2019 Commuter Rail Delay Thread

[Steve Wagner]

Friday, September 6
3:27 p.m.

I was on the first inbound train from Concord, MA, this morning but haven't had a chance to post until now. I learned at home in Maynard that it was stopped at Ayer because of "freight interference" and was running 40-50+ minutes late. It left Concord at 6:38, running 56 minutes late, and got a little later because of an unscheduled stop east of Belmont. As we were about to get off at Porter, another passenger who'd boarded at Ayer or farther west told the conductor (another Stephen) that he'd seen what had happened: a low bed truck had taken out a rail at Willows Road in the eastern part of Ayer, not on the tracks used by the MBTA Commuter Rail, but on the freight line that diverges there en route to Lowell and points farther east and north. Apparently the PanAm people who control the trackage in that area weren't sure just where the rail was out and erred on the side of caution.

[RenegadeMonster]

Well, here's a new one. I can't believe they were this transparent in the alerts.

Update: Rockport Train 106 (7:10 am from Rockport) is now expected to depart Rockport about 1 hour behind schedule due to a crew scheduling error. Passengers may utilize Newburyport Train 158 (7:58 am from Beverly) for continued service into North Station.


Update: Rockport Train 108 (8:15 am from Rockport) has departed Rockport and is now operating 10-20 minutes behind schedules en route to North Station due to disruptions on the line caused by an earlier crew scheduling error.

There are many other alerts related to this. Such as Train 192 being canceled, Express trains making all stops. Delays due to train traffic.

[Diverging Route]

300 had problems this morning at Lowell. It crawled to Wilmington, where its passengers were transferred to trailing 302. By the time 302 got to Anderson, it was 25 minutes late and had to absorb passengers waiting for 300, 302, and 304. Keolis kindly expressed 302 inbound, letting 304 behind it pick up all passengers waiting at Winchester, Wedgemere, and West Medford.

300's passengers from the outer stops ended up arriving North Station an hour late; 302's 20 minutes late.

[FatNoah]

>300's passengers from the outer stops ended up arriving North Station an hour late; 302's 20 minutes late.

And for those of us on 304, we were only about 5 minutes late and enjoyed a less crowded than normal train.

EDIT: At least this time the T posted a note that due to crowding on 302, people should catch 304 which was right behind it. The last time a similar occurrence happened, it was with a dead/delayed train 308. When train 310 eventually arrived at Winchester Center, it was fantastically crowded, so about 15 of us decided to wait on 208 from Haverhill, which was due in < 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the T had other plans and 208 arrived on the wrong track under the assumption that it could go express because 310 was going to pick up everyone. Instead, it had to dwell in the station at Winchester Center, Wedgemere, and West Medford for several minutes while everyone made their way to the other platform.

[sonicdoommario]

CSX train brought down an overhead wire at Canton Junction during the late morning. Delayed trains in both directions for up to two hours and then ran on single track for a while. Fortunately they had the two tracks back up for the afternoon rush hour, and caused little impact for that.

[Commuterrail1050]

CSX train brought down an overhead wire at Canton Junction during the late morning. Delayed trains in both directions for up to two hours and then ran on single track for a while. Fortunately they had the two tracks back up for the afternoon rush hour, and caused little impact for that.

Yeah yesterday from mid morning through afternoon was a total nightmare. It all unfolded on track 1 which meant that all trains were stuck using track 2 until track 1 opened back up for commuter rails. Amtrak though was stuck on track 2 for the rest of the day.

[NRGeep]

Why does the weekend commuter rail shuttle bus not stay on 93 between West Medford and North Station?

[doublebell]

Supposedly on a bike! Called for Medflight at 0823 Tuesday.
John, the guy in the blue car with the wing on back

[doublebell]

At 0826 Medflight not flying due to weather.
John, the guy in the blue car with the wing on back

[Steve Wagner]

Updates posted Thursday, October 24 before my work day officially starts at 9 a.m.

The Boston Globe has reported that the bicyclist killed by a train on the North Shore a couple of days ago was a professor at Emerson College, quite new to the area.

The outbound Commuter Rail train scheduled to leave Porter at 6:05 p.m. Tuesday, October 22 was, I think, on time or nearly so leaving there. But it didn't get to Concord until about 7 p.m., almost 20 minutes late. The reason was repeated unscheduled stops between stations. The veteran conductor said that it was because of ongoing bugs in the Positive Train Control system. Three different types of locos are used on the line, each with different types of computers. They don't have working GPS systems. The PTC system gets what appears to be speed data from the wheels of at least some of the cars. If they slip, usually because of leaf gunk on the rails, they turn very fast, apparently going 90 mph when the train isn't actually moving nearly that fast. [I've added a crucial part of the following sentence about 9:09 a.m. The time stamp on this forum is an hour off. -- SW] The system thinks the train has gone much farther than it really has and automatically makes the train stop, and the engineer can't make it go immediately thereafter. We had at least three such stops between Lincoln and Concord depot.

The people who designed the system apparently assumed that cutting back on trees and brush near the tracks would substantially reduce the leaf problem. It hasn't. Wind blows leaves onto the rails long after most have fallen to the ground.

A major article in a fairly recent issue of Trains magazine indicates that PTC is actually working well in the Philadelphia area, where all the lines are electrified and PTC was easier to implement. That, along with faster acceleration and braking, is a good argument for electrifying the most heavily used Commuter Rail lines in Massachusetts.

[Trinnau]

The PTC system in the Philadelphia area is the exact same one the MBTA is installing. Electrification has nothing to do with the success of it, SEPTA is about 3-4 years ahead of the MBTA in terms of when their project started and was completed so they have had it in service much longer. They also have Cab Signalling which the Fitchburg Line does not at this point. The MBTA's Southside lines with cab signalling have gone very smoothly in terms of their PTC installation.

[Backshophoss]

Believe there's a"compact" requirement of NO cab signals on the northside left by the B&M track sale to the state of the commuter lines

[Trinnau]

Not entirely accurate, just that the MBTA would be responsible for making the B&M whole for the upgrades required to their locomotives to support ATC.

The MBTA has already committed to installing ATC on the North Side over the next couple of years. The FMCB approved the project in June as a change order to the PTC contract.

[johnpbarlow]

I rode MBTA Worcester line train 500 to Boston on Friday 11/1/19 and being it was the first inbound train to operate after the Thursday night - Friday AM wind storm, it ran about 10 minutes delayed out of Worcester because train was delayed getting into WUS. Turns out, the train was running in pull mode with HSP 2033 leading. I'm guessing this was done as a precaution in case a tree on the tracks was encountered. Q: how/where did train 500 get reversed? Did it pull out of the Worcester layover yard and use the P&W to wye the train?

Here's a photo of 2033 facing the South Station headhouse.

20191101_103250945_iOS.jpg (1.62 MiB) Viewed 2457 times

[Trinnau]

You are correct, they've started doing this regularly when major storms are forecast. They typically turn the trains the afternoon/evening prior in Boston, and they make their last outbound trips "backwards" to be in position to come in engine-lead.