Wire down north of BWI

[MARC Rider]

I'm sitting in the BWI station, our Regional sharing the platform with the Acela ahead of us, stopped y what the conductor said was "downed catenary" ahead of us. No idea of how long the delay will be. The Acela just got on the move, so maybe the delay won't be too bad. But who knows.

 

[MARC Rider]

Looks like we're on the move, but slowly.

 

[dlerach]

There have been at least 3 down catenary incidents recently (Philadelphia, somewhere on the Hell Gate Line, and now this). Is that higher than normal? I don't remember it being this frequent of a problem.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Power went off approximately 1:40 between BAL and WIL. Came back on approximately 3:15. 2164 delayed things further for the northbounds because it had trouble getting its pans up.

 

[MARC Rider]

We got into Baltimore about 25 minutes behind schedule. I guess it could have been worse.

I seem to have a jinx with these Washington day trips to see the dermatologist. Of course, this wasn't the worst. That was the 2+ hour delay (for a 40 minute ride) caused by the discovery right after we left New Carrolton that the horn didn't work. We had to back up all the way to Union Station at 10 mph and then wait until they found a new motor for us.

 

[west point]

There have been multi wire problems from WAS - Wilmington over the last several years. Some may come because of the age of the variable tension CAT sagging too much with the summer heat. Then a PAN slightly out of adjustment will snag the sag. The PRR style catenary supports all tracks at same time. So, if one track's catenary gets snagged all tracks may have wire down often when just one track is snagged. Constant tension catenary is needed for all track NYP - WAS. That would prevent most of these sags and snags. Still will be occasional snags but only one track out of service not all which seems to be the case with this incident..