Summit Walls are Falling Down

Literally. Well, pieces of the wall.

Pieces of a concrete hit two commuter trains on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning which caused NJ Transit officials to temporarily close down part of the Gladstone Branch for emergency repairs this evening.

Gladstone branch service remains temporarily suspended until further notice, due to emergency repair work on the wall near Summit station, NJ Transit officials said. Rail tickets and passes will be cross-honored by Lakeland buses. Commuters should listen to station announcements about alternate train service. http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/201 ... ter_c.html

Where exactly is the damage? There's no "tunnels" between New Providence and Summit, unless you count overpasses.

It's in the cut, just west of Summit station, along the wall track. Service is still suspended as of this morning, which leads me to believe they've found a major structural issue that needs emergency repair, rather than knocking loose some more of the crumbled wall so it doesn't fall on passing trains.

More from the article:

In a report to the Federal Railroad Administration, NJ Transit officials said the incidents were caused by debris and concrete in a wall that had shifted in an area that has a one foot clearance between the wall and trains.

This is crazy. A retaining wall moving one feet is pretty much a failed retaining wall in need of full replacement. I have not been to Summit recently, but much of the retaining walls beyond Newark Broad also seem in bad shape. How frequently are the old Lackawanna retaining walls through the cuts inspected? I bet there is a full inspection of these coming too. I will not be surprised if a number of major deficiencies are found. Just another thing to spend the non-existent capital budget on ...

The walls through Newark do need attention. NJT patched the north side of a section between Broad St. Station and the connection with the Montclair line (roseville?). So far, the patches have held. It's been about 6 years since they did that? The south side wall is in the same shape as the walls through Summit; holes almost a foot deep with grass and small trees growing out of the wall.

Also, note the article says there is one foot of clearance, which is different from a wall shifting one foot. It's likely just another large piece of concrete that fell, which has been happening for the last decade.

Service has resumed.

time wrote:Also, note the article says there is one foot of clearance, which is different from a wall shifting one foot. It's likely just another large piece of concrete that fell, which has been happening for the last decade.

Would have been nice to see some pictures of what it was and what their current fix is. Unfortunately I have not seen any in the local media.

A retaining wall that has shifted a foot is no longer a retaining wall. As in it's no longer retaining anything.

And if your clearance between rail and wall is one foot (and the wall has shifted a foot), basically you now have two choices :

1) remove and replace the wall, or 2) shore up the wall in some kind of permanent fashion (tieback rods, etc).

If the wall has cracked and/or deteriorated as part of the shift, then option 2 is no longer valid.

You (obviously) cannot run trains if they will hit the wall.

litz wrote:A retaining wall that has shifted a foot is no longer a retaining wall. As in it's no longer retaining anything.

And if your clearance between rail and wall is one foot (and the wall has shifted a foot), basically you now have two choices :

1) remove and replace the wall, or 2) shore up the wall in some kind of permanent fashion (tieback rods, etc).

If the wall has cracked and/or deteriorated as part of the shift, then option 2 is no longer valid.

You (obviously) cannot run trains if they will hit the wall.

time wrote: Also, note the article says there is one foot of clearance, which is different from a wall shifting one foot. It's likely just another large piece of concrete that fell, which has been happening for the last decade.

Again, the wall has not shifted a foot.

andrewjw wrote:Again, the wall has not shifted a foot.

Does anyone know how the wall or a piece of it contacted the trains? A chunk of concrete hanging on a piece of rebar?

I believe a chunk of concrete came loose and came in contact with a train. There is now a small pile of concrete chucks at the bottom of the entire length of the wall, as if someone took a sledgehammer or jackhammer to the wall and knocked off anything loose.

The Record has a few pictures of the wall http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/w ... 706825001/. It appears that the portion that was crumbling is within the bounds of Summit Station, at the end of the platform. The top of the wall must have started crumbling due to the 100+ years exposure to the elements. For any wall the top is the weakest spot as any small crack gets filled with water, freezes in the winter, gets larger, fills with more water and so on. It appears that they chipped some of the old concrete and poured new one. It should hold for at least a decade or two, but without recapping the top of the wall and tuckpointing the sides we are guaranteed to hear about something like this again within a few years, likely at a different location.

I am amazed that NJT does not have its own engineers who understand concrete strictures enough for such small issues:

When NJ Transit consulted an outside engineer on Wednesday, however, it found more areas of loose concrete on the wall. That's when the agency decided to suspend service to Gladstone while crews removed the loose material.

Given the prevalence of concrete strictures on the railroad it is amazing to me that even for something so small like this they had to consult an external engineer. I would have though that this is standard stuff that their maintenance department is qualified to fix. If for small things like this they need external help, we are in trouble as there mist be hundreds if not thousands of similar things around the railroad.

I love how Sanatoro acts as if NJT has been responsive. They're putting out fires, yes, but listening to the smoke detector could have prevented this. When you have a gigantic hole in a huge retaining wall, which has been increasing in size over the years, it's gonna fail. You don't need an engineer to figure this out. Frankly, it's just common sense.

The real issue is, as the article stated, is that the agency is tight on cash due to Christie's financial 'wizardry.' Hopefully the next governor of New Jersey realizes what an incredible asset NJT is to the state, cleans shop, funds it properly and puts Amtrak's feet to the fire to make things better on the NY / NEC side of operations.

Rush hour service is again cancelled today on the Gladstone Branch. Reason given by NJT is 'inspection of walls' at Summit. The optics of this is not good and is making them look incompetent. One would have thought that the best time for any inspections was over the weekend when travel demand is much much less.

Would the 'pocket' track at Summit have allowed them to continue service if it were completed?

If the pocket track allowed for a switchover after the area where the walls closed off the wall track, then yes, it would allow Gladstone service to continue. I don't know the scope or details of the project, and I have not heard anything about it in recent time. I guess your answer will come in time. ;P

There is fresh ballast along some sections of the wall track, in around the same area the wall was repaired. Any clue why they'd need to do work on the tracks? Did the FRA fail something track wise while looking at the wall?

The latest news on this are that the damage was caused by a metal junction box which came on contact with the trains, not by falling concrete http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/w ... 754811001/. I would not be surprised to see any unused conduits and junction boxes that are along the sides of the walls in the cuts removed in order to avoid repeat of this.