Report: Organizational failures plague MARC system

The June breakdown of a MARC train that stranded 1,200 passengers in sweltering heat without air conditioning "reflects a series of organizational failures at multiple levels" of Maryland's commuter rail system, according to an investigation of the incident by the Maryland Transit Administration

However, Guroian said he was disappointed that the review focused more on responding to major breakdowns rather than preventing them. Aging electric locomotives need to be replaced, he said. Although MARC has added diesel locomotives to the Penn Line, he said, they're much slower and cause more delays.

Swaim-Staley said the MTA focused on incident response because MARC trains will continue to have "challenges" as long as they run on tracks that the state doesn't control. She said the MTA has invested $200 million in MARC over the past couple of years, including buying 26 new diesel locomotives.

"We don't have additional funding available at this point" to buy new electric locomotives, she said.

Really, does that mean the new Motive Power locomotives MARC/VRE bought are slower than the electric locomotives?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 06574.html

http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=73152

But yes, the MP-36's are rated at a slower top speed than the electrics, but the electrics are the fastest commuter locomotives in the country (unless/until the ALP-46A's are rated higher).

The Amtrak contract for the 70 Siemens ACS-64 electric locomotives is a 6 year contract. The ACS-64's are not all going to be delivered in a 1 or 2 year period. MTA and MARC have time to place an order well before the production run shuts down. In a few years, the funding might be available once the current equipment orders have been delivered and paid for. Besides, might be better for MARC to wait until the first ACS-64's enter service to see how well they work and what engineering or design changes might need to made.

Hopefully they'll make better decisions in procurement of equipment. When they got the HHP-8s, I really think they didn't think that order over and were plagued with the same problems as Amtrak's HHP-8s.

P.S: MARC is not a separate entity. It's a service of MTA (albeit MTA doesn't have much authority over the service. CSX and Amtrak does)

Actually, MTA has ALL the authority over the service. Operations and maintenance are handled by CSX and Amtrak under contract, but the ultimate responsibility for service delivery and quality (amongst just about everything else) lies with Maryland MTA.

I just wish they did a better job with communications amongst the agencies and to the MARC commuters. That's one of our biggest complaints is the lack of communication about delays or even correct information.

gp40marc69 wrote: Hopefully they'll make better decisions in procurement of equipment. When they got the HHP-8s, I really think they didn't think that order over and were plagued with the same problems as Amtrak's HHP-8s.

I don't see how they could have "thought over" the HHP-8s any more than they did. Think about this. Amtrak operates the only electric service that MARC has, on Amtrak owned tracks, and Amtrak handles the maintenance of those electrics. Seems eminently logical to piggyback on Amtrak's order and run the same motors. That's what they did. The HHP-8s turned out to be duds, yes, but it simply is still the most logical decision they could have made. If they wish to replace the electric fleet, then piggybacking on the Siemens order still makes the most sense for the same reasons. Had Amtrak gone with ALP-46As (which, after the HHPs, I could understand not choosing, even though they seem to be quite successful here in Jersey) then that would be the most logical choice for MARC. Simply put, it makes perfect sense: what Amtrak buys is MARC's best choice.

How many electric locomotives does MARC require for weekday schedules?