Hurricane Sandy

BlockLine_4111 wrote:Had NJT spotted key equipment and sets (including the dual modes) west of the Hackensack spans up on the BCL (Curtiss Wright and Passaic Jct) and the ML (Clifton and Ridgewood stations) it would have been the "common sense" and "no-nonsense" course of action. Doing what they did was basically playing russian roulette. As a state taxpayer (and NJIT graduate) and longtime Hoboken Division 'resident" trust me I know what I am talking about here.

And if there was track damage or infrastructure damage up that way on any of the draw bridges, or on the MandE near West End or Lower Hack, ALL of it would have been trapped. There are several ways into and out of the MMC, and while it is central, chances are all the entrances aren't going to be blocked or damaged, allowing them to be able to get the stuff in and out somehow. 1 - Sanford interlocking, 2 - switch off the Waterfront Connection into 25kv yard, 3 - Cape Interlocking up to Hudson Line and to Amtrak, 4 - Cape Interlocking down to Center Street Branch.

Even if they got every piece able to be moved out of the MMC, there would still be equipment left there, as not everything there is road worthy, and they would have been flooded. Of course, less equipment would have been flooded and damaged, but it still would have happened anyway, and people would still be saying the same thing.

i think the bigger problem that happened with the hurricane is that we have never really experienced an actual storm surge of major proportions in this area, and didn't understand it. I don't mean just at NJT, but all of us. If it wasnt' for the final storm surge, the MMC would not have flooded (nor would thousands of homes and business all through the region). I was told by some folks who were there (and lost their cars), that it came in like a tidal wave and a wall of water. The amount of personal automobiles that were lost at the MMC by the workers who were on duty shows that NO ONE expected the place to flood like that. It never has before, and hopefully never will again. And as a final note, elevation or lack of doesn't necessarily mean that place will automatically flood. There are plenty of other factors and just spouting height above sea level is ignorance. Also, did anyone here know that there was plenty of equipment left in Hoboken that wasnt' touched or damaged by the flooding? Probably not. But hey, why let facts get in the way.

Whats driving me nuts about these threads is that we no longer can have a decent discussion about things on this website because some MIKEs (man I know everything) keep chiming in and won't listen to actual facts or reasoning and just jump on the band wagon. Yes, a LOT of equipment was damaged, yes it will cost a lot of money to fix. But posting things like "they shouldn't have built the yard there anyway" or "why would they put their operation center in a place it could be damaged" or "didn't they know it was going to flood" Are just silly. there is no better central location for the main maintence complex, and it does make sense to have the main operations center there. All the eggs in one basket, but NJT isn't big enough to have more than one basket....

BTW, im a State Taxpayer, and a college graduate, and life long resident of the "Newark Division" so trust ME, i know what im talking about!!! This sounds like a political ad ahhaha

FWIW, Second Avenue Sagas has an analysis of NJT's mistakes in preparing for the storm (based on a Reuters news story). Their one-line summary:

Second Avenue Sagas wrote:Essentially, NJT officials ignored the storm and flood warnings and assumed that areas that didn’t flood before wouldn’t now.

(Both stories mention that, actually, Hoboken had flooded before, so that part wasn't even unprecedented.)

The comments in that article are more interesting than the article itself, which is largely a rehash of the reuters article. Several commenters in it actually seem to know what they are talking about, other than the posters who said that NJT should be taken over by the MTA and how the MTA is a model organization for storm recovery......I actually LOL'ed at that one. How quickly we forget, but at least some of the posters reminded folks of past MTA mis-steps during prior storms....

At least NJT knows what happened and what went wrong and is doing its best to fix it, and didn't hire a company to "study" it, like last year on the PJ line during Irene. I was amazed at the condition of the Coast Line through Morgan and South and Perth Amboy. Other than signal issues, trains would have been pretty much on time, and even the lack signals weren't that big of a hinderance. The temporary speed restrictions through the area are slowly being whittled away, the biggest problem on the Coast Line now that the rails are shined up and the crossings work reliably, is the leaves! So many leaves fell during the storm, and have just been laying there so now that trains are running, they are getting kicked up and landing on teh rails and getting crushed and turning to oil. Which makes for quite a slow trip and a bumpy trip and a slippery trip...and square wheels...which is a whole other issue, as the wheel machines are i believe damaged at hoboken and the MMC.

And yes, Hoboken has flooded before, there are many pictures that show that, it jsut hasn't been seen to this extent or level before. But the entire yard complex does NOT flood. And just because "equipment was left in Hoboken" doesn't necessarily mean that it was flooded. Some was, like the stuff in the Enginehouse for example, but other stuff in the yard didn't flood, and made it through just fine.

I just wanted to say thanks for getting my train running again. Nothing like a week and change to remind me why I stopped using DeCamp's terrible bus service!

All the naysayers are right. Lets just shut NJT down entirely and let everyone fend for themselves. Such a huge failure to predict the nature of a category 1 hurricane in the last week of October is clearly a sign that public transportation's time has passed.

Lets let Joe & Mary down the street run the trains toot toot! Oh wait they didn't evacuate with their young children so they got trapped in their house as the storm surge sent it on a tour downtown.

And while we are at it, lets fire everyone who commutes, clearly they didn't plan ahead to be without power or a way to get to work for a week while the state got back on its feet. How dare they not know!

/rant

Can we talk about sandy issues & not who to fire? This is a railroad forum, not an HR/policy fourum.

Does anyone think this disaster will perhaps have NJT rethinking rebuilding the Harrison-Kingsland Branch as least up to branch standards. Not sure how bad it flooded but seems like another connection between the Diesel and Electric lines would have been of great value in the past month.

25Hz wrote:All the naysayers are right. Lets just shut NJT down entirely and let everyone fend for themselves. Such a huge failure to predict the nature of a category 1 hurricane in the last week of October is clearly a sign that public transportation's time has passed.

Lets let Joe & Mary down the street run the trains toot toot! Oh wait they didn't evacuate with their young children so they got trapped in their house as the storm surge sent it on a tour downtown.

And while we are at it, lets fire everyone who commutes, clearly they didn't plan ahead to be without power or a way to get to work for a week while the state got back on its feet. How dare they not know!

/rant

Can we talk about sandy issues & not who to fire? This is a railroad forum, not an HR/policy fourum.

Some folks are advocating paving over the "branch lines" (undefined but I think they mean all but the NEC) as exclusive bus lanes which would not require signals, switches, and so forth. Buses got operating very quickly. Let NJT bus operations take over. Go figure.

Where was that funny looking F40 going over Dock about 3pm headed?

Posting this not to continue the argument over whether someone screwed up and should be fired but because it shows the expected conditions that would lead to flooding at MMC. At 6 feet the yard is still mostly dry but at 8 feet it's almost completely underwater.

http://webmaps.njmeadowlands.gov/munici ... 202012.pdf

Personally I'll go with JT's judgement on this. Let's fix what's broken, learn from the mistakes and move on. Thanks to all the NJT workers who've gotten so much done over the last couple of weeks.

WOW! Its's simply amazing on how I get flamed for demanding accountability from NJT a state agency using taxpayer dollars that screwed up by parking a 1/3rd of it's fleet in areas predicted to flood causing all sorts of problems and not being upfront with their ridership on certain lines. All of you on this forum that are in the private sector know that had this been anyone of us, we'd be fired. Yet I have folks cheap shots me like Ryanovv who has shown his bully/discriminatory tactics on this forum. Ryanovv, it amazes me on how you haven't ended up in the hospital just for your disrespect to veterans like myself. Nice you can hide behind a computer and spew some of the most vile comments but you wouldn't meet me face to face for obvious results...BTW I don't loose. I don't recall you serving in the military yet you insult those who defend your right to be a jackass. One day someone in the uniform be in military or police will have enough of you and deal with you in a way you won't like.

NJTRailfan wrote:WOW! Its's simply amazing on how I get flamed for demanding accountability from NJT a state agency using taxpayer dollars that screwed up by parking a 1/3rd of it's fleet in areas predicted to flood causing all sorts of problems and not being upfront with their ridership on certain lines. All of you on this forum that are in the private sector know that had this been anyone of us, we'd be fired. Yet I have folks cheap shots me like Ryanovv who has shown his bully/discriminatory tactics on this forum. Ryanovv, it amazes me on how you haven't ended up in the hospital just for your disrespect to veterans like myself. Nice you can hide behind a computer and spew some of the most vile comments but you wouldn't meet me face to face for obvious results...BTW I don't loose. I don't recall you serving in the military yet you insult those who defend your right to be a *. One day someone in the uniform be in military or police will have enough of you and deal with you in a way you won't like.

How exactly was he being a bully? I don't recall him asking for a fight. And the private sector isn't perfect either. Just look at Lehman Brothers or AIG.

NJTRailfan wrote:WOW! Its's simply amazing on how I get flamed for demanding accountability from NJT a state agency using taxpayer dollars that screwed up by parking a 1/3rd of it's fleet in areas predicted to flood causing all sorts of problems and not being upfront with their ridership on certain lines. All of you on this forum that are in the private sector know that had this been anyone of us, we'd be fired. Yet I have folks cheap shots me like Ryanovv who has shown his bully/discriminatory tactics on this forum. Ryanovv, it amazes me on how you haven't ended up in the hospital just for your disrespect to veterans like myself. Nice you can hide behind a computer and spew some of the most vile comments but you wouldn't meet me face to face for obvious results...BTW I don't loose. I don't recall you serving in the military yet you insult those who defend your right to be a *. One day someone in the uniform be in military or police will have enough of you and deal with you in a way you won't like.

Making threats like that isn't going to get him to be any nicer to you. A lot of people on here bust chops and poke fun, I learned that early on, if you can't take it, that's your problem.

lensovet wrote:i'm sorry, but since when is that kind of knowledge necessary for determining where equipment needs to be? pretty sure that being able to look at flooding forecasts and properly interpret them is way more relevant than knowing how to move around jumpers.

I was being sarcastic to make the exact point you expressed. You don't need to go to Berkley to use logic( if I can use the word here).

1) A 13 foot storm surge was predicted to hit the Hoboken/Meadowlands are at least 24 hours before the storm.

2) The actual storm surge was less than predicted

3)If NJ transit officials had paid attention to the forecast and properly interpreted them, they would have gotten all the equipment they could have out of Hoboken.

4)They did not.

5)We must conclude that they did not pay attention to the forecast or they did know about the forecast and took no action.

lirr42 wrote:Operational conditions and circumstance is most likely much more important than that. Any idiot can look at a map and store things in the highest 10 points across the system, but afterwards, your haphazard "whatever doesn't flood" mentality leaves you royally f*#&!d when it comes time to get things going again, and you have 90% of your equipment isolated and cut off because it wasn't staged properly.

6) It would be preferable to have trains "cut off" but operable than to have them inoperable and require expensive repairs.


But lirr42 is saying he would rather have cars under water in Hoboken than "cut off" in Dover . In the 2nd case ( "cut off" in Dover) you need to fix the RR anyway so, you have no extra cost. The people in Dover are still out of service until you repair the RR. In the 1st case ( sunk in Hoboken), you have to fix the RR but now you have to fix the car's too, extra cost.

lirr42, Your logic seems to be in question. How will Op's go when the 25% of your equipment is under water. Apparently the Executives at NJT seem to share your though process..

Again leave the judging of decisions to those who should judge.
you rail wankers, kept quite till after storm and either way they did not need your so called expertize.

sean3f wrote:lirr42, Your logic seems to be in question. How will Op's go when the 25% of your equipment is under water. Apparently the Executives at NJT seem to share your though process..

None of the equipment is under water.