Nasadowsk wrote:I don't see NS really doing any better than Septa, especially if saddled with Septa's union agreements.
My understanding from folks who work under these agreements is that SEPTA has the lowest payscale of any railroad around, with salarys more along the line of transit workers than other railroad crews. Is this not correct? Or are you refering to the attitude among some employees that work is to be avoided and some of the ingeneous ways they have devised to avoid getting caught sleeping on the job?
Nasadowsk wrote:Septa's infamously slow speeds are due more to the close station spacing and dwell issues than anything operational anyway. Close stations and figure out a way to get passengers on/off faster, you'll bring up the average speeds.
I disagree. The RDG and PRR managed to run the same trains on the same railroads faster from endpoint to endpoint and they had more stations to serve than at present. SEPTA has operational problems and closing stations eliminates ridership. SEPTA needs to learn how to move trains over the road quickly.
Take the SEPTA mainline trunk, for example. Why shouldn't that piece of railroad be 90+ MPH? Sure, there are a few stations there but many trains skip North Broad (using express tracks) and some skip Wayne Junction leaving lots of room for those MUs to open up and move! I thought the point of MUs was to use the quick acceleration inherent in them. Why not use it?
Nasadowsk wrote:Looking once again at the NY region, there's a very large discresionary ridership, mostly because of high frequency durring the day and weekends. Running trains every 20 minutes all day may seem silly, but it attracts riders, which is what the goal of the system should be.
I couldn't agree with this part more. If SEPTA had more trains per hour running, they would get more passengers, more passengers would bring more fares, but more importantly more political clout.
If SEPTA could walk into a room in Harrisburg and say "we serve 70% of your constuants" they would have a lot more bargining power when it came to budgets than they do currently.
The trick is getting there.
More trains per hour will require more money which isn't going to just land in their lap. They need to pick some of the low hanging fruit; improvements that can be made without spending much money:
- enforce timetable discipline
- get rid of employees who sleep on the job (sounds like a no brainer to most people)
- listen to constructive criticism from the ridership and then work to incorperate the suggestions.
- etcetera.