Paoli) were on different tracks at the same time with the same equipment (PP) after the wire train pulled out.
-While all this was happening, Train 2555 (4:47 at Suburban to Bryn Mawr, 4 car set of SL4s) was stopped on Track 4 next to 22nd Street bridge.
-Track 2 was alternating traffic between eastbound and westbound trains between Suburban and 30th Streets.

My train squeaked on through around sometime after 5:20 (running around 10 late). Switched to Track 3 after Suburban. As I passed Train 2555, I noticed that the end doors of the train were open. I assumed power was out on the train and the doors were open for ventilation, but the markers and headlights were still on. After passing 2555, I heard some clacking and looked up to see the wire bouncing rather violently over Track 4. No idea why it was doing that, but it scared the beejeezus out of me.

Just a witness account.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/septa ... 70927.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Panic over a false rumor of a fire inside a stalled SEPTA train in Center City on Wednesday evening caused passengers to flee the train onto the tracks, resulting in a massive snarl for commuter rail traffic that lasted throughout the night.

The panic began after 5 p.m., when a Paoli-Thorndale Line train leaving Suburban Station for 30th Street Station suddenly came to a halt between stops, said passenger Jeanine Heck, 40, of Narberth.


Scott Sauer, assistant general manager for operations at SEPTA, said an electrical breaker tripped twice on the No. 2555 train, which was carrying 500 passengers.

“When an electrical breaker trips on a train, it makes a very loud bang,” Sauer said. “The fact that it tripped twice, for two bangs — that likely triggered the passengers to believe something was wrong.”


Some passengers weren’t moving, causing others to get angry.

Then, Mackowsky said, “someone started screaming, ‘There’s a fire on the train!’ ”

That’s when people rushed off the train, at first through the windows and later through the doors, which were opened to try to get people back inside.

“I stayed on the train because there was no fire and no reason to panic,” Mackowsky said, adding that he believed people started saying there was a fire simply to move people along faster.


SEPTA will conduct a full investigation into what happened, Sauer said.

Post-mortem message from SEPTA...

http://www.septa.org/service/rail/2017-09-message.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People are dopes. In the event of a power related emergency, trying to evacuate is the last thing you want to do. Also, even if you grant the benefit of the doubt that they're just panicky; per pictures these people just seemed to stand there on all four tracks on their phones even while the platforms for 30th Street are within view.

SCB2525 wrote:People are dopes. In the event of a power related emergency, trying to evacuate is the last thing you want to do.

Not if you think there is a fire in the enclosed space in which you're waiting.

If i had heard some loud noise and particularly 2x like that, i would have been right with the passengers. Something like that probably scared them to death and they didn't know what it was.

Good thing you guys weren't around when railroads used track torpedoes as a signal to warn other trains. They made a loud bang too.

Was this outage on the former RDG grid or on the former PRR grid?

Backshophoss wrote:Was this outage on the former RDG grid or on the former PRR grid?

Power on that portion of the railroad, including all the way through the tunnel, is supplied by Amtrak ( ex-PRR ). The phase break between the ex-PRR and ex-RDG systems is at Girard Avenue.

Phase break signals

If I were on the train and heard the loud bangs I would apply common sense to the situation. If I didn't smell smoke or electrical burning and didn't see any smoke I would not be inclined to evacuate from the train unless instructed to by the crew.