Closed Cars: What's The Point?

Each train is crewed differently. Local trains will have more crew members because it would be difficult to walk through 6 cars with 2 people when your stops are 3 minutes apart. I know that the 6:04 train to New Haven is crewed by a Conductor and AC only with 8 or 9 cars. As far as opening up all the cars it would make no sense to open 10 cars with only 200 people on board. If there was any type of an emergency it would be difficult for 2 people to walk their train to get everyone off. Terminal Proceed should be able to chime in and give the number of people per car before they have to open more.

I often see trains where every car is open EXCEPT the lead car, which often has its lights out and connecting door locked.

I figured this was for engineer privacy/safety...?

BenH wrote:Here are a couple of more points to add to this discussion:

MN never knows exactly how many people will show up for any given run. Sure, they have a good idea, but they never know for sure. The obvious goal is to have enough available seats for the average number of people that they expect, from historical data, will ride any given train.

I too have often been on trains with closed cars at the head-end. This only seems to occur on off-peak trains, from my experience on the NH line, and on the weekends in particular.

The closed cars give the conductor the option to make more seats available if he/she needs them. Obviously, the fewer cars you use in any give consist the higher the chances are that there will be people standing due to lack of available seats.

A few good reasons to have closed cars at the start of a run:
It’s easier for the conductors to collect tickets with fewer cars open.
The extra cars allow a conductor to add seats, when/if that they are needed.
A car that remains closed for an entire run does not have to be cleaned at the end of a run.

A few bad reason for having closed cars at the start of a run:
If all cars were open then the passengers would have a greater selection of “good” seats (i.e. not middle seats.)
There is more wear-and-tear on the equipment (the closed cars) when they are in a consist, but not used by passengers.


It would be interesting to know what the work rules say about staffing on a train with closed cars at the start of a run. I.e. if you have an 8-car train, with 4 closed cars; does MN have to staff it for 8 cars or 4 cars? I would imagine that the rules are rather complex, since working a local from Stamford is more work compared to working a morning rush hour train that only makes a few stops before running express to GCT.

I think (I said THINK ) that the first south bound train from Wassiac on Satruday's only has one conductor. It is a full 7-car train (I know this for sure) and it has 2 conductors for the second run, which goes all the way through to NYC.

I often see trains where every car is open EXCEPT the lead car, which often has its lights out and connecting door locked.

I figured this was for engineer privacy/safety...?

Yeah, you're probaly right. All mainly (even long before) both 11SEP01 and Madrid 3-1-1 '04. That's most likely why the lock out the lead car.

The lead car South Bound on MNRR cars should almost alway's be open. The barrel doors may have the latches thrown down but they cannot be locked per FRA in case of an emergency you have to have a way out.

Regarding the conductor and trainman issue-It varies by time also, not just expected pax.

For instance, the MBTA has a conductor and 2 trainman on weekday trains, and a conductor and a trainman on the weekends. Extra trainman are added for select events inside Boston.

Re cars- If you were the conductor, would you want to have to walk 7 cars between each station if all pax will fit into two, or even one car????