"This can't be good," Stephanie Davis thought when her train, the 808 out of Providence, pulled into Attleboro this morning.
Just a flesh wound, though and she reports the train is now slowly chugging its way north to Boston. Still, accommodations must be made:
They cut power so now we are moving with no lights or air.
As you can see from railaficionado's video, the diesel was not one of the new ones that don't catch on fire:
Head end power (HEP) failure on inbound #MBTA Wickford Jct train #808 @ Attleboro Station (Shot early today) pic.twitter.com/Hyr8aHn0XQ
— Train Aficionado (@railaficionado) February 4, 2016
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Comments
Ugh
By cybah
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 8:30am
My Coworker is on that train (and he's late for a meeting). So he sent me a pic to show me the train burning.
"burning" isn't exactly the
By DTP
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 8:41am
"burning" isn't exactly the right word here, despite the large amount of smoke. There was no fire.
Yes
By cybah
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 8:43am
He says it was electrical not the train...
Time for Charlie to cancel
By Baker-Christie 2016
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 8:54am
Time for Charlie to cancel all future commuter rail coach and engine orders and switch the line to buses as hes doing to the Mattapan Line and, seemingly, the green line in Somerville. We could have them painted silver to denote how fast they will go. The subsidies for commuter rail, per rider, north of $10 each way for some, are unsustainable. Time for bus replacement.
Sarcastic Sam
By cybah
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 9:10am
I know you're being sarcastic.. however..
As I stated above, the issue is with the electrical lines over the rails, not the train itself.
Considering it was electrical over the NEC, seems that its more of an Amtrak problem than a MBTA problem (since Amtrak has electrified trains)
No, it was an issue with the
By DTP
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 10:10am
No, it was an issue with the train. This had nothing to do with Amtrak's catenary system.
The official explanation from Keolis (which should be taken with a grain of salt) is clogged air filters, but that doesn't usually result in smoke and shouldn't have required HEP to be cut (no lights/HVAC), unless the clogged air filters necessitated the HEP generator be shut down.
All I am saying
By cybah
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 9:36am
Is what I was told my by coworker, and what he was told on the train by the conductors.
But I'm sure you know better. DTP (you seem to be 'in the know')
Just throwing out there that
By DTP
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 10:09am
Just throwing out there that I don't mean to discredit info reported 'in the field', which is very valuable and appreciated. It's likely one of the conductor's initial thoughts was electrical arcing or something. That or he just felt like blaming Amtrak. ;)
No
By cybah
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 10:52am
I tweeted that picture, and a few news stations picked it up. I received a DM from WFXT that Keolis says it was an on-train problem (filter)
So you're right... typical, lots of misinformation out there.
Those magic wires are too magic for the T
By Ari O
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 11:02am
Since they could buy off the shelf magic electric trains that would accelerate faster, have a higher top speed, and have less local pollution. But the T will not allow such wizardry!
That's not...
By octr202
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 11:48am
...how we do things here.
Do you blame Baker when you
By anon
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 9:29am
Do you blame Baker when you stub your toe?
THANKS, OBAMA
By BikerGeek
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 9:58am
n/t
No, I remember to thank Obama
By Baker-Christie 2016
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 10:30am
No, I remember to thank Obama when I call Obamacare with my Obamaphone that I hurt my toe.
Disgraceful.
By issacg
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 9:52am
I can speak only for myself, but if I saw that coming out of the loco pulling my train, I think that I'd get off and wait for the next one. It just doesn't seem to me that anything good can come of that.
On a broader level, the video is really a decent metaphor for the T. Belching smoke and on its last legs. It is an utter disgrace that it has come to what it has come to on a daily basis.
Aside from losing HEP
By octr202
Thu, 02/04/2016 - 10:27am
With the older locomotives, you can continue just fine. That smoke is coming from the head-end power generator (electric power for coaches), a separate system from the main diesel engine (the "prime mover"). A few of these have burned up over the years, although this could simply be a mechanical problem with the HEP diesel. When most diesel engines smoke that heavily, there's something pretty wrong with them. Given the train looks like 7-8 doubles, the HEP was probably working pretty hard.
Somewhat related, I've heard that one problem with losing HEP in push mode is the new Rotem cab cars use the HEP to power the electrical systems in the cab (computers, various other functions). The older cab cars everything runs off air pressure (bells, wipers, that sort of stuff) or the power through the multiple-unit control circuit, so the cab car will function just fine w/o HEP (other than no heat). The Rotems however will only last (supposedly) about 20 minutes w/o HEP before the batteries die.
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