State of the New Haven Line (CP216-Div. Post)

Backshophoss wrote:MN had the NTSB and the FRA Crawling around after the wrecks at Bridgeport,DV, and the CSX trash train
Both the NTSB and FRA required certain things to be done,compliance was required.
What you see are the results of NTSB and FRA requirements.

Let me fix this for you.

MN and the FRA are in bed together ...the NTSB however called them out on it.

Also i think its funny how noone heard about the MN derailment/mini collision/whatever it was that occured up by CP216 a while back.....

Well, MNRR, whatever their short-comings were, at least now has an ops guy running it. Wonder if Joseph Giulietti reads the threads?

I'll give this thread a bump with my two cents. I was working a Amtrak yard job in PSTA around 1992. Twelve hours every day, weekends off, sign up 10 am loop a few arriving Metroliners out to Sunnyside and bring them back in to PSTA for a trip to Wash go on beans for an hour or so and bring a few NJT MU sets out of the Erie yard to go west during rush hour and then coast in protect service the rest of the tour unless a rescue job popped up. Noticed one of the NY Amtrak road foreman running a train out of the station going to New Haven about three times a week due to a massive shortage of Amtrak engineers at the time. A few days later I'm walking past the office and this road foreman pops out and says, " You want to do me a favor and qualify to New Haven, will get you paid the earnings of your assignment?" So I replied sure.

He flips me a head end riding pass and the next day I mark off Qualifying and show up in PSTA looking to ride The New England Metroliner which at the time ran non-stop to New haven leaving PSTA about 5 o'clock pm. Most of us were already qualified up to CP-216, the junction with MN due to the fact yard jobs in PSTA were regularly called on to rescue broken down trains up that way. The junction, at that time, had double slip switches which were restricted to 10 mph and just east of there on Amtrak was a short stretch of 100 mph territory. My initial impression was the New Haven main line was one big curve. I hated the MN signal system with low home signals at the interlocking's and the minimum aspects that could be displayed and there were no wayside signals between interlocking's. There were two locations where the pantograph had to be dropped due to no wire on the bridges traversed, a definite trap for a engineer not paying attention, getting tied up with the radio or reading bulletin orders. Riding the Metroliner this first trip we started getting cab signal drops around Stamford the engineer called the MN RTC who told him we were following a wire train so much for riding a hot train. Getting to New Haven, cutting the motor off and sticking it in the motor storage we walked across the main to the engine house office and I found the guy taking the next one back to New York. What a great bunch of friendly engineers a lot of old time Irishmen with white hair and most were ex New Haven. Rode another week and got bumped and had to take a NY-Philly clocker job and never finished Qualifying. I did get a kick out of the MN RTC's screwing Amtrak over as it happened more than once the following week.

MN RTC's NEVER screwed over Amtrak, If Amtrak showed up on time they got the slot, if they were late they got f**ked, I anything Amtrak screwed it self over and over and over again.
A passenger train with 700 commutes who is ontime sure as hell trumps a Amtrak choo choo with 300 who is late....

Never bothered me as I put my last 18 years in with NJT quite a bit on the NEC and getting hosed by Amtrak high and mighty dispatching on many occasions. I like it when MN sticks them behind the Stamford wire train sort of poetic justice and satisfies my thirst for revenge. LOL

Ahem ...

Zeke, nice write up. For the most part, and there are exceptions, the RTC's do keep Amtrak's moving. We do have a lot of newer blood posting or newly qualified up in the OCC so take that into consideration. If you were put behind a wire train, probably poetic justice being served from a prior incident. Recently I was talking with some Amtrak crews (zone 1), there are a few engineers who intentionally dog it for a recrew since they tightened up some jobs with the turnaround.

As for the plethora of speed restrictions and mobile units working, welcome to the New Haven Line. One thing I will give you that is not specific to the NHL are the downgrades on curves and movable bridges being so far out. I was told with PTC on the horizon that may be improved, but who knows.

I believe the low grade animas between Amtrak and all of the commuter operators that ply the NEC has trailed off in the past 5 years or so for a number of reasons. The realization they are all in the same boat trying to move a tremendous traffic volume and that fighting pitched battles over turf only creates more problems than it solves. MN is the only operator that has control of it own territory and is not really beholden to Amtrak although I am sure there are contractual penalties if avoidable delays mount up. One of the problem areas in earlier years was the senior management push for on time trains and this burden fell squarely on the train crews and train dispatchers. This heavy pressure from above led to all manner of unintended consequences mostly negative. Quite a few engineers see the big picture and quite a few don't when it comes to second guessing dispatching moves and yes a few work at cross purposes. RTC's and DS's that give a train a brief heads up as to why they are being held or crossed over or following another train go along way towards lessening the sturm and drang. I have always told my student engineers when they get promoted to make friends with the dispatchers as there as is no point in having a them vs. us relationship.