blue streak 1 A problem occurred on AMTRAK's line just northeast of New Haven station. Although this was all new constant tension CAT a tree fell across the 4 tracks pulling the CAT and fouling the tracks. It does take awhile to clear these problems up. As you knw AMTRAK is on a major tree clearing project with ARRA funds but many nimbys fight this clearing.
A problem occurred on AMTRAK's line just northeast of New Haven station. Although this was all new constant tension CAT a tree fell across the 4 tracks pulling the CAT and fouling the tracks. It does take awhile to clear these problems up. As you knw AMTRAK is on a major tree clearing project with ARRA funds but many nimbys fight this clearing.
I don't understand why the clearing wasn't done when the catenary was being installed. A 15 year old tree is not going to knock down 4 tracks of catenary.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
As mentioned many times, railroads do not have the manpower today they had back when...each interlocking had at least one maintainer and maybe one or two assistants. Each 5-10 miles of railroad could have a track section foreman and up to 20 men. Plus the electronics of today are more susceptible to ice, fine snow, and temperatures no matter how it is wrapped or boxed. Also, as for the changing of schedules, that is a heads up operating move by management. On such bad weather days, fewer people do go to work, thus less need for crews and equipment...no use sending trains out if the are gonna get stuck and stick others. The whole philosophy of life, business....and commuter railroading...has changed greatly over the last 50, even 25, years.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Third rail can have problems when it ices up. This, more with overrunning (LIRR side) than underrunning (NYC side), but still an issue. It was an issue looking for a solution 40 years ago, and, apparently, it still is!
The really big issue with snow these days, other than getting people from their home to work, is keeping switches clear. Automatic switch heaters are not infallible. Once upon a time, you could find a small army of men to tend switches and keep them clean. I have heard the the LIRR used to empty the office building at Jamaica during snow to keep the switches clear of snow during the rush hours. There are probably fewer people in the headquarters building these days who are direct RR employees, and the will to use them might not be there, either. It's easy, and perhaps rightful to claim safety as a reason not to do this anymore. So, the response is don't throw any switches and run limited service.
50 years ago the Class I carriers had 10-15 man section gangs headquartered every 10 to 15 miles along the main rights of way, with most of the men living within walking distance of their headquarters. Now there are 4 or 5 man 'gangs' that have responsibility for 100-125 miles of track and each of the men live a commuting distance from their headquarters. 50 years ago the sectionmen were notified they were needed, walked (on snow shoes if necessary) to their headquarters point and began working. Now the sectionmen are as likely to be snowed in as any other commuter in the area of snow fall.
I don't have any first hand experience with 3rd rail operations, however, I would expect that if the snow depth came above the level of the 3rd rail in open terrain it would cause significant problems with the contact shoe and possibly electrical arcing problems in the shoe making contact with the 3rd rail.
In catenary territory several factors come into play. If the snow is heavy, wet and sticking, the weight of the snow upon the catenary wire can collapse it. I happened 50 years ago and it happens today. Snow is HEAVY. The second problem with catenary operations is trees. Heavy wet snow causes tree to fall. Sometimes trees will fall and knock down the catenary. Sometimes trees will fall down and knock out the supply power for one or more electrical substations. 6PM news reports indicated that at one point in time over 100,000 power customers in the NYC area were without power, with the 6PM figure being 20,000 still without power.
In the March 1958 blizzard the toppled the catenary system of the PRR, the PRR operated several of their New York-Washington trains over the CNJ-RDG-B&O route from just outside the NYC tunnels to DC using B&O diesel power. In 1958 trains did not require HEP power for heating and cooling and the steam boiler on a GG1 was not electrically heated. Today the only CSX engines equipped with HEP are those that run the office car fleet and they are headquartered in Jacksonville, FL. Diesel power for Amtrak NEC operations is not headquartered in New York as diesel power is not used. Power for the operations to Albany is only sufficient for the service it is scheduled to handle.
The only thing that brings snow under control ANYWHERE is manpower in mass quantities. It doesn't make any difference if you are talking about railroad, highways or airways. Manpower with the proper equipment can give you a even chance of surviving a storm with minimal operational impact, but there WILL be a impact...it is not business as usual.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I live in the NY Metropolitan area. We have gotten a fair amount of snow this year. When these storms come along, the transit systems (NJT, LIRR, Metro-North and Amtrak) switch to weekend/holiday schedules or shut down completely. LIRR and Metro-North out of Grand Central claim that the trains lose contact with the 3rd rail when the snow gets too deep. These systems have used 3rd rail technology for over 3/4 century. Have they always had this problem? Amtrak shuts down even though they use catenary. Maybe they are concerned about drifts. Did PRR , NYC, Erie, Lackawanna and all the others ever shut down and hide like railroads seem to do today?
Delays and some blockages can be expected. But what has changed? Is new technology intolerant of bad weather? NJ Transit has new locos that shut down when they got too hot during our summer heatwave. Did GG-1s and E-8s shut down? What has changed over the years? I'm 52 this year. Maybe some "older" old timers can shed some light. If it is due to technology, how can they justify calling it progress?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.