195 Beaksdown

[gdj]

The Richmond newspaper reported that 195 broke down outside of Alexandria yesterday. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/loc...-224801/324239/ It seems that the passengers were stranded for some time and according to the Amtrak site, the train arrived RVR 9 hours and 7 minutes late. I am rather surprised that since the train was not that far from WAS, it took that long to get another engine.

 

[amamba]

The Richmond newspaper reported that 195 broke down outside of Alexandria yesterday. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/loc...-224801/324239/ It seems that the passengers were stranded for some time and according to the Amtrak site, the train arrived RVR 9 hours and 7 minutes late. I am rather surprised that since the train was not that far from WAS, it took that long to get another engine.

H was trapped on a NEC regional earlier this year, I think it was just over 4 hours, and they were less than an hour from BOS (probably about 50 minutes or so). It was miserable with no HEP and no toilets. Unfortunately, I have not yet heard any good reasons why amtrak should strand customers on the NEC for any more than 2 hours without toilets, free food/water, or bustitution. But people on this forum will come up with all kinds of excuses for amtrak :lol:

 

[KayBee]

The Richmond newspaper reported that 195 broke down outside of Alexandria yesterday. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/loc...-224801/324239/ It seems that the passengers were stranded for some time and according to the Amtrak site, the train arrived RVR 9 hours and 7 minutes late. I am rather surprised that since the train was not that far from WAS, it took that long to get another engine.

Well, as a passenger on 99, the train that ended up being tasked to rescue 195, I can say that all was not entirely well with us either.

We left Washington Union Station (WAS) only about 5 minutes late (5:05), only to be stopped just after CP Virginia, to wait on stacked up freight traffic across the Potomac to move North. After holding for a half hour or so, we were given clearrance to proceed across the long bridge into Virginia, where I noticed at least 3 more CSX freights waiting to head north.

We continued southbound, at a fairly slow pace, stopped at Alexandria, and proceeded South.We eventually stopped, waiting for a "disabled freight train" to be cleared out of the way. It turns out that this is actually 195.

Eventually we make a backing move North, while changing tracks from 2 to 4 to position us for evental connection to 195. (I assume that this was the Auto Train lead at Lorton, although it was difficult to tell at the time due to a lack of illumination.

We then proceeded to WAIT for about 3 hours, due to a "signal failure" preventing our further movement.

Once CSX finally got the signals working, we reversed back South, crossing back to track 3, and proceeded to wait for 195. It seems that the original plan was to have 195 approach us and connect, but this proved to not be possible.

We then reversed until we were almost to Lorton, where we finally made the coupling to the stranded 195.

After another half hour for connecting trainlines etc, etc, we again proceeded Southbound, where we proceeded to make TWO stops at each of the scheduled locations, one for passengers on 99, and a second for passengers on 195. This included a single stop at Woodbridge, which is NOT normally one of 99's stops! This was one enormously long train at this point.

We finally pulled into Richmond (RVR) at about 2:15 . The amalgamation train completely filled the platform at Richmond!

While I was pleased that we were able to help out, many of the other passengers on 99 were not so happy about the delays. The crew on 99 was pretty good at keeping us pax informed, but most of the information appeared to be perceived as inaccurate or BS <_<

My regrets were: that I did not have a scanner to listen in on the actual discussions, that there was not enough light to get a credible photo of the enormous train stopped at Richmond :angry: , and that my wife, waiting at home, was worried and annoyed.

All in all an exciting night. That is what I get for chancing the first day of full operations on the RF&P after over a week of annulled trains!!!

 

[acelafan]

The Richmond newspaper reported that 195 broke down outside of Alexandria yesterday. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/loc...-224801/324239/ It seems that the passengers were stranded for some time and according to the Amtrak site, the train arrived RVR 9 hours and 7 minutes late. I am rather surprised that since the train was not that far from WAS, it took that long to get another engine.

Well, as a passenger on 99, the train that ended up being tasked to rescue 195, I can say that all was not entirely well with us either.

...

All in all an exciting night. That is what I get for chancing the first day of full operations on the RF&P after over a week of annulled trains!!!

Wow, that was quite an adventure. Thanks for sharing the details.

 

[gdj]

The Richmond newspaper reported that 195 broke down outside of Alexandria yesterday. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/loc...-224801/324239/ It seems that the passengers were stranded for some time and according to the Amtrak site, the train arrived RVR 9 hours and 7 minutes late. I am rather surprised that since the train was not that far from WAS, it took that long to get another engine.

Well, as a passenger on 99, the train that ended up being tasked to rescue 195, I can say that all was not entirely well with us either.

Thanks for your account. Since the area described has multple tracks and there always seems to be extra locomotives in WAS, I was having a hard time understanding the length of the delay.

 

[AlanB]

Here's a few more details on this incident, and as is often the case, it would appear that there was much we didn't know originally.

To help, she said, train 92, that was headed north toward Washington, with 239 people, was halted near the stricken southbound train. One of the two locomotives from the northbound train was coupled to the southbound train, to try to get it going.
But, said Romero, it didn't work.

Meanwhile, the number of work hours permitted for train 92's crew had expired, she said. That made it necessary to wait for a new crew.

You can read the rest of the story here courtesy of the Washington Post.

 

[Rob_C]

There really needs to be a change in the FRA rules about crews timing out to allow for short runs of broken down trains to get them to stations for crew changes, especially if those crews that are timed out have been sitting around and consent. We need to balance safety with reality, and if they could have saved a lot of time and hassle by letting the expired crew run from Lorton to Washington for 20 minutes it should be an exception to the rule.

 

[KayBee]

To help, she said, train 92, that was headed north toward Washington, with 239 people, was halted near the stricken southbound train. One of the two locomotives from the northbound train was coupled to the southbound train, to try to get it going.

Well, at least now I know where the extra locomotive hooked nose-to-nose with the original one on 195 came from!

I am somewhat amazed that the single engine on 99 was able to do a very good job of pulling 2 trains and 2 non-operational locomotives at least as far as RVR.

And for the record, the report was not entirely correct, as train 99 was connected to the front of 195 and pulled the entire consist into Richmond, instead of pushing as the Post story indicated.

 

[AlanB]

And for the record, the report was not entirely correct, as train 99 was connected to the front of 195 and pulled the entire consist into Richmond, instead of pushing as the Post story indicated.

Actually the article says that "it was planned" to put 99 behind and push, almost like they knew that "the plan" didn't work, but forgot to tell us that the plan didn't work and after a further delay they had to run around and hook up on the front.

 

[Ryan]

I wonder what the "Amtrak shouldn't have cancelled any trains last week" crowd would be saying about a weeks worth of stories like this one (and worse!).

As far as exceptions to the 12 hour work rule, you have to draw the line somewhere. All it does is open things up for bending the rules and forcing folks into unsafe operating, and doesn't solve the problem.

 

[wayman]

I wonder what the "Amtrak shouldn't have cancelled any trains last week" crowd would be saying about a weeks worth of stories like this one (and worse!).
As far as exceptions to the 12 hour work rule, you have to draw the line somewhere. All it does is open things up for bending the rules and forcing folks into unsafe operating, and doesn't solve the problem.

I agree -- allowing exceptions to the work rule opens a very, very dangerous can of worms.

Where Amtrak screwed up was allowing 92 to stop and try to help and wind up outlawed. The crew must have known they were close to outlawing when they stopped, or at some point during the botched attempt to help, and they were probably well aware that they could make it to WAS just fine if they kept going or started up again.

Either 92's crew failed to report useful information like "hey, we're an hour from outlawing, we probably shouldn't stop here or we'll outlaw before WAS" (if that was the case) or if they had three hours when they stopped but the stop took forever, perhaps they failed to report something like "hey, we're stopped here, and the clock is ticking. you should get us started up again or we won't make it to WAS before we outlaw in an hour". Did they forget? That's one possibility.

Or the crew reported exactly as they should, and the dispatcher screwed up by saying "no, stay there". The dispatcher could have mitigated that a bit by immediately calling for a fresh crew at some point before the outlaw occurred; it sounds like that didn't happen. Regardless, the dispatcher should not have let them outlaw under any circumstance. But that's another possibility.

Or possibly the crew stopped, it took forever, they reported when they were supposed to while stopped when they had an hour to go, and the dispatcher spent that hour trying to get CSX to give them a slot so they could get to WAS, but CSX was not sympathetic or cooperative, and eventually the clock ran out. Which, given the rescue effort Amtrak just made for CSX last week, would be awful if true. If this were the situation, CSX should have been able to find a slot for Amtrak, and they should have been extra motivated given recent circumstances!

I don't know which of the above scenarios actually happened, but I suspect one of them did. And whichever it was, I'd like for the situation to be made clear so we know who we should actually be upset at.

But the one thing I know is that we should not be upset at the rule.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

agreed wayman.

 

[AlanB]

Mu understanding of things is that the dispatcher can call up the crews outlaw time on his computer at any point in time. Granted most dispatchers don't bother with that info unless there are problems, but it is available to them.

However, even if it's not available for some reason, the crews start issuing warnings at the two to three hour mark at least in my experiences. I believe that's required that they do that, they aren't allowed to wait until the last minute to warn the dispatcher.

 

[battalion51]

Well part of the issue with 92's crew is that at this point in the trip it's a hybrid crew. You've got Conductors that are WAS based that started in RGH and then RVR based Engineer (IIRC) that's on the head end. So the Engineer (who probably has less going on) isn't necessarily thinking about the fact that his Conductors are about to die, because he's still got hours to go before he's dead. Granted, someone probably should've been keeping better track, but you also don't know at what point they decided to call a crew. It takes a minimum of two hours to get a crew to work off the board. When you're at Hour 10 just a few miles from home base would you call a crew off the board? I wouldn't. It probably wasn't til the early to middle part of Hour 11 before they recognized it wasn't going to happen. So you're looking at a minimum of an hour delay.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

When you're at Hour 10 just a few miles from home base would you call a crew off the board? I wouldn't. It probably wasn't til the early to middle part of Hour 11 before they recognized it wasn't going to happen. So you're looking at a minimum of an hour delay.

One question here is, how do you trade off the wasted time for the hundreds of passengers on the train (which doesn't directly cost Amtrak money, but might be worth accounting for if we're accounting for the benefits of transportation to the economy that people sometimes cite when they explain why Amtrak should be subsidized at all) if the crew ends up outlawing, vs the wasted time for the extra board crew if they end up being called up unnecessarily.

Also, would having an extra crew present before the outgoing crew is outlawed and goes off duty help any of the things being done trying to rescue the stranded train go faster, or improve the quality of announcements made to the passengers if the PA system is not functioning well (or provide an extra assistant conductor who could focus on making status announcements while other crew members dealt with the work needed to get the train rolling again)?

It seems like studying the actual track record in situations where Amtrak crews get past 10 hours is something the federal government's General Accounting Office might be good at doing, to further explore these tradeoffs.

 

[afigg]

Well, as a passenger on 99, the train that ended up being tasked to rescue 195, I can say that all was not entirely well with us either.
We left Washington Union Station (WAS) only about 5 minutes late (5:05), only to be stopped just after CP Virginia, to wait on stacked up freight traffic across the Potomac to move North. After holding for a half hour or so, we were given clearrance to proceed across the long bridge into Virginia, where I noticed at least 3 more CSX freights waiting to head north.

We continued southbound, at a fairly slow pace, stopped at Alexandria, and proceeded South.We eventually stopped, waiting for a "disabled freight train" to be cleared out of the way. It turns out that this is actually 195.

Eventually we make a backing move North, while changing tracks from 2 to 4 to position us for evental connection to 195. (I assume that this was the Auto Train lead at Lorton, although it was difficult to tell at the time due to a lack of illumination.

We then proceeded to WAIT for about 3 hours, due to a "signal failure" preventing our further movement.

...

Thanks for the detailed report on the problems on the RF&P line. With the line out of service for close to a week, the backlog of freight trains and the signal problems obviously made the situation with 195 and other Amtrak trains that day even worse. Glad I was not on 195 or your train.

With all the problems with the RF&P line in recent weeks, hope Virginia can snag a piece of the $2.5 billion FY10 funding for HSR to add more miles of 3rd track and do other improvements to the DC to Richmond segment. Virginia did get $75 million to add 11 miles of 3rd track which will help, but VA applied for $1.7 billion for upgrading and speeding up the entire DC to Richmond to Petersburg segment. Maybe Virginia and Amtrak can send some funding CSX's way to maintain switches and keep the trees cut further back.

I don't think this was widely reported, but DC got $2.9 million for a engineering study to replace the Long Bridge across the Potomac (http://newsroom.dc.gov/show.aspx/agency/ddot/section/2/release/19102). Of course, replacing the Long Bridge would probably run $400 or $500 million or more and who knows how many years it will take to get the funding for that.