Minor Sideswipe in Grand Central - 12/17/14

[SwingMan]

Heard from a little birdie there was a minor sideswipe between trains in GCT earlier today.



EDIT: Can't post the link on my phone, but just read the Daily News snip bit on it.

[Clean Cab]

Light engine running long nose forward got by a stop signal in GCT and clipped an outbound train. No severe damage, no derailment and no one injured.

[BlendedBreak]

Mod Note: Inflammatory post redacted in entirety.

[RearOfSignal]

The answers to almost all of your questions is no. Where track workers walk and what engineers have in their hands is up to each individual. And signals can drop in other ways than the RTC taking it away.

[Datenail]

BlendedBreak, I read your post with great interest and although I rarely if ever, post in the MNCR Forum, I had to respond. May I begin comment, by assisting you with the proper spelling your screen name, as it should read-Blended BRAKE. It is understandable, your frustration with alleged poor training standards on Metro North and I too, with the same vigor of frustration, abhor poor spelling, when one writes a letter or email.

Can we be just and fair in our assessment of Metro North, when comparing your railroad and its stellar performance, with a commuter road such is MNCR? Am I exaggerating when I say, that Metro North operates more trains per day out of Grand Central, than Amtrak operates in the entire United States? Where is your praise of the thousands of trains MNCR operates on-time, without incident or damage to life and limb? I dare say, that this in itself, is proof, of the excellence of Metro North training standards, which meet or exceed any railroad of its kind, in this Country. If Amtrak operated hundreds of trains per day out of one terminal, than they too, would imperil their service with the occasional sideswipe or stop signal infraction. Pundits would abound and with their talking heads, criticize your road. All the while completely forgetting the thousands of trains per week, that are operated on-time and without incident.

I have ridden Metro North trains many times and was quite impressed with the service, professionalism of the on-board staff and cleanliness of the trains. In a nutshell, lighten up.

[mvb119]

BlendedBreak, I read your post with great interest and although I rarely if ever, post in the MNCR Forum, I had to respond. May I begin comment, by assisting you with the proper spelling your screen name, as it should read-Blended BRAKE. It is understandable, your frustration with alleged poor training standards on Metro North and I too, with the same vigor of frustration, abhor poor spelling, when one writes a letter or email.

Can we be just and fair in our assessment of Metro North, when comparing your railroad and its stellar performance, with a commuter road such is MNCR? Am I exaggerating when I say, that Metro North operates more trains per day out of Grand Central, than Amtrak operates in the entire United States? Where is your praise of the thousands of trains MNCR operates on-time, without incident or damage to life and limb? I dare say, that this in itself, is proof, of the excellence of Metro North training standards, which meet or exceed any railroad of its kind, in this Country. If Amtrak operated hundreds of trains per day out of one terminal, than they too, would imperil their service with the occasional sideswipe or stop signal infraction. Pundits would abound and with their talking heads, criticize your road. All the while completely forgetting the thousands of trains per week, that are operated on-time and without incident.

I have ridden Metro North trains many times and was quite impressed with the service, professionalism of the on-board staff and cleanliness of the trains. In a nutshell, lighten up.

As an Amtrak employee, I'm going to side with you Datenail, the times I have ridden Metro North trains, the conductors have always been nothing but professional. Every railroad has its flaws. Although I don't intend to nitpick, but Amtrak might not run as many trains as Metro North, but they certainly handle far more, albeit from an operations side of things. And it is our MW personnel who maintain those tracks, signals, catenary, bridges, etc for all of our trains plus the commuter trains who pay a pretty hefty price to use said tracks. More than 1200 trains a day go through Penn Station alone, while I believe Metro North handles in the ballpark of 600-700 trains a day out of Grand Central (feel free to correct me, I don't know numbers offhand, only what I've heard others say). That isn't counting all the trains that also run in and out of Philadelphia, Washington and Boston. All those places are dispatched by Amtrak, and utilize Amtrak owned or controlled track.

At the end of the day all the New York railroads just run far too many trains for there to never be any problems. Things are going to happen at some point or another. Do I think that Amtrak has its strong points? Sure. We have our fair share of weak points as well. It wasn't that long ago I recall an Amtrak Empire Service train running a stop signal in Penn Station. Does that mean that this person was poorly trained too? People make mistakes, and I am sure this person was just as well trained as any Metro North engineer, we're all only human, and it is important to take that into consideration before pointing fingers. Do I think there are certain areas where Metro North needs work? Sure. As a daily rider on the Hudson Line going from NYC back to where I live, I expected 3 track between CP12 and CP19 to be in much better shape after being OOS for so many months, but the ride still feels just as bumpy as before. I've also had my fair share of dealings with their C&S people when troubleshooting circuits between here and Grand Central, which might cause me to bite my tongue when on the phone with them. But I wouldn't go as far as dismissing the entire railroad. I think the vast majority of employees want to do a good job, and it shows at the end of the day. From the interactions I have had with them, I wouldn't expect any less, and I would never think twice about riding their trains.

To my fellow Amtrak brethren above, give them a break. I think you're throwing everybody under the train. Not all the employees are as bad as you make them out to be.

[nomis]

Mod Note: Inflammatory, craft war, and broad RR war posts will not be accepted ...

This forum, and this page is not going to become someones personal soapbox for venting your frustrations, which are verging on "NHAirLine," and neither the site admin, asst site admin, or myself will stand for it and degrading this forum.

Anything more of that nature, and this thread gets the lock and key.

[Tadman]

Further admin note: new members starting a fracas will find themselves very short-term members. Please remember to think twice before posting. This is a community like any other and you have to earn respect just like the rest of us did.

Thanks and enjoy your holidays!

[nomis]

And for a news report on the actual incident ...

Locomotive and Metro-North passenger train collide in tunnel near Grand Central Terminal
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/loc ... -1.2049036

A Metro-North locomotive ran a red light and hit a passenger train leaving Grand Central Terminal on Wednesday morning, an MTA spokesman said.

The accident happened in the Park Ave. tunnel a minute or so after the 11:20 a.m. train to Croton pulled away from the platform with about 20 passengers aboard.

[BuddSilverliner269]

As a locomotive engr for Amtrak, I do side with Blendedbrake on many issues but not all. The issues I have with MNR are with management and possibly with training but not with T&E. I think the train crews are some of the most professional I have ever met. This incident in GCT couldve happened with any other railroad. As someone who does run on the New Haven line, I share BB frustrations but voicing them on here I don't think will change anything. As much as I hate how slow the NHV line has gotten, I give the railroad credit for trying to correct what is wrong after hiding it for many years. I do tip my hat for how many years they've had no issues and how many passengers do get transported. I have no idea if I know who blended is, but I do work alongside this person and share much of there frustration, at least I did until I I went out of service on October 8th because I was involved in a horrific car accident and broke my back. Let's just hope 2015 is a Better year for MNR

[DutchRailnut]

The track issues on New Haven line will take years to correct, not because lack of man power or lack of knowledge but because many miles of track will have to be completely rebuild.
This in turn will take many budget cycles(money) since tracks won't just be redone , but till its their turn to be redone.
As for Amtrak their a tenant and at very very low pay for that matter, they get what MN can give them but they better show up on time and don't take long station stops tying things up for a cup of java for their engineer.
Amtrak is not more important than a MN train, for simple matter that the people that pay for service are on MN train, and at about 3 times as many people as on Amtrak train.
Crews on MN are just as frustrated as crews on Amtrak, maybe twice as frustrated since they do at least 4 tris over that territory.
As for jumping on a Locomotive passing a red signal in GCT and bashing MN crews, lets not go there, or I put the red signal violations with times dates and names of Amtrak engineers out in public, not to speak of list of Amtrak engineers banned of Metro North. so please play nice and keep frustrations in check.

[BuddSilverliner269]

Uhmmm if that brings you so much enjoyment Dutch then be my guess but since I didn't bad mouth any train crew or mention anyone by name and neither did BB, you would only make yourself look bad and petty like we know you to be at times so please post away this list of names you supposedly have and show the world how much of a jackass you can be. In regards to your comment about Amtrak better show up on time to be handled prkperly, well I can tell you that I showed up at either division post on time and was handled poorly. Very poorly. In fact numerous times I did screenshots of the otp of the trains I ran where it was on time leaving NYP and getting to NHV 40ninutes late and vice versa thanks to the miserable dispatching at that place. A prime example is 2173. I left Boston on time and got to NHV 9 minutes early, left on time and cleared 216 at 43 late. HMMmmm! In many places you have 4 tracks in service but you wouldn't know it with some of those jokers in the ivory tower because they act like its only a 2 track railroad. Even if Amtrak stepped up the amount of money to pay MNR, I still see them handling the trains poorly and regardless whether it's a huge amount or not, it's still money being forked over to MNR. In 2012 Amtrak was paying MNR $15 million a year which is nothing to sneeze at. I do believe that Dutch took this thread off course so can we get back into the discussion ?

[DutchRailnut]

* it was not addressed at you, but to BlendedBRAKE, if he wants to force issues I have no problem and yes I do know who it is.
I am sure he be real popular in crew rooms here in North East.

[joetrain59]

Saw in todays News-Times(CT) that a lady died that same day at GCT. Found on tracks. So sad. Article did mention sideswipe. Any relation to the two?
Joe D

[mvb119]

The article says there were no injuries to any of the passengers, so how would they be related? The incidents were 9 hours apart.