Hurricane Sandy

I understand the concern about this thread.

Some people on this board would be more comfortable if we were asking question about high level platforms or what type of chu chu you drive. But understand, this company is owned by the State of New Jersey.

The poor decisions that were made cost all of us REAL MONEY, money that we don't have.

Respect must be earned and it is not earned by making poor decisions.

BTW:

For any one new to the boards;

the term 'thanks for coming in" is RR code for " let's change the topic and try to ruin the thread" with BS because we don't like what you are saying. Usually followed by silly photos and off topic stuipdness.

sean3f wrote:I understand the concern about this thread.

Some people on this board would be more comfortable if we were asking question about high level platforms or what type of chu chu you drive. But understand, this company is owned by the State of New Jersey.

The poor decisions that were made cost all of us REAL MONEY, money that we don't have.

Respect must be earned and it is not earned by making poor decisions.

sean3f wrote:BTW:

For any one new to the boards;

the term 'thanks for coming in" is RR code for " let's change the topic and try to ruin the thread" with BS because we don't like what you are saying. Usually followed by silly photos and off topic stuipdness.

I'm the main picture poster and I will continue, especially since the moderators seem to be on vacation. I have no problems with hard questions. They should be asked. In that time I also asked people like yourself a question:

ThirdRail7 wrote:
The bottom line is you can woulda, shoulda, coulda until the cows come home. The ultimate question is what lessons were learned? A lot of of the hurricane plans fell flat and will have to be adjusted.

I have a question for the head hunters. When the inquiry is finished and recommendations come in, are you willing to pay for them? When the dollar figure is a few billion to repel storms of this magnitude (and greater) will you cheerfully ante up or are you willing to roll the dice again?

While you're addressing that, mull this around: A lot of the problem is the "arm chair" mentality. Where were YOUR suggestions BEFORE the storm? I quick review of your posts reveals SILENCE. Unless you have a another screen name, you haven't uttered a peep or concern for almost two years. Now, AFTER the fact, after all is said and done and you managed to find an article that addressed what others already knew (and were already discussing), you come out to complain. That seems a tad bit hypocritical since you're blasting an agency for not being proactive enough. We're past finger pointing. We're looking at what happens next. How do you protect the infrastructure that wasn't designed with this sort of flooding in mind? How do you protect Penn Station at this point? Do you allow the station to flood or the tunnels? Most importantly, WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THESE IMPROVEMENTS?

You're joining us at the epilogue, my friend. The rest of us have discussed this since the title, foreward and table of contents.

New Jersey Transit Meadowlands Complex

This photo shows how the predicted flooding was not as bad as the actual. It was predicted to be worse!

Predicted Flooding vs Actual Flooding

NEC: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/R0070.pdf

So, the cancelations and schedule modifications are no longer due to ROW damage, but equipment shortages?

From the length of time it is taking the gladstone branch up and running, one has to wonder if they lost actual catenary towers to falling trees vs just the wires.

25Hz wrote:So, the cancelations and schedule modifications are no longer due to ROW damage, but equipment shortages?

From the length of time it is taking the gladstone branch up and running, one has to wonder if they lost actual catenary towers to falling trees vs just the wires.

It took about 3 months to get the Southern Tier up and running last year. Maybe the ROW has been seriously damaged.

OH BOY! Someone else coming from out of the woodwork banging a big pot and spoon!!! YAY!

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

If you read these threads before and right after the storm sean3f, you would have seen some of my usual long winded postings. Maybe you didn't read them, maybe you didn't want to read them, maybe you didn't understand them.

But Ill sum them up for you

1) - NJT HAD a plan, a VERY comprehensive plan, a VERY detailed plan, i saw with my own eyes before and while it was being implemented, and it was a plan that worked every other time up to this storm. It was enacted (with some changes that were learned last year after Hurricane Irene) and put in to place even before service was stopped. It takes a while to shut down an entire railroad.

2) - No one at NJT had any knowledge of prior major flooding at the MMC - one again, yes, its built in a swampy area, and yes, all the roads surrounding it do flood, but the MMC as far as I know, and as far as the folks at NJT knew, has not and WAS NOT expected to flood, even during this storm. They apparently DID have some maps and forecasted info that showed the yard would be safe from a surge of that magnitude.

3) - Other events happened that might have contributed to the flood. Various wash outs, including one on the MandE not far away might have been the "breach in the dike" for the MMC. I don't know, but its possible. It happened in Moonachie and Little Ferry when the dike broke.....

4) - Even if every single piece of equipment would have been moved from the MMC, the railroad still would have been cripped, as all the shops were flooded, tools lost and electricity is still not back to normal up there. The dispatching center would still be having its own issues, and the shops are still a mess.

Of course mistakes were made, they are made in every situation, no one is perfect, no plan is perfect, especially with an unpredictable hurricane. Things will be reviewed, changed and im sure some folks will be fired, if they haven't been already. (Im sure the Gov is just salivating waiting to pounce once the ship gets righted....) However, at the same time, there were places in the region that Sandy hit that have never flooded. There were plenty of business and residents and whole towns that could be considered "unprepared" or "underprepared" and this same debate had for each of them.

I spent 4 days preparing for the hurricane and elevating and moving stuff, and low and behold, it didn't matter. I lost lots and lots of stuff and my house flooded. Im going to fire myself for being incompetitent and not going to take any insurance money on principle, because I don't deserve it because of my stupidity. But maybe if I saw your youtube weather forecast, I would have been better prepared!!!! DAMNIT!!

But feel free to go out on your witchhunt and make a ruckus and a fool of yourself with these posts that clearly show a lack of knowledge of the situation and what was or wasn't done before, during, and after the storm.

Just to emphasize the fact that plans don't always work as intended:

Remember that lovely little storm Irene, that flooded Trenton station (and in turn submerged all of Fair Interlocking)?
Well Amtrak had the foresight to rip apart all the switch machines at Fair in preparation for Sandy, and the impending "Great Flood", that one would expect would come with a storm of this magnitude. At the end of the day... Trenton didn't flood like it did with Irene. So what happened? The next two days we're spent putting together a shitload of A5 switch machines, and a ton of adjustments to get them working properly. Did Amtrak think that Lines 1, 2, and the North Tube we're going to flood so much as to submerge the catenary in certain sections? No.

Bottomline: You can't prepare for every possible situation. Things will come up that weren't planned for. Deal with it, get over it, move on, rebuild and cope like the rest of us.

lirr42 wrote:Where's Nick and Brandon Kaback (you know those moderators we haven't heard from in eons) with the keys and padlocks when we need them?

Why do you need someone else to keep you from contributing to, or reading, a thread you don't like?
It's hard for me to figure that anybody reading this thread's title should be surprised about any of the comments in it.

ns3010 wrote: Until the stupid clears up, I'm out. Have fun.

Now that's an appropriate action to take if you have a problem with a thread, except that you don't have to say you're out, you can just stay out if that's what you wanted to do. I learned that a long time ago.

sixty-six wrote:remember to not feed the trolls!

just as it's kind of feeding the trolls in order to advertise that reminder.

As I've mentioned a few times, I may object to your opinion, but I'll defend to your death your right to express it.

sean3f wrote:We did not hear of ANY aircraft that were damaged because the Airlines took action to get their equipment to safety.

I admit that I haven't heard of any aircraft that were damaged. Did they fly every single airplane from the east coast to west of the Appalachian mountains? As far as I can tell that would have been the only way to have insured that hurricane Sandy would have damaged no airplane.
I suspect however that the airlines left their airplanes at their regular airports, such as JFK, Laguardia and Newark, I can think of no other reasonable nearby places to put them.
But I don't know, so what are the actions that the airlines took?

25Hz wrote:So, the cancelations and schedule modifications are no longer due to ROW damage, but equipment shortages?

From the length of time it is taking the gladstone branch up and running, one has to wonder if they lost actual catenary towers to falling trees vs just the wires.

A good chuck of the supports are utility-type wood poles if I recall correctly, so some of those may have needed replacement. But unless the spot is difficult to access, that is a quick drill and set pole process.

The airlines moved ALL of their airliners out of JFK/LaGuardia.

NYC Transit moved ALL of their subway trains out of flood zones.

NJ Transit left 25% of their passenger cars and more of their engines in areas surrounded by low-lying estuaries and swamps. Brilliant.

The NJ Transit work/repair crews have been doing amazing work since the storm.

The guys in charge at NJ Transit disappointed us.

ccutler wrote:The airlines moved ALL of their airliners out of JFK/LaGuardia.

That's only part of an answer. To where did they move those JFK-Laguardia planes? And where did they move the Newark planes?
And let me expand on my prior list, to where did they move Washington, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, New Haven, Providence, Boston planes?

I couldn't have said it better. When you have the ability to play it "better safe than sorry", you have to take that option every time. I'm sure people along Staten Island and the Jersey shore would have loved the ability to move their homes out of harms way. NJT had that option with their equipment. If the MMC and Hoboken were their only choices for storing equipment from the storm, then that would have made sense, but when you have options that have virtually no chance of flooding, you gotta make that happen. I believe some MTA equipment was stored on the Southern Tier main line. NJT could have done the same thing since nothing was running. I can't believe that this was a decision made by one individual. Some people have to take the hit for this. You can't give the hindsight excuse for a decision that was so unsafe and damaging when other safer options were available.

I agree, though, that the MOW and repair crews have done a very good job since the storm and I'm sure they will return equipment as fast as they possibly can.