VRE Manassas Line 11/23 AM

Eek, it sounds ugly out there this morning. Stay safe, everyone!

Ugly indeed if the figures the Post reports are accurate:

10 A.M. UPDATE: Officials report that approximately 1,500 people are stuck at Burke Center.

9:30 A.M. UPDATE: VRE says 20 cabs are en route
to Burke to pick up passengers.

9:25 A.M. UPDATE: VRE officials say they are working on getting buses to Burke Centre to transport passengers. The Metro option is still open systemwide for VRE passengers.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dr-gridlock/

Train Talk:A Message from the CEO
November 23, 2010 1:09 PM


Response To This Morning's Delays

I understand that it is getting to the point where an apology and an explanation are simply not enough. Today was the latest in a long string of mechanical related delays, with roughly half of our Manassas Line affected. I want to sincerely apologize and take full responsibility for what happened. I will be holding a debrief with Keolis at 3:00PM today. This meeting will essentially have two agenda items. First, we need to develop a better action plan to improve our collective reaction to these type of service disruptions. Second, we need to get to the bottom of the mechanical issues that we have been experiencing lately.

Here is a brief account of what happened. I offer this information simply as information, not as an excuse.

Train 328 experienced mechanical difficulties (ground fault relay) between the Manassas Park and Burke Centre stations. After several unsuccessful attempts to get the train moving, the process to couple trains 328 and 330 was initiated. The Metro option was opened at 8:03AM for passengers wishing to seek alternative transportation at no cost. The coupled train began moving but was unable to climb the hill between Manassas Park and Burke Centre due to the heavy load of 14 cars for one working locomotive. The train backed up to take a “running start” at the hill and was successful, but then encountered further mechanical delays. Buses and cabs were called to Burke Centre just before 9:00a. The coupled train was restarted and proceeded into DC, making all stops, at 10:11a. Train 332 immediately followed the coupled train and picked up remaining passengers. Some passengers did elect to detrain and were taken via cab and bus to their final destination.

Train 332 was unable to back up to Manassas Park due to an Amtrak train sitting behind it. It was also unable to go around the disabled coupled train due to an unrelated freight train disabled on the far track. While we worked diligently to get buses and cabs to Burke Centre for our passengers, we ran into the typical problem we have during service disruptions, which is that these buses and cabs are in the midst of their morning peak period and also fighting associated traffic.

We are still investigating the nature of the problem that we encountered this morning. We expect to operate our regular schedule this evening. If anything happens to change that expectation, we will let you know as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, rest assured that I am personally involved in correcting this problem. I plan to send a Train Talk message to the general VRE ridership on Monday with my assessment of where we stand with the mechanical delays we have been experiencing recently.

Anyone know what locomotives were involved?

Andy

The email posted above was sent to only Manasas Line riders.

They say it is allot of work for a 50 year old locomotive to pull/push a combo train up the hill. The Manassas Line is more hilly then the Fredericksburg Line.

I last saw the V50 on the Manassas Line. I don't think it was one of those trains that broke down.

Unfortunately, it will be 5 months until the entire fleet will have new locomotives.

This is one thing I like about VRE. I like that they give explaniations when their is a major mechnical breakdown and how they will correct in the future.

Ever since it has gotten colder this month, their have been more mechincal problems on both lines. Frederickburg Line experienced a major problem one morning last week.

Well fellas....time for me to chime in.

I was 328's engineer LOL.....about a half mile south of Crestwood I got a ground fault, knocking out power. Stopped the train, went back to the engine(V22) to investigate. Couldn't get the fault to clear by "normal" means(reset procedure on that engine is NOTHING like the NJT equipment i'm used to). Ended up shutting the engine down and resetting the cards. No dice. All of a sudden the low water resets start tripping. No water in the glass. 330 pulls up, we couple, charge the train and do our brake test. Notch 8 and sand.....NADA....ain't movin. 2300hp trying to push a 14-car train and a dead Geep uphill from a standing start.....NOT. Call Greenville and get permission for a reverse move to go south and try again....but 332 is sitting at Clifton's home signal(with Amtrak 20 behind him, and a dead set of NS engines on 2 track) so I dont have a LOT of room to work with. End up clearing Fairfax' absolute signal and making a run for it, while looking at the trail of water I left....damn thing must have sprung a leak 'round Manassas Park or so...which may have been the cause of my ground fault. Successfully cleared the hill and made it to Burke Center, but I'm watching my main res pressure dropping....by the time I got stopped I only had 100lbs....needless to say I'm not gonna be leaving 'till THIS gets cleared up. 330's engineer and I head back to the engine, checking for leaks, nothing obvious. Compressor is loading..kinda. We do what we can, but can't get it above 105 in my cab. Mechanical shows up, don't know what they did, but slowly my air comes back(the way our trainline is setup you can't rev the engine in neutral...the gen field switch in the cab car has to be up for the engine to respond WTF)....and off we go. Double stops all the way to DC, but we made it. It was a rough morning to say the least....and we certainly got a lot of media coverage lol

Cobra, sounds like you did all you could do........there aren't much you can do with ground faults. For those who don't know, a ground fault is a MAJOR short circuit on the loco basically - like the power going to the traction motors gets a short circuit. Its not like a tiny circuilt breaker tripped going to the radio or lights or something and a flip of a swtich fixes it - ordinarily if it keeps happening you have to start cutting out traction motors to find which one is doing it, which can turn into a guessing game in itself....

Low Main reservior pressure is another issue which gets very annoying, as once your main res pressure gets too low, you can't do anything to help build it. The loco won't rev to build air because its in a penalty.......its a kind of catch 22. Depending on the reasoning for the air leak, there is also sometimes nothing you can do about it. I had a train once with 2 Geeps and a leaky safety valve, with no bypass and it took both engines running above notch 4 to keep up the air on a 4 car set. I had to seriously think about braking, as using air for brakes would put me dangerously close to a penalty......that was a long trip back from Atlantic City........

Sometimes, cutting out the MR behind the cranky engine for a while to let it build back up on the loco will help reset things, but not always.

The low water is a nice bonus on top of all this........wow, you must have really ticked the RR Gods off somehow Cobra! hahhahaha

From CEO Dale Zehner:

On the mechanical side, VRE continues to work with Keolis through various issues with our aging locomotive fleet. We have established an effort to develop more processes to deter future events and our performance in the next several weeks will determine our effectiveness.

While the mechanical issues were resolved that morning, diagnostic reports were be reviewed by Keolis and VRE. The V22 made the return trip Tuesday night without incident. We thoroughly inspected the locomotive determined that it experienced a ground relay fault and, after reset, the locomotive will continue to operate without further issues. In addition, we inspected all of the mechanical connections on the two sets of equipment involved in the coupling of the two trains and found everything to be in good working order.

Kudos to Cobra for making the best out of a bad situation. Listening to the scanner, it sounded like the dispatcher really wished he had called in sick that morning.

Looks like 324 was an unhappy camper this morning. VRE is saying that 333 will be a 12-car train this evening so I will be sure to get down to Clifton to watch that one. I'm guessing that Manassas line will get first dibs on V51?

gcavert wrote:Kudos to Cobra for making the best out of a bad situation. Listening to the scanner, it sounded like the dispatcher really wished he had called in sick that morning.

Looks like 324 was an unhappy camper this morning. VRE is saying that 333 will be a 12-car train this evening so I will be sure to get down to Clifton to watch that one. I'm guessing that Manassas line will get first dibs on V51?

Thanks my friend.....and no, poor Mike was NOT happy that morning...my blood pressure could be measured in psi as well LOL

And, yes, 333 is being combined with 335, and yes, I'm drivin'......V51 CANNOT get here fast enough!!

Hopefully you will have V50 on the head end. We'll see you down at Clifton!