Almost all oprators are experiencing delays and cancellations WASH - BOS due to the storm. High winds are bringing down trees onto tracks and CAT wire. When will the RRs learn to trim back the trees ?.
Amtrak cancelled most train this morning believe they may be starting up this afternoon ? SEPTA seems to be in the best operating ability ?
Amtrak wire problems at Secacus. Here is NJ Transit bulletin.
Travel Alerts
Mar 02, 2018 04:32:53 PM
PATH is accepting NJ Transit tickets and passes at Newark Penn Station, Hoboken and NY 33rd St.
Mar 02, 2018 04:30:09 PM
NEC train #3943, the 4:13pm from PSNY is CANCELLED due to an Amtrak overhead wire problem near Secaucus.
Mar 02, 2018 04:28:57 PM
NEC train #3721, the 4:07pm from PSNY is CANCELLED due to an Amtrak overhead wire problem near Secaucus.
Regional Rail: Media/Elwyn : Passengers may board all trains from their normal boarding locations between Secane and 49th Street Stations. Service is operating with delays of up to 60 minutes due to weather-related problems. Airport, Fox Chase, Manayunk/Norristown, Wilmington/Newark : Service is operating with delays of up to 60 minutes due to weather-related problems. Chestnut Hill East, Chestnut Hill West, Cynwyd, Glenside Combined, Lansdale/Doylestown, Paoli/Thorndale, Trenton, Warminster, West Trenton : Service is suspended until further notice due to deteriorating weather conditions and power problems. Alternative service options are online. Market/Frankford: Market/Frankford Line : There is no A-B skip/stop service today due to weather conditions. Trains will stop at all stations for passenger convenience. Norristown High Speed Line: Norristown High Speed Line : Shuttle buses are operating between 69th Street Terminal and Township Line Road due to a down tree near Parkview Station. Expect delays of up to 25 minutes.
MARC
Attention MARC Commuters: MARC Train service will not operate on Friday, March 2 due to the severe weather affecting the region. The Federal Government is closed and many other transportation providers are curtailing service. Trees are beginning to fall blocking tracks and signal failures are occurring.
We regret any inconvenience due to the suspension of service, however, the safety of our passengers and employees is our first and foremost concern.
A decision regarding the status of weekend Penn Line service for Saturday, March 3 will be made later today.
VRE
Out of an abundance of caution due to the severe winds, and based on feedback from our host railroads, VRE will cancel service today, March 2, 2018.
Attention MARC Commuters: MARC Train service will not operate on Friday, March 2 due to the severe weather affecting the region. The Federal Government is closed and many other transportation providers are curtailing service. Trees are beginning to fall blocking tracks and signal failures are occurring.
We even felt some of it down here in the Richmond VA area, sunny skies but VERY high winds all day. We lost power around 2:00 PM and didn’t get it back until 9:30.
Hey, we were ready, out came the car inspectors lanterns, the “Atomic Lantern,” and the sterno stove! Got to have my coffee, ya’ know!
Daughter drove through Richmond VA this afternoon on I-95 and a tree fell across southbound 95 directly in front of her blocking all the southbound lanes. She managed to stop in time. Lot of wind she said.
My son-in-law made a trip over to my house - all the trees in the neighborhood are still standing - including the big pine tree on my property that I had fears about.
Balt know your concerns. Got rid of all mine few years ago after several near misses. But still get lots of pine straw during windy storms from other locations.
In my entire railroad career I never experienced a system shutdown…until Amtrak took over operations on the Northeast Corridor (NEC). I would like to share with you excerpts of a letter dated January 30 2011 I wrote to then Amtrak president Joseph Boardman. It was received, I sent it registered mail return receipt requested,and not surprisingly ignored.
The excerpt:
The snow emergency plan that has been formulated for the New England Division looks good on paper but when it snows the weather is greeted with ‘surprise’ and chaos usually results. The storm of December 26,2010 is a prime example. Chaos reigned supreme, trains were cancelled and the service disruption was catastrophic- Airlines were grounded and highways were impassable, this was Amtrak’s opportunity to shine. They did not. The “Blizzard of '78” which dumped 28 inches of snow accompanied with sustained hurricane force winds of 86 MPH and gusts recorded to 111 MPH had iiterally shut down the entire Northeast and guess what? Amtrak shone! Scheduled service could not be maintained but trains moved albeit slowly but they moved and stopped along the right of way to pick up anyone at anyplace and deposit them at the place of their choice. Amtrak was the first and only form of public transportation moving in the Northeast for days! The storm of December 26,2010 was miniscule by comparison and Amtrak ‘dropped the ball’ so to speak. Why? In 1978 Amtrak had Conrail employees under contract to dispatch and operate it’s trains. These were seasoned railroad employees that is why.
January 12, 2011 and another storm is in our midst and again chaos reigns. Trains are cancelled. The reasons being given are trees have fallen in Rhode Island causing damage to the overhead wire. Also a 7 mile stretch of track has been out of service in Connecticut due to bridge replacement and management feels that if a breakdown occured on the remainin
Why opeerate a number of Amtrak trains when there will be very few traveling ? All along the NEC very few transit systems are operating anywhere near full service. State of emergency in effect for many jurisdictions with all but emergency personel restricted from traveling. Many local governments and business shut down.
Remember in the past many of these restrictions were not implemented !
Amtrak Temporarily Suspends Northeast Corridor Service Between Boston and New York Until 10 a.m. on Thursday
March 7, 2018
Winter Storm Continues to Impact Train Schedules
10 p.m. ET
Amtrak service has been temporarily suspended between New York City and Boston, Mass. until at least 10 a.m. on Thursday due to inclement weather. Service will be restored pending improved conditions.
For the remainder of Wednesday evening, Amtrak Northeast Regional Trains 148, 94 and 66 are now terminating in New York City. Amtrak Northeast Regional train 175 has been cancelled in New Haven, Conn. Amtrak Nor
“Expanded canceled service for Thursday, March 8 now includes:”
That is an unfortunate wording. Have the cancellations been expanded? Alternately, have the service offerings been expanded? I guess you need to go stand on a platform somewhere to be sure!
As in Meet the Applegates: “You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor.”
They knew what they meant, so we should all, too. Unfortunately some of us think too much. Even “extended cancellations” would have solved the issue at a stroke. Perhaps this is part of an end-run around the “English first” nativists by gradually destroying the language itself in favor of a crippled variant of Newspeak merged with Military-Industrial … leaving Arabic, Spanish et al. the only languages standing by default. (And we will be reminded that Arabic in particular was the language of scientific preservation in a great part of the Dark Ages…)
I was impressed even more with that ‘trains that are being modified’. In the best ‘have a nice day’ SanFran tradition?
No railraod - repeat - No railroad in the 21st Century has sufficient manpower on payroll to reliably operate throught heavy duty winter storms.
Not only do they NOT have the manpower, the manpower they do have relies upon the efforts of state highway departments to be able to move from their homes to their work location.
The 21st Century is not the 20th Century. In the heyday of reliable rail transportation - section crews were stationed every 8 - 10 miles along a route - the memebers of the section crews lived within walking distance of their reporting location and then had full access to all the tools required.