Wires down again

Dropped my wife off at Jenkintown this morning in time for her to catch the 7:12 train - at 8:10 she called me at work to say they hadn't made it to Fern Rock yet because they lost a pantograph and pulled down catenary over both tracks. After sitting for a while, the crew allowed everyone on board to walk 50 or 100 yards to the Fern Rock platform. Apparently there are no access steps to the inbound platform from the roadbed, and she reports that SEPTA had a makeshift wooden ladder for everyone to climb to reach the platform.

Why does SEPTA have such trouble with catenary? The stuff hung by the Reading lasted 60 years. SEPTA is lucky if they get 6 weeks out of the stuff they keep hanging around Fern Rock.

What a mess that one incident made for the rest of the day. I was taking the R6 at 5:10 out of Market East and that was all goofed up too. Apparantly, with the Reading side shut down most of the day, SEPTA couldn't position their equipment for peak hour service, so we all suffered. What was kind of neat was seeing trains every 10 minutes at Norristown. Since everything got backlogged, they were all coming in like every 10 minutes apart, then they had to go right out again because the Elm St. yard was filling up.

Can't these guys get ANYTHING right? I'm telling you all, they don't deserve another nickel in subsidy. Write your state senator now and tell him that! They want $60 mil? I think there's some floating around on Girard Ave.....

jfrey40535 wrote:The stuff hung by the Reading lasted 60 years. SEPTA is lucky if they get 6 weeks out of the stuff they keep hanging around Fern Rock.

Most of the failing catenary IS the stuff the Reading put up 70 years ago.

Can't these guys get ANYTHING right? I'm telling you all, they don't deserve another nickel in subsidy

When you substitute "don't deserve" for "direly need", then you obfuscate the issue. When an agency doesn't get enough subsidy, bad things happen like deferred maintenance.

OTOH, with the reputed exorbitant managerial salaries that SEPTA apparently pays, how come no transit advocates have banded together to have the agency investigated over misappropration of its funds? The Southeastern PA Transportation Authority is supposed to serve the public, not its top officers...

I'm not saying SEPTA doesen't need the money, but they have continuously demonstrated that they are not financially responsible. Most of the irresponsiblity is in how their money is spent on capital projects, and basic maintenance.

Just a few examples:
MFL cars, which are barely 6 years old have rotting seats, doors that don't work right, annunciation system that periodically does not work, and are very poorly maintained (dirty, smelly) which is why I nickname it the Smell.

Market East announcement system: Often announces trains are "Next to arrive" as the train is departing. If you're sitting in the lobby listening to it instead of waiting on the platform, chances are you'll miss your train.

Ticket Machines which don't accept today's currency.

New MFL 30th Street Headhouse: very dirty and looks more like something assembled at a yard sale (why do they have the slowest elevators in the world?)

Lack of schedule coordination between modes of transit (routes 93, 97 last trips to NTC arrive 11:41, last R6 leaves 11:42--> what is that?)

Lack of schedule enforcement on bus routes (Route 15 operators always 5+ minutes ahead on E/B trips, leave 5min late on W/B trips)

Poor on-time performance on RRD, like evening R8 CHW which is chronically 5-10min late arriving at CHill.

These guys need to show that they are making a attempt to run on-time under normal circumstances. They need to do the basics like keep stations and vehicles clean. And I have to question what wires are falling down at Fern Rock. THey have been doing catenary work there for months now so who knows if its the new stuff or the old stuff that is failing. Based on what SEPTA buys and how poorly it functions would tell me their work is probablly at fault.

Finally, we need to have a GM and a board that is engaged with the public in projecting a plan that improves our system. When was the last time we heard from Faye? Also a restructuring of the priorities of their capital budget needs to be done. Smart Stations should not be at the top of the list.

SEPTA has a piss poor catenary/overhead wire department. Point blank. They don't have an engineer on staff I don't that can properly design an eficient catenary/overhead wire network. Just take a look at the trolley system. It's a desgrace to see some of the overhead in certain places.

So SEPTA actually has replaced the old Reading catenary wire between Jenkintown and Fern Rock? I thought they were still working on it, though they haven't issued one of those update reports in the Metro in ages; usually when they do, they talk about the work being done on the R3 between Neshaminy (?) and West Trenton.