Yesterday was the re dedication of the rebuilt Wilmington, De AMTRAK RR station with mostly ARRA funds. Station was named for VP Joe Biden. Mr. Boardman was scheduled to ride an ACELA from WASH - WIL. However there was another low voltage incident on the NEC causing him to abandon his train at BAL and ride a car from BAL - WIL (wonder if it was a standby car following his train?).
This low voltage incident had sever impact on the whole NEC including the Harrisburg line and as far as Newark. Although the reporting is sketchy it appears that this problem for some reason spilled over to former RDG SEPTA lines as well (anyone?).
This occurred on a Saturday with less traffic loads and is puzzling. Maybe some maintenance was scheduled that reduced total power available to the NEC? Whatever the reason these low voltage incidents are occurring on about every other month and certainly needs investigation and resolution. AMTRAK does have a study going on now to find ways to increase reliability.
The anti-train contingent is undergoing a self-administered tug on the underwear over this one, hopping up and down screaming about how trains are unreliable and that President Obama and Vice President Bidens train plans are a boondoggle if not an outright scam.
On the other hand, it can sometimes take just one accident to shut down a four-lane Interstate in each direction, delaying motorists for hours, in rare instances stranding people for days.
On yet the other hand, whenever one of these Interstate meltdowns occur, the advocacy people start going, "See, see! If we only had a passenger train, people would not have to endure this!"
Well, no. Transportation is transportation, and every mode is subject to various modes of breakdown. There is no reason to believe that trains are inherently less reliable than other choices, but the claim that trains are much more reliable than the other choices is probably overstated.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul --
I would certainly agree with you that advocates of any given position will seize upon any "event" that seems to support that position, and possibly blow it out of proportion.
And, isn't reliability in any transport mode largely related to the condition of the infrastructure? Putting aside considerations of the age and condition of the NEC's plant & equipment, isn't there in general a lack of redundancy in the US rail system (compared to 50-100 years ago), which makes it harder to overcome problems on any given single line?
In California (with which I am most familiar), there were once multiple (frequently parallel) lines, operated by the same railroad (as well as sometimes nearly-parallel lines by other mainlines). It must have been much easier to work around a mainline problem under those circumstances, as compared to today -- after mergers, abandonments, short-line spin-offs, reliance on trackage-rights agreements in lieu of one's own trackage, etc., etc.
Why does everyone always argue rail vs air vs highway?
What we need is an intigrated co-operative transportation system. Each component provides a service better than the others in some areas.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Paul Milenkovic The anti-train contingent is undergoing a self-administered tug on the underwear over this one, hopping up and down screaming about how trains are unreliable and that President Obama and Vice President Bidens train plans are a boondoggle if not an outright scam. On the other hand, it can sometimes take just one accident to shut down a four-lane Interstate in each direction, delaying motorists for hours, in rare instances stranding people for days. On yet the other hand, whenever one of these Interstate meltdowns occur, the advocacy people start going, "See, see! If we only had a passenger train, people would not have to endure this!" Well, no. Transportation is transportation, and every mode is subject to various modes of breakdown. There is no reason to believe that trains are inherently less reliable than other choices, but the claim that trains are much more reliable than the other choices is probably overstated.
In general, I agree. In the case of the NEC, I'm not so sure. The highways parallel to the NEC are highly unreliable because sections of them operate at or near peak capacity so often. Trip times can be all over the map depending on what section or sections tip over capacity to "jam" mode. The capacity of a highway in "jam" mode is less than Try a leisurely drive from NYC to Washington on a Friday or Sunday afternoon....
Rail capacity is relatively finite and passenger trains are scheduled into that capacity. Air capacity is similar, but more likely to be effected by weather with cascading effects. But, either would be more reliable than driving in the Northeast.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Phoebe Vet Why does everyone always argue rail vs air vs highway? What we need is an intigrated co-operative transportation system. Each component provides a service better than the others in some areas.
I, for one, couldn't agree more. It should not be "either...or". We absolutely need -- and there is demand for -- each mode of transportation. The more integrated and cooperative, the better.
Paul M: I agree. MY only point in posting this problem is that it shows what a starvation diet over the almost 40 years of AMTRAK has accomplished. The patient has not died but instead of getting better is only on a modified life support instead of getting a dose of Ringers. Until the ARRA very little upgrade or other than critical repairs have been able to be completed! The state of the electrical distribution in the NEC has slowly been reduced over the years. I believe that Conrail got the new proposed electric billing. That was cash flow money AMTRAK needed to continue to provide electricity to Conrail.
Just remember Obama rode from PHL - WASH behind diesels instead of electric motors.
Inspection trips sometime actually do highlight actual field level problems on railroads, despite Middle Management's best efforts to adhere to the leadership of Top Management and gloss over those problems on the daily status reports up the chain of command.
On CSX a number of years ago, Top Management made the decision to marginalize the value of a subdivision by diverting it's through traffic to another roughly parallel subdivision. Top Management had a inspection trip over the new routing for this traffic sometime after the plan had been put in place. The trip was to encompass movement over 2 subdivision that had the traffic rerouted onto them and was scheduled to take 12 hours with a crew change at the mid-point of the roughly 400 mile trip over a single track railroad. The first leg of the trip was operated on time to the Crew Change with little fan fair. After the Crew change the Inspection train got the opportunity to follow 5 other General Merchandise freight trains....there was no opportunity to get the inspection train around the 5 trains it was following as each and every passing siding was occupied with trains operating in the opposite direction....THE RAILROAD WAS FULL. Following 5 freight trains occasioned delay as freight trains don't always run mile after mile without having mechanical issues, defect detector activations and any of the 101 things that working railroaders know happen to trains to keep them from making Timetable Speed every minute they are operating. The Inspection train had to be recrewed before getting to the end of the crews run and the expected 8 hour trip on the 2nd leg turned into a 18 hour fiasco....none of which could have been prevented with the traffic that was on the route. This all occurred on a Friday into Saturday.
Monday morning 4 through trains were put back on the subdivision that was being marginalized. Some times Top Management has to come into contact with the real world.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
blue streak 1 Just remember Obama rode from PHL - WASH behind diesels instead of electric motors.
Much was made about this at the time, but the Secret Service was much more concerned with the potential of sabotage of the catenary leaving a sitting duck train. They were not really concerned so much with the reliability of it. This is why we saw the wire train leading the three (also diesel) inauguration special trains.
Continue not to fix, repair, or replace anything and you're not going to have anything but an easy time shooting it down. Of course should Congress start giving Amtrak status with money so it can act like a real business with real investment and real progress and a real business plan what would the opposition have to shoot at? But the Republican businessmen of Congress know how to operate a business, don't they?
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Henry -- I would agree with your sentiments. I have echoed them in the past, when I have asked; how do we really know how well passenger rail (including long-distance) can do, until we really provide a decent level of service -- including desirable frequency & scheduling, modern equipment & amenities, and point-to-point speeds that at least equal those of 50-70 years ago!
But here's a shocking thought -- what if we could convince the railroads that Amtrak "can act like a real business with real investment and real progress and a real business plan"? Then maybe they might be induced to make some investment.
Why? Because that's where real businesses get their capital -- they get it from their shareholders. And the railroads are the common-stockholders of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation - i.e., Amtrak). If Amtrak could be successful, they might have a valuable asset on their books.
Of course, their "investment" in Amtrak was somewhat, shall we say, unconventional. and those that invested didn't think that passenger rail could ever be made profitable. Their thinking doesn't seem to have changed much in the intervening 40 years. So it is the preferred shareholders who -- somewhat reluctantly, much of the time -- provide capital and cover on-going losses. Oh, by the way, those preferred shareholders -- that's you and me and several hundred million of our fellow Americans, through our designated representative, the US Government.
Unfortunately, both the common and preferred shareholders do not seem to recognize the common business concept, that one must invest in a business, in a way that produces a product/service which is attractive to the customer, to have any hope of making a profit. But if you do, you might well have a good shot at doing so.
I'm not sure...my mind thinks that even if you can't change a tire yourself, you can call someone but to change a mindset is virftually useless. What bothers me is that too often investors want money back before the property is in good enough shape to earn a profit thus the property doesn't get fixed, there is no service, and the whole thing goes belley up. Railroad mindset is that freight pays, passengers don't. Thus passengers have been thrown into the welfare class as far as business and federal government is concerned. We divide our country into business and non business minds without giving a thought to the fact that both sides actually rely on the success and well being of the other. I know I hark on the concept of service, but also I expouse the idea that we are at a turning point, everything should be laid out on the table with no service and new planners build a service from scratch, no politics, no self interests beyond being charged with a service oriented transportation system which is efficient, effective, environmentally clean, reliable, and hopefully at minimum pays for itself if not earns a profit somewhere along the way; it also has to be, by default, a cooperative effort of public and private enterprises.
Well put, Henry.
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