Red Line Derailment South of Alewife (12/22/09)

Service running with 5-10 min. delays Alewife to Park this morning, I guess because of residual track/switch problems.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... _one_hurt/

It was the 4th car of the train that derailed; wheel problem cited initially with full investigation pending. Train only got a full train length's worth out of Alewife before it happened, so thankfully very slow speed. 65 passengers onboard, no injuries (although that's disputed by one of the commenters on this article who was on the train, saying 2 people got banged up).

Today alone I've received 3 T alerts about the Red Line

4:30am Switching problem at Alewife ( maybe derailment related )
7:46am Power problem between JFK / Quincy ( busing )
9:17am Disabled train at Park

Not a very good week

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Thru service was running Ashmont-only, with Braintree short-turning at JFK and requiring a transfer.

Was this because of the derailment somehow, or just status quo?

jboutiet wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Thru service was running Ashmont-only, with Braintree short-turning at JFK and requiring a transfer.

Was this because of the derailment somehow, or just status quo?

Most likely they were trying to reduce the number of trains they were handling at Harvard. Using the crossover there, they could only have 1 train turning in the station at a time. Seems like a reasonable way to deal with it rather than having trains back up at Harvard.

Jon

jonnhrr wrote:

jboutiet wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Thru service was running Ashmont-only, with Braintree short-turning at JFK and requiring a transfer.

Was this because of the derailment somehow, or just status quo?

Most likely they were trying to reduce the number of trains they were handling at Harvard. Using the crossover there, they could only have 1 train turning in the station at a time. Seems like a reasonable way to deal with it rather than having trains back up at Harvard.
Jon

Except they didn't short-turn. They got nearly all the Braintree-bound passengers down to JFK and then had hundreds of people waiting on the frigid platform for short-turned trains that never came. Instead Braintree thru-service exited the tunnel southbound. Then hundreds tried to pack the already crowded train. The brakes sure stunk upon arrival at North Quincy - that was one heavy train.

So neither train operator nor PA announcement could accurately communicate what the plan was. Everyone listened and froze for cooperating. Really poor showing MBTA.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaki ... fe_de.html

Broken wheel blamed for the derailment.

typesix wrote:http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaki ... fe_de.html

Broken wheel blamed for the derailment.

... and the wall problem was due to the system's aging infrastructure. ...

I believe they mean "relatively new - but poorly constructed - infrastructure"?

Also, the second article says that inspectors saw the piece of the wheel broke off at South Station. Does this mean they noticed it but figured it would continue fine for the duration of it's service with one damaged wheel, or did they happen to find the piece some time after?

Also, the second article says that inspectors saw the piece of the wheel broke off at South Station. Does this mean they noticed it but figured it would continue fine for the duration of it's service with one damaged wheel, or did they happen to find the piece some time after?

We're talking about a significant-sized piece of a wheel here. There is no way they would let a train continue if they had found it earlier.

I like how the T is saying that what happened at Alewife is unrelated to anything else. Well that's true they're different issues going on they're all symptomatic of an underfunded agency with loads of deffered maintenance. So yes the problems of leaks on the NW extension was not the cause for this derailment however the problems are related on a non-technical level.

danib62 wrote:I like how the T is saying that what happened at Alewife is unrelated to anything else. Well that's true they're different issues going on they're all symptomatic of an underfunded agency with loads of deffered maintenance. So yes the problems of leaks on the NW extension was not the cause for this derailment however the problems are related on a non-technical level.

Good point, but I think the T does have to make the distinction anyway. In fact, it is unclear yet whether this incident really is related to deferred maintenance or anything like that. So as much as these types of incidents will all be lumped together whenever they happen, and often signal a trend of some sort, one has to proceed with the assumption that this is a fluke occurrence and let the evidence otherwise build from there. At least that's how I think of it. And of course I will not be surprised if evidence does emerge that this was easily preventable.

I noticed an alert on the T site concerning busing between Harvard and Alewife Jan 2 up to Jan 4. I wonder if this is for repairs related to the derailment, or perhaps the Porter Sq wall issue?

Jon

Probably the latter, the Wall repair at Porter is likely the cause for the weekend shutdown of the Northwest Extension after the new years

And 01878/79 will have to sit OOS for a long time to come to examine it's anticlimbers and other supports to see if anymore damage happened, hopefully that pair won't be damaged beyond repair which could force early retirement like certain Washington, DC MetroRail cars which suffered a similar mishap at West Falls Church Yard

There's been a slow order at the Alewife crossover for a while now, maybe since the 12/22 derailment.

When there's no other train traffic, it adds about 2 minutes to the trip. Before this problem, there would be 5-10 minute delays getting into Alewife at rush hours about half the time, and I'm sure this has only made it worse.

Anyone know what their plans are for fixing it?

And the same thing going on at the crossover on the literal other extreme end of the Red Line, at Braintree, and sometimes even getting a stop code for, like, 5 seconds. And thats adding time to my commute. I think it might be the same thing.