http://wabe.org/post/atlanta-streetcar-delayed-again-due-construction-issues
Ugh. Don’t completely understand why several months of running w/o passengers is needed to fulfil Fed testing requirements. Would think a week or two would be enough to test line and qualify employees.
I worked on the MARTA project for 35 years. We scheduled 3-6 months testing for all systems prior to revenue service. This may be a less complex system, but testing is no place to cut corners.
What are you measuring during six months of testing?
I’m assuming there is a defined test plan with criteria for success/failure.
MARTA seems far more complex than this.
This is a loop of track with a few vehicles. None of the design is original stuff. I would think you’d just have to be sure all the sub-systems - which should have already been tested separately, play nicely together.
You are testing all systems, wayside and onboard. Training all personnel, fine tuning operations plans and emergency procedures, familiarizing first responders with all aspects of the system, obtaining approvals and permits from Feds, state and local agencies. It is not rocket science, but it does take time to go through the exercise.
It’s disappointing to me that it appears that there is no urgency to getting revenue service going. The public’s money has been spent and we have to wait a good bit before we get any good out of it.
It seems to me that all the pre-revenue testing, training, etc could be accomplished much faster if they attempted to do things in parallel and utilzed all 168 hours a week to get the work done.
If the project isn’t important enough to get going as soon as possible, why even bother with it at all?
The length of time it takes to get these kinds of projects done just bugs me. (if you couldn’t have guessed!)
At the risk of being negative, I would only say if the Manhattan Project had proceeded at this pace, it would have taken many more years to detonate a “device.”
Test train ran last week under own power. The wheels of progress turn rather slowly.
Because the government is involved, that’s why.
Test streetcars are running at various times during the day. Drivers are being trained as final kinks are being worked out of the system.
Tell me if I’m wrong. Required testing of a new system’s cars is what ? 1000 miles ? Can that be included in each vehicles required 100 miles of testing ?
If so that would mean ~ 900 loops on the 1.1 mile Atlanta system ? 90 days means 10 loops of cars daily to certify ?
Each car goes 1k miles. Each car must not exceed a certain number of defects to be accepted.
As pointed out in the TCRP document cited over in the Dallas track maintenance thread, there are no Federal testing requirements for transit systems only state, so you’re blaming the wrong guys for the requirements.
As pointed out in the TCRP document cited over in the Dallas track maintenance thread, there are no Federal testing requirements for transit systems only state, so you’re blaming the wrong guys for the requirements.
What happens on those systems that are both light rail & freight lines ?. Thinking of both Baltimore and San Diego. Both have sections that are light rail only and other sections that also has freight rail spurs or trains traverse .
Those systems operate according to FRA’s principle of temporal seperation, where by freight service (governed by FRA rules) operates in one period of time, and non FRA compliant equipment in another period of time. Never the two shall mix. Obviously since the freight operation is under FRA governance the track over which they operate must conform to the FRA track safety standards, that which is transit only does not. FRA exercises no jurisdiction over the transit operations under this concept.
FRA does require a fair amount of paperwork and planning to permit this type of operation. Our friends in Austin made the mistake of marching off to plan a system of this type without involving FRA from day 1. Kind of POed FRA and resulted in some delay in getting the project approved.
One dirty little secrete is that the AAR requires more testing of a new design coal car than FTA does for a new design transit car. One can point to the MBTA Type 8 problems as an argument for more testing.
Delayed some more…for some unspecified safety concerns.
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/georgia/atlanta-streetcar-delayed-over-safety-concerns/njBpp/
Looks like Dec 6th start?
Interesting my friends at APTA say the Feds have no role in this. Could it be the highway guys for the lane marking?
The mayor of Atlanta says the work is done. They are just waiting for the FTA to sign off. Hard to tell what’s really real, here.
One news report mentioned that the safety training of crews for the prevention of electrocution was inadequate.