Service suspended between STM and GCT

redline43 wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:no that is correct, off peak MN is only running Harmon/Poughkeepsie shuttles till next Monday.
south of Harmon passengers are moved in mostly M-8 or M-2/4/6 on express trains.

I rode the 9:54 off peak inbound from Poughkeepsie yesterday and we ran all the way through to GCT, are they doing this on an "as-needed" basis?

If they haven't been running Maxi's through to GCT this whole time, and they haven't had that many running on the NHL, where did they all go?

CTRailfan wrote:

redline43 wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:no that is correct, off peak MN is only running Harmon/Poughkeepsie shuttles till next Monday.
south of Harmon passengers are moved in mostly M-8 or M-2/4/6 on express trains.

If they haven't been running Maxi's through to GCT this whole time, and they haven't had that many running on the NHL, where did they all go?

Train #Y326 Local to Stamford, CT had one set late this morning as seen at the Botanical Garden station.

Ouch.. But on the bright side it strengthens the argument for committed investment in the NEC. Let's hope that this will be taken as a serious wake up call.
http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2013/10 ... n-revenue/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That would be nice, but all we're going to get is a bunch of hot crap from guys like Schumer. He'll probably demand a board seat on ConEd to prevent this from happening again.

Has there yet been an explanation of why the section powered by the Mt. Vernon substation wasn't fed from the adjoining section of catenary?

Jim I think the explanation was given. That it was not possible to do that, supply power to the Mt. Vernon-Rye section of track from another substation, because the system is not set up that way, to be energized from different substations. In that sense each section is stand alone.

A temporary feed could not be supplied directly to the Mt. Vernon substation because both of Mt. Vernon's main feeder cables were OOS. That rendered Mt Vernon OOS. That's why in order to power that section Con Ed had to bring in a portable substation at Harrison.

I think this is what the problem was but I'm no electrical engineer! Maybe somebody else can explain better.

So, was it the New Haven RR, PennCentral, or MetroNorth that removed the sectionalizing switches between the various parts of the catenary that were originally installed so that electric trains could still be run while 1 substation was shut down?

I'm not sure who removed it but it was probably done when they switched over to a commercial power supply. In their defense it's worked pretty well, I can't remember another time when the power has been interrupted in the same fashion. This whole thing at Mt. Vernon with one feeder cable taken OOS and the remaining cable being damaged seems like a Murphy's Law type of deal to me.

Maybe they will reinstall the capability to feed sections from multiple sources. The MTA has said they will take steps -- in cooperation with Con Ed -- to make sure this can't happen again. Sounds like restoring the ability to feed catenary from adjoining sections could be a possible solution or safeguard.

A followup question or 2.

How long did it take to get both cables back into service?

How big is the disabled substation [MW]?

really ?? bring up treads from two years ago ??

DutchRailnut wrote:really ?? bring up treads from two years ago ??

Yeah, 14 pages, ouch! Was the root cause determined? Why didn't they just replace all the SLE trains with M8s & run those diesels across the 8-mile gap & use the M8s to get into GC.

M-8 is still not approved for service east of New Haven.

B+A,it was a contractor's backhoe for Con Ed,that took out a underground feeder for that Sub-station,
believe at the time of the outage,the other feeder to that Sub station was under repair....