Amtrak Passengers Stuck On Hot Train For Hours

[amtrakwolverine]

BOSTON (WBZ)-"It was horrible, absolutely terrible. It was a nightmare."
Tempers are still hot from passengers stuck on board a train in Larchmont, New York for two-and-a-half hours on Monday.

Officials say the power was ordered to be cut on the Amtrak line because of a sick passenger. The alert turned out to be a false alarm, but somehow it still shut down the engine power for that particular train.

http://wbztv.com/local/amtrak.train.delayed.2.1789069.html

 

[RRrich]

If there was a sick passenger on board (not a tarp on the wires), WHY would they cut the power??

Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[dlagrua]

Electric power to the cars is the lifeblood of the temperature control and ventillation systems. It is absolute madness if the power was deliberately cut. In years past trains had cars with windows that could be opened. Today most cars are sealed. Why did they not just open the doors and take the sick passengers out. Something just doesn't sounds quite right with this story.

 

[LA Resident]

BOSTON (WBZ)-"It was horrible, absolutely terrible. It was a nightmare."
Tempers are still hot from passengers stuck on board a train in Larchmont, New York for two-and-a-half hours on Monday.

Officials say the power was ordered to be cut on the Amtrak line because of a sick passenger. The alert turned out to be a false alarm, but somehow it still shut down the engine power for that particular train.

http://wbztv.com/local/amtrak.train.delayed.2.1789069.html

I bet it's true!

The passenger was sick of riding trains and wanted to experience life in an airplane!!

 

[PetalumaLoco]

Electric power to the cars is the lifeblood of the temperature control and ventillation systems. It is absolute madness if the power was deliberately cut. In years past trains had cars with windows that could be opened. Today most cars are sealed. Why did they not just open the doors and take the sick passengers out. Something just doesn't sounds quite right with this story.

Story says they opened the doors and it got hotter.

And "Amtrak wouldn't allow the passengers to get off because it was too dangerous and they wanted to keep other trains passing on schedule."

 

[Dutchrailnut]

Electric power to the cars is the lifeblood of the temperature control and ventillation systems. It is absolute madness if the power was deliberately cut. In years past trains had cars with windows that could be opened. Today most cars are sealed. Why did they not just open the doors and take the sick passengers out. Something just doesn't sounds quite right with this story.

Story says they opened the doors and it got hotter.

And "Amtrak wouldn't allow the passengers to get off because it was too dangerous and they wanted to keep other trains passing on schedule."

The train was on MNCR territory and MNCR does not allow passengers to cross active main tracks, the train broke down on center track.

Despite an inconvenience the train got moving after 2 hours and 13 minutes after a spare AEM-7 was dispatched from Sunnyside Yd in queens.

The 2 hour and 13 minutes is a fair industry average.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

I'm wondering if this delay was caused by the tarp on the wires and not by a sick passenger that turned out to be a false alarm. Sounds like a cover up. If a passenger is that sick they would stop at the closest station to meet EMT.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

I'm wondering if this delay was caused by the tarp on the wires and not by a sick passenger that turned out to be a false alarm. Sounds like a cover up. If a passenger is that sick they would stop at the closest station to meet EMT.

there was no tarp, or sick passenger, it was simply failure of HHP-8 659 and they did not stop in Larchmont station since train was on inside track.

If any EMT was needed they would have been called for New Rochelle.

 

[AlanB]

I'm wondering if this delay was caused by the tarp on the wires and not by a sick passenger that turned out to be a false alarm. Sounds like a cover up. If a passenger is that sick they would stop at the closest station to meet EMT.

The "tarp" incident was in Groton, CT many miles away from Larchmont, NY and not on Metro North tracks.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Interesting that this happened shortly after a similar incident on an Amtrak-operated MARC train near Baltimore. Passengers on that train were trapped for two hours just short of a station and Amtrak top brass, up to and including Boardman, apologized and promised it would never happen again. It I was struck on a hot train for two hours, I certainly wouldn't think it was a heads-up, quick rescue.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

Interesting that this happened shortly after a similar incident on an Amtrak-operated MARC train near Baltimore. Passengers on that train were trapped for two hours just short of a station and Amtrak top brass, up to and including Boardman, apologized and promised it would never happen again. It I was struck on a hot train for two hours, I certainly wouldn't think it was a heads-up, quick rescue.

again mixing two different incidents, the first MARC train was not close to station, but a week later same train with DOT secretary missed station and stopped 3 cars from platform.

the tarp incident east of New Haven was over a week ago.

 

[VentureForth]

All this is interesting considering Amtrak rolled out a Hot Weather Plan to handle this sort of emergency before this incident took place.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

So long as Amtrak operates electric engines that are either of laughably bad design and construction (HHP-8) or are many decades old, they will have bad, stressed components that take little to push them over the edge into the unfortunate realm of unpredicted failure.