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The Orange Line is melting in the dark? Someone left the track out in the rain?
By adamg on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 5:38pm
An Orange Line problem Ray Davies would love. Photo by MBTA.
A "heat kink" in the tracks near Malden (above) is wreaking all sorts of havoc on the Orange Line this afternoon, forcing Oak Grove-bound riders onto buses at Wellington - which is also causing problems on the bus lines from which buses have been diverted to shuttle subway riders.
Red Line riders heading to Alewife are faring no better due to a dead train at Harvard.
From somewhere in the bowels of the Orange Line, OwenWilsonsNose at first tweeted:
Usually I'd be pissed, but B's won the cup last night, can't complain!
But that was before he actually tried getting on one of those shuttle buses:
Never mind, line for the bus is atrocious. I hate you, MBTA.
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Comments
Looks like what happened to
Looks like what happened to the green line track when a car crashed into it near babcock st.
commute time
From Kendall to Forest Hills was two hours for my husband tonight. He got the one-two punch.
I don't think so
It was not nearly hot enough (and certainly not for long enough) to warp steel. I'm not buying the "heat kink" excuse, and I'm going to have to assume the problem is shoddy maintenance. You know maintenance, the reason we don't have late-night service in this town?
I understand that Davey is trying to run a the system with not nearly enough money. Rather than giving out questionable excuses, why doesn't he take this picture, march up to Beacon Hill, and make it clear; "Look, someone is going to get killed if I can't fix these things properly!"
Gruph.
The photo clearly shows the
The photo clearly shows the heat kink.
Heat-kinks can happen when its only around 80, they can also be caused by tempurtures rising by 25-30 degress within one day.
Still not convinced
Yes, the rail is clearly warped. However if rail systems weren't designed to handle temps in the low 80s F, this problem would be a constant. Of course, a properly maintained system shouldn't have this problem, as suggested by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_(rail_transport) (sorry, I can't seem to get links to work this morning...) Specifically:
Further interesting reading can be found at http://www.vre.org/feedback/frequently_asked_quest...
The very material you linked
The very material you linked notes that at times, no matter the condition of the ballast, the tie clips, the drainage, etc, welded rail can kink and that's why there are track inspections. Note that this kink was discovered by inspection, not a train derailing as it went over it.
Yes, but
I'm not questioning that the line kinked. Clearly it did. I'm questioning why it kinked in this situation.
It's still heat kinking.
Heat kinking happens when the temperature CHANGE is sharp enough, not when the absolute temperature is high. Sharp temperature fluctuations cause all sorts of engineering problems.
This stuff is just unbelievable.
The T didn't seem nearly this bad even two or three years ago; it seems like only in the last couple years that these dead-train events have been occurring with regularity. Is it just the age of the system finally catching up to it, or something else? Would this be fixable even with an ample supply of funds?
And once again, the T alert system
failed miserably (all of you who champion the T's emphasis on developing smartphone apps over maintaining tracks and trains take note).
While the T issued alerts for the Orange Line, the alert said "10 to 20 minute delays due to a track problem at Malden", only mentioned that passengers had to use buses in the third paragraph of the alert, and briefly hinted at the end that passengers could use the Haverhill/Reading commuter rail trains to go from North Station to Oak Grove (assuming your phone didn't cut off the message before hand).
This type of "warn and fuzzy" approach to advising riders of serious problems reflects an ongoing problem with T management - mainly that they can't admit they have a major issue to their riders up front.
Something like "Orange Line service between Wellington and Oak Grove has been suspended due to a track problem at Malden Station. Shuttle buses are currently running between these stations." would have been a far more useful alert - and wouldn't have been chopped off mid-sentence by most people's phones.
Grasping at straws
Nobody champions smartphone apps over railroad maintenance.
Are you really sure about that?
Look at the number of MBTA press releases, web site announcements, and media front-page stories about the T's efforts to develop and introduce real-time info and smartphone apps that have appeared over the past two years.
Then compare that against the number of press releases, announcements, and front-page stories that have appeared about the T's efforts during that same time frame to increase the amount of daily routine maintenance on the system.
And finally, look at the number of press stories during that same time frame regarding MBTA train and track failures that were a direct result of lack of basic maintenance.
Yes, I agree that nobody out there (T, media, or public) is chanting "Up with apps - down with maintenance." And obviously nobody is going to admit to shirking on maintenance. But it's clear from the available evidence that the T obviously places a higher priority on providing superficial measures to distract their riders instead of focusing on real and lasting efforts to keep the system running reliably and in a state of good repair.
Enough!
The apps are a cheap way to help us all cope with the fact that THE BIG DIG MASSIVELY SCREWED OVER PUBLIC TRANSIT, and the legislature lacks the gonads to do shit-all about it.
Whining AND BITCHING AND MOANING AND WHINING AND BITCHING AND MOANING AND MOANING AND WHINING AND BITCHING continually about smart phone apps WILL NOT CHANGE THAT.
What are the costs?
What do you think are the costs (in dollars) to focus on real and lasting efforts to keep the system running reliably and in a state of good repair?
I think it is significantly more than the couple hundred grand it took release the data for those smartphone apps.
What I see is that they are
What I see is that they are attempting to be more open about their problems and about their operations, a commendable trait.
The last two (well, the last four) years have also coincided with a massive economic downturn that puts a big squeeze on state budgets. And this comes after years of mismanagement and neglect by preceding administrations.
I cannot see how improvements to customer service can possibly come at the expense of capital improvements when the cost of the former comes in at a fraction of 1% of the latter.
T says 30% of bus riders now use apps
That came at a meeting the other day to announce the commuter-rail feed.
If that's true, that's a pretty amazing number and shows the importance of certain low-hanging fruit (such as just letting riders know what's going on).