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How's the G running?
By adamg on Thu, 08/11/2016 - 11:46pm
After a T locomotive died in Beverly, Pan Am Railways lent Keolis one of its old Guilford locomotives to help pull its train back to Boston - as spotted by a roving UHub photographer at Mill Creek in Chelsea.
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Comments
Don't get on the G
It's very tempting, but you wind up at Smith and 9th Streets, then you gotta get on the R!
Yea but...
There's a cool down there putting out some good beers.
My Hyper link didn't work...
My bad... Other Half is down there and they put out some good stuff.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&...
Oh yes...
...do stop at Other Half. If you can find it. Hoppy goodness.
But the views!
The views are so cool from Smith & 9th (though at least the F'n G goes through now so you can get the R at 4th Av & 9th now).
Cambridge Broadband Task Force, comply with Open Meeting Law...
Elsewhere re transportation and communications issues...
Cambridge Broadband Task Force Ordered immediate and future compliance with Open Meeting Law, create Minutes for all previous Meetings
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/4xa8h7/cambridge_broadband_task...
The train set in the photo is
The train set in the photo is the one that died in Beverly, being towed back to Boston by the Pan Am fright loco.
Thanks!
Post adjusted accordingly.
Pan Am...
...also towed in a dead set from out near Ayer as well. Pretty bad when Pan Am/Guilford units are rescuing the MBTA's equipment, given the wrecks that PAR operates!
Pan Am fright loco.
Yes, Pan Am's locomotives can be quite frightening.
Fortunately...
...they often lay down a heavy smoke screen so you don't have to look at them.
(speaking as someone who can enjoy the diesel smoke drifting in the open windows at home in the summer...)
Ain't nothing
but a G train baby.
Two hours delay so we crazy.
Now hold ya fingers in the air - wave 'em at the T like you just
don't give a flying F#$%!
you win UHub today for that post!
This is outrageous. Where the hell is the MSM on the complete north side equipment meltdown that has been ongoing for weeks?!? I'm on the south side CR and even I know about it (no thanks to the MSM).
That there is still apparently no redundancy in the T's system, even after 2 winters ago, boggles my mind.
Shhhh!!
Gov Chahhlie Baykuh is doing a fantastic job and obviously the failure of a contractor to deliver on their contract (and requiring $66 million more) is a sign that we should be privatizing MORE of our transportation system. Get with the program.
I was thinking less $ for services
and more $ for redundant equipment, e.g., the deal I would have cut with Keolis was no more $ for them, but here's few extra locos and coaches (realizing that obtaining those will require some time).
Haven't you heard?
The problems of the MBTA are entirely organizational. There's no debt problem. There's no equipment issues. Everything boils down to needing to get the managers in line! Charlie said so!
I get the humor you're going for...
but hasn't it been beaten to death, in regards to equipment failures (to a degree)?
No matter who has the contract, whether public or private, no matter who oversees approval of the contract, no matter who is heading up this state, and no matter how new the fleet is, there will ALWAYS be mechanical failures.
Because metal, hoses & fuel just don't give a damn...
Equipment Failure
When you short-change the needed upgrades and ignore the maintenance to keep things working in the name of "keeping costs down" you will get equipment failure, yes. This isn't entirely Baker's fault. Weld, Cellucci, Romney, Patrick all engaged in this to varying degrees, with the first three espousing the same philosophy as Charlie of shrinking govt services down (until you can drown it in the bathtub) and then hand it off to your cronies in the private sector to run. (Patrick was just a nutless weasel - with bridge repair being his big claim to fame, infrastructure-wise.)
>"MSM"
>"MSM"
MSM ?...
From a rail history
From a rail history perspective this is quite the picture!
Would be made even better if that was one of Pan Am's B&M lettered locos.
WUSSUP, G??!!! MBTA trains
WUSSUP, G??!!! MBTA trains are ready for the junkyard.
Was there a 50 cent fare?
To ride the train with the G-Unit?
I'll see myself out.
You are a hero to millions.
You are a hero to millions.
Rather than seeing yourself out....
I think you're now "in da club".
It's fun seeing Throwback
It's fun seeing Throwback livery, visiting livery in odd places, or just interesting combinations. Fun to see from a safe distance, that is - not up close and marooned.
If I pay attention on Amtrak going through southwest CT, I sometimes see the locomotives that Metro-North has with the old New Haven RR markings.
On a recent drive down I-95 through RI, I looked over as I passed the rail yards east of Providence. A looong freight was parked there. It had cars from five or six of the big freight railroads.
Back when I was in NJ and used to commute through Newark Penn Station, somewhere between the PATH platform and the NJTransit platform I'd see one lonely sign directing passengers to ConRail - a relic from 20 years earlier when ConRail operated the passenger rail there.
I was greatly amused in a movie theater years ago. I was watching Benny and Joon, which was filmed in Spokane. There's some scene where the characters are on the street and a freight train goes by in the background. I laughed out loud when I realized that one of the box cars on the freight had the colors of the Providence & Worcester RR!
Pretty soon
the T will be grabbing steam engine locomotives.
Seriously, though, what an embarrassment.
I wonder...
How much does it cost the MBTA to lease extra equipment whenever one of their locomotives breaks down?
Seriously, if the MBTA has to keep borrowing equipment from the Pan Am scrap heap to maintain service, the T has to start looking at replacing its ageing fleet. It's a bad look when your locomotives are less reliable than the back up fleet of Pan Am. It's time for the T to send them to the great train yard in the sky.
Only Dead Head?
I don't believe PanAm's Locos are equipped to fully connect to MBTA coaches to provide power to the coaches, etc. They are pretty old and do not have the capacity or are wired to do that, so that was likely a "dead head" tow job back to the shops.
Unless of course the MBTA locomotive was only dealing with a downed motive power engine and still had HEP. If so then the loco could pull with passengers, otherwise no lights or AC or anything else.
Correct, none of Pan Am's
Correct, none of Pan Am's locomotives are equipped with HEP (Head End Power, for anyone who doesn't know). They also likely do not have the proper MU connections to communicate with the cab car, and they certainly aren't equipped with anything like automatic door controls. Plus freight trains and passenger trains use different brakes, owing to the different weights and lengths involved.
This is not related to the age of Pan Am's locomotives though. Even brand new freight locos don't have things like HEP.
Logically the T loco was still providing HEP in this case, but if not it's not unheard of for trains to be rescued and continue on without HEP.
Back when Amtrak was operating the commuter rail
it was not uncommon to see Amtrak engines pinch-hitting on commuter trains for dead MBTA F40s. And they often did it without being asked by the MBTA to do so.
As for the locomotive still wearing the 'Big G" Guilford livery, it's not unusual for the local switcher runs to be assigned the older equipment in the fleet.
Here's one. The G's on E.
Here's one. The G's on E.
I am curious to learn, from
I am curious to learn, from anybody here who may be in the know, what protocol is in place for deciding who will operate the locomotive in similar situations ? Is it safer to have the engineer of the borrowed machine, who would most likely be better trained for that particular one, or a Keolis engineer, who would be more familiar with procedures specific to the commuter rail ?
I don't know, but why should
I don't know, but why should I let that stop me from guessing?
I suspect that the answer is probably "Owner's engineer operates with a Keolis engineer as a spotter"
Keolis (and other railroads) don't let outside contractors/whomever work in/above/beside the right of way they own/oversee - no matter how experienced that outside contractor is with general railroad or Keolis-specific procedures - without Keolis personnel monitoring. I can't imagine the answer is much different for operating a train in their right-of-way.
Unless they have a specific agreement in place that takes care of insurance concerns, I can't imagine that the railroad providing assistance would let somebody else operate their equipment.
Besides that, the employees of both Keolis and the other RR have a decided interest in protecting their paychecks. It might be in their union contracts.
If it's a Pan Am loco, it's
If it's a Pan Am loco, it's going to be a Pan Am engineer. Engineers must be qualified on both territory and equipment. Pan Am runs regular freight service over the Eastern route as far as Beverly, and so the freight crew was qualified on that territory. Keolis crews are qualified on the territory, but likely not on that locomotive.
In all likelihood, both the Pan Am engineer and the train's original Keolis engineer were in the cab, but the Pan Am engineer was operating the train.