Yeah, saw it John...thanks...I guess this is about to go public and wildly so. It is an unbelievable defense I've heard so far and so I wonder how far the heads are going to roll in the end!
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I assume you guys are aware of the Newswire article about hearings scheduled in the U. S. Senate and the New Jersey State Assembly.
link to bergan record article
http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/other_state_news/Months_before_Sandy_NJ_Transit_dismissed_need_for_climate_risk_study.html?page=all
I read the piece...and yeah, it hit harder than any so far. It raises some questions. But there is no one on one question and answer with anybody at NJT or with Christie on the matter. Oh, some people have asked a question here or there, but a real sit still and answer panel has to be assembled and not be allowed to leave before answers are given. Statements and hand outs aren't answers but means of avoiding questions. I'm also not sure there are reporters around today who know enough about railroads, railroading, NJT, equipment, procedures, history, and the people involved to ask sledge hammer and spike maul questions that are needed instead of the nerfs that have been tossed.
The Bergen Record does have a pretty hard hitting story, Henry. And it promises hearings both in the State Assembly and the Congress. We can only wonder where the tens of millions needed for repairs will come. Meanwhile, I am pretty amazed by John Durso's statement that there was no place to put the rolling stock other than in a meadow lands swamp.
On Monday, Dec 3rd, the Bergen Record of northern New Jersey (www.northjersey.com) had a front page article on the failure of NJTransit management during Hurricane Sandy. Today (Tuesday), they published a strongly worded editorial condeming both the lack of action before the storm, and the subsequent silence from NJT and state officials. Even Gov. Christie got some flak for not commenting.
The Record is generally agressive about following through with front page stories. Maybe the media has finally realized the magnitute of this situation.
Both you and Henry are absolutely right, Firelock. Chris Christie has been making a lot of speeches outside of the state in the past year or so and he is popular wherever he goes. And I know he can be very funny.
I can understand Chris Christie's popularity rising outside of NJ. I haven't watched "Saturday Night Live" in a long time, but I DID watch the Christie appearance after Sandy. He's funnier than the regulars! When he gets tired of being governor he should take over the show!
And more importantly for him, his acceptance outside NJ has risen, too. What that means for 2014 and 2016 is yet to be seen.
Re: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
Right now Governor Christie's popularity is at an all time high. 77 per cent of New Jersey's people approve of him according to the poll I read. He really took charge during Sandy, has toured extensively and still does telling people what he will do and encouraging them. He and President Obama toured together and put aside political differences to work for Federal assistance to recover from Sandy. And the Governor has just announced he will stand for re-election next November.
In the past the Governor has been outspokenly critical of certain groups and he himself has been criticized as dividing the people in New Jersey. Is he now simply responding to a natural disaster? Or has he decided to put his best foot forward and be a force for unification? The second would build on his high approval rating. If that is true he nay not be inclined to act strongly against NJT decision makers.
And, IGN, not just the MTA subways but also the MTA's LIRR and MNRR...even Amtrak....all back in service quicker, did the right things before Sandy hit, and kept the public informed openly, step by step, with ugly truths, details on what happened, what had to happen to fix it, what was being done, and predicted a hoped for timetable in getting the lines back in service under the circumstance.
My comments on NJTransit: compare how quickly NYCTA subway's have been able to restore service. NYCTA have had long been aware of the problem with Coney Island yard(low lying near a former wetland) and have had long standing plans there. In addition in the 24 hours preceding the storm they moved as much equipment as possible to a safer location.
After the storm they were able to get the system back up fairly quickly and improvised were they could not. The examples being the Rockaway "H" shuttle, bus bridges.
I'm not sure how Metro North and LIRR faired.
Rgds IGN
That's my point, Blue Streak 1. NJT has not openly and honestly reported to the people what they did wrong and what they didn't do right. They have not said what happened to what and how much equipment, how badly and why. Note that announcements and other information are all coming through Governor Christie's office and not any official NJT site, address, or office. But also note that no news media have raised or asked any questions of anybody which would dig into the answers to what happened, how badly, why, and what's being done...really being done. All reports are unconfirmed except those issued from and through the Governor's office. Some head rolled? We hear that only from rumor mills and not media and not NJT and not the Governor. It would be important and assuring if we knew for sure.
Henry --- read an unconfirmed report that all spare traction motors were immersed and many other parts as well. all at the meadowlands maintenance facility ?? if so -------- ??. also a low man on totem pole is on administrative leave for the decision and maybe set to be dismissed. Please don't put too much stock yet in these reports --
As was discussed earlier in the week, Gov. Christie's office has announced the return of train service on the Gladstone LIne on Monday. Two morning and two afternoon trains will be Mid Town Direct all others will go to Hoboken as diesels. There seems to be schedules for Gladstone to Summit to connect with Summit to Hoboken or Mid Town Direct trains. Schedules are posted on their website: www.njtransit.com.. The Summit-Gladstone shuttles could explain the two MU trains in Dover Thursday morning. (fans would love the location of one of the trains on the west siding east of the station instead of in the yard across the tracks!).
That, Blue Streak, could be months away! We have a Fourth Estate, we have politicians worried about all kinds of things, but we have nobody raising the curtain and asking the questions to reveal what actually has happened. It's easy to ride by the parked cars in Hoboken and in the Meadows and assume there are plenty of cars and locomotives on the property. But if those who are supposed to be looking out for the public aren't asking the right questions of the right people, no one will ever know. Is the media that ignorant of how the public transportation system works that they don't know the questions to ask or the people to whom the questions should be directed? I don't doubt the damages done south of where I was, into the shore area and toward Trenton, is enough to keep the politicians busy and easy to report on. And no electric power for so many for so long is certainly an easier story to handle mentally by the media and can certainly hold more power for the politician at the moment. Sandy was the story and the effects of loss of houses and loss of electricity have been the focus of the media. But if any member of the media or any Trentonian of note who has seen or heard about what has happened at Hoboken in particular and in and around NJT overall, and doesn't say anything, write stories or raise questions, then there is no hope that truth will be told, the cause of the NJT disaster be understood, nor the reason for the higher than needed cost of recovery. I hope someone wakes up and stirs up the embers sooner than when PATH resumes service to Hoboken.
I read every word you wrote, Henry, and I can sense your feeling of betrayal by people who could have and should have done much more than they did. If, as one employee you spoke with observed, NJT management failed to act in order to save overtime it was a pretty expensive way to save money.
But I still think there will be plenty of time for recriminations and I expect that ultimately they will be made.
Feeling as you do you may want to consider writing some letters to the editor.
Henry once the PATH Hoboken station opens and NJT can no longer blame lack of PATH service at Hoboken will NJ passengers begin to realize the extent of the damage ?
any word when overhead electric will be restored at Hoboken ?
But also, John, I grew up riding the DL&W from about 1946 and came to know the railroad...and railroading...plus the people who pridefully and honestly railroaded there and on all the other lines in NJ and elsewhere. It is part of me, not just as a paying rider, buy as friendships of respect and camaraderie, as much a part of my life and my interests as what? eating maybe. This debacle hurts as it has dismantled part of me and disgraced the people who put it together and have worked it for almost two centuries. It is hard to sit by, see, and accept how the ineptitude of management and stupidity of decisions have brought the system down. I rode the trains yesterday...Thurs. 11/29/12 from Lake Hopatcong to Dover to Sec. Jct.(via Morrnstown line) to Spring Valley to Hoboken to Lake Hopatcong (via the Montclair Boonton Line). There is equipment laying around all over. Two four car MU sets in Dover which can't be used because there is no power into Hoboken and they can't be used on Mid Town Direct services--so why not send them to the Corridor and get a push pull locomotive and trainset to Dover and maybe be able to add another train to the commuter schedule? There were about 8 BiLevel cars with a diesel tied on, but I think that diesel was the Dover protection diesel and this was not really a trainset.. At the M&E in Morristown there were 5 diesels on the interchage track...on MNRR F40 had its light on and was not attached to the other; I don't know what that means. Our train had to add a stop at Brick Church to its schedule for some reason and so there was standing room only when we got off at Sec. Jct. and a couple hundred more boarded to ride to NYP. There seemed little remarkable about the ride to Spring Valley then to Hoboken...but there lie the big hurt. Yeah, hundreds of cars and a few locomotives lying around...but difficult to discern in service equipment parked trains and those Sandy's salt water surge made mute. Worse was the terminal building and mezzanine. Train sign video boards were lit and in service, a mobile trailer was plugged into a generator for ticket office and a smaller one at the south end of the mezzanine was the station master's office while another served the ferry's ticket office needs. But the waiting room served coldly as a police taped alley from one set of doors through the heatless, powerless, people less hall to guide people from train to ferry, ticket offices, restrooms, newsstand vacant. The wood benches were righted and separated and put in place as if to assure those who passed through that they were trying to make things appear correct and not upended and destroyed. As for operations here, I did not see a red, green or yellow light in a signal but saw covers off switches so that men on the ground could manipulate them and give trains hand signals to proceed to the next switch. Yet, while slow, and not really slower than usual, trains picked their way in and out of the terminal and into Bergen Tunnel as if this was a normal way to operate the railroad. To the Meadows we go and again hundreds of cars and locomotives motionless in their tracks; one couldn't tell if any were close to a useful life or not. Giant trailers marked "CAT MOBILE POWER" sat next to the buildings and pick up trucks with the signature "GRS" were parked all around. From there on the train to Lake Hopatcong was a normal, on time performer with nothing really noticeable as being wrong with the railroad. I don't know what we expected to see or learn. What we did see were a trees down falling from east to west (rather than the more normal west to east or south to north) indicating the work of Sandy. Damage from the down trees unable to be determined because of the time lapse but the conclusion drawn that the interruption of power to the railroad and to the people was far more a problem than the wind and physical damage itself...but I am also quick to realize that to the south and southeast along the Coast, there was much more damage than what we saw. The crowded trains meant busy crews and that also meant not much chance to talk with them and learn from them. One at Hoboken, complaining about being out in the cold for 10 hours directing people through the ghostly terminal daily, volunteered that we should be around Friday when they experiment with Gladstone trains with dual powered locomotives. Another apparent employee (off duty with only four more months until retirement) we met durirng the day, railed about the problems and ineptness of management, how he felt their reluctance to want to pay people to move equipment led to the disastrous decision not to move equipment, and prognosticating about the dismal future of some of NJT's services but not offering up any substantial reasoning. We did learn that the train arriving at Lake Hopatcong went into Port Morris, would pick up some crews and deadhead east with employees to run the evening rush, and was thus carded as the odd westbound solely for that purpose despite the 100 or so passengers who used the train from Hoboken and Newark to every station stop in the timetable plus Great Notch yard. In effect, John, I guess, I feel I went to see my railroad where I grew up since 1946, learning about trains and making friends with those who operated them from brass collars to trackmen. My concern is as a fan and my criticism is as a rider and my perspective is from experience in the business world and being in the media. I heard some harsh words about management filled with mistrust, innuendo, rumor, and misinformation yesterday. There has been a call I guess from the State Assembly for some kind of investigative hearings. But we have yet to hear the fifth estate really dig into the pile of information, misinformation, accusations, allegations, facts, and rumors and confront NTJ and its managers with real and honest questions to get the answers.
Henry,
I subscribe to the Star-Ledger. Everything I've learned about NJT's reaction to Sandy comes from that source and I think they have been pretty complete. However, I agree the S-L has not directly criticized NJT. I can accept that as I think the facts of the situation are what is important rather than having someone tell me what my opinion should be.
As far as the fact that you pay no taxes to New Jersey but do ride our trains, well I suppose I could lambaste you for that. And I suppose you could point out that Metro North pays NJT your tax dollars for its line from Suffern to Port Jervis and besides you see that NJT gets fares from you and anyone who accepts your invitation to ride with you. I propose to let sleeping dogs lie. No one who likes to ride trains can be all bad.
John
We know all that, John....but the worst part of the situation is that NJT did not and has not communicated properly with the public. Such actions can be construed as having something to hide and/or not being in control of their situation or they are incompetent and inept, or all of the above. I use NJT often though not a taxpayer of NJ. I also have had respect for NJT and its people at the top, but can no longer say so.
After all that, I also must lambaste a lazy, incompetent, ignorant, inept, uncaring, and ignorant press who has not called anybody out on this whole episode.
NJT management had full weather forecasts as well as maps predicting storm surge in their own facilities which arebuilt in swamps. And NJT management choose to ignore that information because it was outside of their own personal experience. They ignored the scientific evidence provided by experts in the field and relied on their own past experience. This is like me ignoring my doctor who tells me I have diabetes and I need to take medicine for it because I have never had diabetes in my earlier life. I cannot think of a more charitable way to describe it than incompetent.
Great article on PATH's problems in the Star Ledger this morning: www.nj.com.
Another site is reporting NJT will start running on the Gladstone Line as early as this Friday. It is no place on their website www.njtransit.com as yet. Earlier they said that when they resumed on the line there would be I think two Mid Town Direct round trips utilizing electric push pull and Hoboken service which will be diesel push pull. Reportedly some 12 miles of new catenary had to be installed and 49 trees cleared from the track on the line. The schedule will be "modified" when it is published.
Again, NJT continues to play things close to the vest. The PATH article is very open as to what happened, what is happening, and what the prospects are for reopening. Amtrak and the LIRR have both been fairly open about the East River Tunnels electrical problems and the need for cancelled and combine trains in and out of NYP. Of course, there has been a Congressman from LI pushing Amtrak and LIRR for info.
I understand fully how bad and unprecidented the damage from this storm. But facilities which have taken almost 200 years to evolve and become complete cannot be expected to rebuilt in less than a month and maybe not in a year, either. So I don't understand why people are so upset that it hasn't been put back together like new as if the exercise is nothing greater than putting up the Lionel circle around the Christmas tree. Here I side with the railroad agencies and utilities. However, it is unconcionable that NJT has not been communicating daily with what happened, where, and why and telling us what they are doing to put things together again. They've started...but they had a whole month to start before they did. Within the first week we should have expected a total assessment of damages and less than a week later the broad plan as to what had to be done to return services. And that followed with specifics within days if not hours. We are getting piece meal statements as to what is being restored rather than the story of what to expect and why it is taking so long. Most of all, the public really has not been told the whole story of what happened and why, not what Sandy did but what NJT didn't do and the results of that.
NJT electric services: Corridor from Sunnyside Yard through Penn Station to Trenton, NJ, the Princeton Shuttle and to Long Branch on the North Jersey Coast Line with an electrical power change there at Matawan. Also from Hoboken to Montclair, Summit, Gladstone, and Dover and from the Corridor connection at Kearny (power change over) to the Morristown line. Diesel services from Hoboken to Spring Valley, Waldwick, Suffern, and Port Jervis on the old Erie lines with stop at Sec. Jct, and to Dover and Hackettstown via either the Morristown Line or Montclair Boonton ine and Gladstone when needed. Mid Town Direct service from Dover, Gladstone, Summit, and Montclair University with power change at Kearny and stop at Sec. Jct. Normally there are trains from these electric terminals (???) to Hoboken, too, on a regular basis but currently(???!) there is no overhead power at Hoboken so any Hoboken trains are diesel including the weekend Montclair University shuttle from Hoboken. Most of the electric service on the Hoboken Div. is with push pull with only abut a dozen MU cars assigned to the Division.
NJT also operates the Newark City subway...light rail from over head catenary (I guess not a trolley line in any stretch of NJT's imagination) as well as the Hoboken Bergen Light Rail to Tonnelle Ave. , North Bergen (through West Shore tunnel under Weehawken), to West Side of Jersey City (old CNJ right of way), and to 8th St, Bayonne.
PATH is third rail from Newark Penn Station to Journal Square and World Trade Center and to 33rd St. NY and to Hoboken Terminal. It is a double track railroad with stub end terminals at Hoboken, 33rd St. and WTC (used to be loop), and a run through/double back termination at Newark.
Yes, was originally 3000V DC catenary Lackawanna electrification, converted some 20 years ago to 25,000V 60Hz like all other "Morris and Essex" lines. The MU's there can also run on 11,000-12,500V 25Hz but require manual changeover at rest to do so, so Direc: Midtown service to Penn Station is with electric locomotives and push-pulls cars, with the locomotives able to change at speed coasting through a non-powered catenary section. MU's handle the service to Hoboken for Morris and Essex Trains. Main line trains and Pascak Valley trains run diesel under the catenary.
Actually they finally said something yesterday I believe...but it is hidden in their website. They report wires down, poles down which are specially designed and manufactured for the line and need to be manufactured; some washouts, power supply gone, and almost 50 trees across the tracks. Work is being done to operate trains as soon as possible with plans set to be the two Mid Town direct trains when power is restored but all other trains will be diesel because of Hoboken's wire and power supply problems. I have not checked the website yet this afternoon.
I heard something about the Gladstone branch single wire cat poles being wooden, many were snapped. Perhaps they want to totally rebuild the cat with steel.
Does anyone know why the NJT Gladstone branch remains totally out of service four weeks after Sandy? The only comment that I've seen from NJT was "storm damage", and that was a couple of weeks ago. The interior section of northern New Jersey where this branch is located did not experience heavy rains, so there shouldn't be any major washouts; High winds could have toppled trees onto the overhead power lines, but it shouldn't take four weeks to remove the trees and clear the tracks to allow diesel powered trains to operate.
PATH, as noted, returnin g service Newark to WTC and will run Journal Sq. to 33rd St. 5AM -10PM. Still not operating from Hoboken.
LIRR returned electric train service to Long Beach Sunday and says there will be regular service on Mon.
NJT has noted Raritan Valley trains have had connections at Newark adjusted. NJCL has had schedules mondified (mostly the Bay Head-Long Branch shuttles). No word of any changes on any of he other NJT operations, things scheduled as were posted last week. Hoboken still very limited (part of that reason is that there is no PATH service...one must ride BLRT to Pavonia for PATH or try Newark Broad and make connections..bus or NCS...to NYP and PATH; bus and ferry services are crowded, perhaps overcrowded).
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