Super (winter) storm JUNO

[NorthPennLimited]

They are expecting up to 2 feet of snow, sustained winds around 35mph with gusts up to 65mph along the Jersey Shore and NYC.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... /22310869/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NYC mayor deBlasio described it as a Hurricane Sandy with snow instead of rain.

Amazing they haven't started closing schools and businesses yet in preparation of all the areas in the blizzard watch and blizzard warning zones.

Hope everybody that is forced to work tomorrow has a safe commute to and from home.

[AlexC]

Here is SEPTA's plan: http://www.septa.org/service/rail/midday-schedule.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[nomis]

Septa will be running on Tuesday with a Saturday schedule, Cynwyd trains will not operate ...
http://www.septa.org/service/winter/index.html


PS: NJ Transit to suspend service at 8PM tonight. SEPTA train #757 will be the last to connect before the suspension.

[JeffK]

Amazing they haven't started closing schools and businesses yet in preparation of all the areas in the blizzard watch and blizzard warning zones.

At least in PA, if a schools is open for part of a scheduled day it counts towards the required total for the year. If not, they may have to arrange a make-up day later. That creates an incentive to take a chance when bad weather's expected to hold off.

As for businesses, who knows. My wife went to her office today because everyone was "expected to show up regardless". A couple of hours later all their clients had cancelled so they shut down. Go figure.

Hope everybody that is forced to work tomorrow has a safe commute to and from home.

I second that! (And I'm staying warm & dry at home. Oh, the wondrous joys of retirement ... every day is a week-end)

[nomis]

As of 8:00am ...
Airport: Trains #3409 and #410 are canceled between 30th Street Station and the Airport.
Lansdale/Doylestown: Train #511 will operate express from Penllyn to Center City. Extra passenger inbound train to depart Lansdale at approximately 7:20AM.
Media/Elwyn: Train #3706 will operate express from Lansdowne to University City. Extra passenger inbound train will make all local stops.
Trenton: Passenger extra train will depart Trenton at approximately 7:50AM.

[scotty269]

[zebrasepta]

I guess SEPTA made a mistake to call in for a Saturday scheduling today...

[NorthPennLimited]

Hindsight is 20/20.

The way the news was hyping this storm, you would have thought snowmageddon was coming.

Always better to err on the side of caution. I think SEPTA made the right call. Why risk having the full gamut of employees and equipment out running in this "weather" event?

The temps are expected to plummet at night for the rest of the week. Look for Silverliner 5 door problem delays, and dead AEM-7's out the window on your ride to work for the rest of this week.

[bikentransit]

Always better to err on the side of reason. Once upon a time, school closings and service changes happened a few hours before the next work day, when it was a sure thing the storm would have a negative impact on conditions. Today's nanny government thinks differently. Trains were packed and few and far between today, but at least they were out there.

[JeffK]

Hindsight is 20/20. ...
Always better to err on the side of caution. I think SEPTA made the right call. Why risk having the full gamut of employees and equipment out running in this "weather" event?

Very true. A lot of people are second-guessing the forecasters' "failure" to call the storm's track but from everything I've read its behavior was unusually difficult to assess. Juno was very much an outlier in that typically the different methods used to estimate a storm's path will start to agree with one another as it approaches. That didn't happen this time. In spite of all of the improvements in forecasting over the last 20 or 30 years we still don't have enough horsepower to 100% nail how a so-called "chaotic" set of variables will respond. Mother Nature can be a (rhymes with 'witch').

[ChemiosMurphy]

Septa didn't make the right call with the Saturday service declaration the night before.

Trains were jam packed (second to 08 world series parade) with SRO and skipped stations. This was an absolute disaster, just check Twitter. Saturday schedule with no university or work closures = bad idea.

What were your experiences?

[trackwelder]

maybe it wasn't the right call in light of the puny excuse for a storm. had the schedule not been changed and it turned out to be a real blow people would have cried about the hour late trains and stuck buses and blahblahblah. know what the best way to predict the weather is? buy a high quality barometer, mount it outside your kitchen window, now you'll have a pretty good idea what the weather will be for the next 18 hours, which is about as good as anybody can really hope, for despite all the satellite tracking and computer models. the weather is just like any other news anymore, sensationalist infotainment.

[rslitman]

It felt strange to see the laying-over trains at West Trenton while waiting for a train due to leave 20 minutes before my normal time. I could see 3 sets of equipment - a 5, a 4, and a push-pull - plus a second 5 that was going to take me home.

[bikentransit]

I noticed the airport-warminster-west trenton trains were late by 10+ minutes almost all day. It looks like there's insufficient layover time in the schedule to allow trains to catch up once they get in a rut. In short, the "through scheduling" on lines leaves trains on the same pattern almost all day. So when a delay occurs, if there isn't sufficient layover time, or depending on how the line is laid out, a line ends up being late all day because of it.

For example, a Warminster bound train is 10 minutes late. The next train to CC from Warminster is then forced to hold the siding at Willow Grove because it can't make Ardsley in time before the next northbound goes by (and it probably wouldn't have helped if the line was still double tracked to Roslyn). So the result is the train headed into town becomes 10 minutes late holding the siding, which eats up the 10 minute layover at the airport. It's now 10 minutes late headed back to Warminster, and presto, the cycle continues. Is there a fix for this?

In cases where Warminster bound trains are 20 minutes late, the southbound to the airport will get the signal to proceed to Ardsley since it has time to clear the track before the next northbound meets it.

[nomis]

It's one of the limitations of running a clock-face service like this on a single-track line, and/or a dispatcher following the Auto-Routing. You could of made the Northbound wait for the southbound farther south making the NB ~20 late into Warminster (with 0 time for crew rest on a mid-day schedule), and eating into that part of the layover on a weekend run. Long term, you can improve the physical plant by increasing speeds, or decreasing dwell times.