What was RailWorks?

I was a little young at the time, but I remember taking weekend BSL express service because of the Railworks project.

Does anyone have a history of the project, and photos to post about it?
Also...how successful do you think the project was? I feel that this may have been SEPTA's most successful project.

mannynews wrote:I was a little young at the time, but I remember taking weekend BSL express service because of the Railworks project.

Does anyone have a history of the project, and photos to post about it?
Also...how successful do you think the project was? I feel that this may have been SEPTA's most successful project.

I was one of the two stationmasters at Fern Rock TC during the two summer shut-downs. I remember carrying three radios - RRD, BSL, and station operations - and having to use the phone on the platform (which also doubled as the announcer's position) to try to do the thing right. We (stationmasters) used to "dispatch" the trains northbound from the station in the PM rush because we kept detailed track of the BSL arrivals. We would often hold RRD trains in the station for late BSL connections.

One of the biggest problems for us during the PM rush was that the commuters got too savvy; they realized that the BSL-RRD connecting timetables that were published were pretty conservative, and that they could wait a few extra minutes and catch a later BSL train and STILL make the RRD connection at Fern Rock TC. Problem was, the headway was so tight on the BSL during the PM rush that by the time we had gotten all the folks over from the BSL station, across the bridge, down to the outbound platform and onto the RRD train, another BSL train would have pulled in and there would be about 40 people running and screaming, "Hold the R3!!!" And then the cycle would repeat once those folks were aboard. Can't tell you how many times I was yelled at for not "holding the R3", when it should have left 5 to 7 minutes before. Thing was, by all rights these people had not used the timetable properly - they gambled, and the train *should* have been gone. We made every attempt to accomodate, but you also had to think about the folks who used the timetable correctly and didn't appreciate sitting in the station an extra 5 minutes to wait for stragglers.

The project itself was successful for what it was intended to do, but it turns out that it was too limited in scope. All that nice new CWR, upgraded switches, higher civil speed limits, etc., but the signal system was not optimized for the new higher speeds - it was simply replaced in kind. A "systems" approach that added in a new signal system to match the higher civil speed limit profile of the Main Line would have been much more beneficial and would have resulted in higher speeds, lower travel times, and a lot less people on the first day back to normal operations saying, "We rode the Broad Street Line two summers in a row for THIS???" Course, it would have also cost more money. And, aaaaahhh...with SEPTA, therein lies the rub.

Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to reminisce a bit.

jb9152 wrote:One of the biggest problems for us during the PM rush was that the commuters got too savvy; they realized that the BSL-RRD connecting timetables that were published were pretty conservative, and that they could wait a few extra minutes and catch a later BSL train and STILL make the RRD connection at Fern Rock TC.

Guilty. SEPTA did not publish a combined Glenside timetable, so DVARP did, and I think we published some closer connections.

Problem was, the headway was so tight on the BSL during the PM rush...

I don't think that was the problem as much as the fact that that the subway was often late--trains would stack up between Wyoming and Olney.

I carried a stack of refund cards to hand out on the subway for those occasions when we were very late. Sometimes there'd be SEPTA brass on board (one of the AGMs was a regular on the train I usually took), and you could see the smoke rising out of their ears.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:

Problem was, the headway was so tight on the BSL during the PM rush...

I don't think that was the problem as much as the fact that that the subway was often late--trains would stack up between Wyoming and Olney.

No, it was definitely the headway, ultimately. In fact, it was the aggressive headway that made the trains stack up in the first place. Then, once they'd break loose onto the Fern Rock loop, they tended to come in waves. Our only saving grace to keep us organized was the fact that the BSL trains were required to announce their block number (almost like a train number, except the train carries it for its entire run regardless of direction, crew, etc.) to the Fern Rock tower operator so we could tell which arrivals were which.

Matt, I remember a particular service disruption on the RRD one day where you were following me around, trying to tell me how to do my job while I was trying to handle a station full of confused and angry passengers, and give orders to crews who were all too happy to watch me drown. MAN, was I pissed off. I think I finally told you to stop bothering me.

No hard feelings, though. SEPTA had put us both in a very tough situation, employees and passengers alike, with the whole IDEA of RailWorks. We were just trying to do the best job we could for the passengers. That whole system of holding trains where necessary, keeping very detailed track of BSL arrivals, was an invention of the station crew. That was nothing that the operations planners or RROC came up with; if it were left up to them, anyone arriving on a "later" BSL train was out of luck. We realized within a few days that that was not going to work, for anyone.

jb9152 wrote:Thing was, by all rights these people had not used the timetable properly - they gambled, and the train *should* have been gone. We made every attempt to accomodate, but you also had to think about the folks who used the timetable correctly and didn't appreciate sitting in the station an extra 5 minutes to wait for stragglers.

The other problem, and we run into this all the time in Jersey with Secaucus Jct. nowadays, is that some people who were there on time (for example, when I was sitting on the train the other night and we were held) may have other connections down the line that they need to make. Getting held for 5 mins may not seem so bad, but that 5 mins may cost some of the passengers ON the train an hour, while passengers who'd have missed the train were it not held would only have lost 25 mins.

ryanov wrote:

jb9152 wrote:Thing was, by all rights these people had not used the timetable properly - they gambled, and the train *should* have been gone. We made every attempt to accomodate, but you also had to think about the folks who used the timetable correctly and didn't appreciate sitting in the station an extra 5 minutes to wait for stragglers.

The other problem, and we run into this all the time in Jersey with Secaucus Jct. nowadays, is that some people who were there on time (for example, when I was sitting on the train the other night and we were held) may have other connections down the line that they need to make. Getting held for 5 mins may not seem so bad, but that 5 mins may cost some of the passengers ON the train an hour, while passengers who'd have missed the train were it not held would only have lost 25 mins.

I now work in NYC for a railroad engineering firm, so I get the opportunity to ride through Secaucus Jct. a good deal. Yep, you're right on point. This was such a balancing act for us during RailWorks. We knew that we were going to be yelled at on a nightly basis. I was personnally dressed down several times by the then-Deputy GM, who apparently didn't know how to read a train timetable and habitually arrived late at FTC, expecting his train to be held for him. How's that for customer focus?

Our goal was really to try to make the best of a bad situation, and in practical terms that meant keeping a very close watch on the BSL's operations, and selectively holding Railroad Division trains either when the BSL "sh*t the bed", or when another BSL train had sneaked around the Loop before we had finished loading the RRD train, and we were faced with either holding the train or having to physically restrain passengers who were diving down the stairs to make the train. Really a high and low point of my career.