All this info is via Brian Bundridge. Frozen track switches have done everything in.
Seattle Streetcar – cancelled until further notice.
Portland Streetcar – 10-20 minute delay
Tacoma Link – 0 to 10 minute delay
Sounder Commuter Rail 0 to 30 minutes late
Amtrak Cascades – cancelled until further notice
Amtrak Coast Starlight – cancelled until further notice
Amtrak Empire Builder – cancelled until further notice
Portland MAX – Blue line – 20-30 minute delay; No delay for Red line; Yellow line replaced with buses
Portland WES – Scheduled testing is delayed upwards of 10 minutes.
There’s been a fair amount of rail triumphalism the last few days, apparently a bit premature. On the other hand, it seems like there’s a much more obvious fix (heated switches) for this than for the fundamental constraints of buses, and the more heavily used lines in the region seem to be operating fairly well under the circumstances.
While the fix to frozen switches is obvious, I’ve held back from writing a post making a lot of “never again!” demands of the transit agencies, because this is a very rare occurrence and to some extent it’s just good management to cut costs in your preparations for rare events.
On a somewhat related subject, check out Erica C. Barnett’s interview last Friday with Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond. He reveals there’s basically one plan for inclement weather, and if that collapses it’s completely ad hoc.
It looks like Monday is going to be just as bad as Friday. It’s a good bet to stay home. If the Metro website crashes again, check here for a mirror of their last published situation.
Photo courtesy of STB’s own Brian Bundridge.
Text updated to reflect the observation that the Metro website has actually stayed up over the past week.
Nope, it’s the weekend. Buses were failing on workdays when people still ventured out, but the trains waited until the weekend.
Gimme a day more of this and I’ll hate everything
Just curious, is Link equipped for “once-in-a-lifetime” weather events?
This weather event isn’t once in a lifetime – it happened when I was a kid, too, very similarly. Link will do much better, though, and there are two reasons why.
First, it’ll be the mainline. It alone will have more ridership than Sound Transit’s entire express bus system (after a few years, anyway). The city would simply shut down if it weren’t running, so demand to get some workers out there with hairdryers would be fairly high.
It’s also much more redundant – switches are available in several places along the line, and switches are only necessary when changing direction, unlike Sounder and Amtrak, which switch fairly regularly. As one of Link’s primary switches upon opening will be underground, it won’t have this issue, and they’ll have many others to choose from even if one were to freeze. The biggest issue would be a switch freezing at the base, and you can bet they’ll be thinking about that now. Plus, there are two ways from the base onto the line.
I rode the 101 by the O&M base and saw that they “started up” the trains and were moving them around the yard. Contrast that with last Sunday when the whole base was closed and quiet. They are certainly doing something.
On the other hand, as I rode along the E3 busway, the Link tracks disappeared under the snow and the stations “flooded” with snow. There was a mini snow plow clearing the entrance to the transit tunnel for tomorrow’s commute.
Yes, heated switches would help. So more snow removal capability by the region to improve road conditions for cars and buses. Metro should have some sanding trucks and magnesium-chloride spreading trucks (what is used on the freeways here and in eastern Washington). Friday was a perfect day to eliminate ice from the roadway; didn’t happen.
Hey, it can snow all it wants to, I’m just glad my power didn’t go out this time!
Since we’re all snowed-in, here’s some links for you, take your pick:
This is a promo for the Danish high speed train, which runs from Copenhagen to Roskilde (home of the Viking Ship Museum) and on to Jutland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciP1xQuWxs&NR=1
California High Speed Rail, I think this is an official promo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6z03JBnJqk&feature=channel_page
Same topic, but this version is my favorite, posted on youtube by “Chuck JPC” who has a whole slew of rail videos, most of them from Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBNfVKq7YG4&NR=1
Recently I posted about an idea where our Sounder commuter rail lines would extend to the peninsula, via rail ferries. Did you know that we apparently have a facility for this already, on Harbor Island? Once a week, year-round, the Alaskan Railroad runs a barge to Seattle, which offloads freight cars for destinations across the continental US. I don’t think these are just cranes offloading them, I think the railcars roll right off. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, as its hard to find information about this.
I think the standard process for passenger rail goes something like this: a commuter train is split into two equal sections, then loaded on to a ferry, which can be either rail-only or multi-modal. In some cases, the rail cars are slightly jacked up off the rails, so that the weight (and any movement) is controlled. Depending on the length of the crossing, people either stay in the train, or mull around on deck, just like we do today. Upon arrival, the process is repeated, in reverse…making for very quick loading/unloading.
China currently has rail ferries, and Europe used to have several, although Denmark to Germany and Sicily to the Italian mainland seem to be the only major ones still around. I guess the Chunnel and the bridge to Malmo negated some of the need for rail ferries.
But there’s no bridge or tunnel that’s ever going to cross central Puget Sound, so I got curious about the concept of using rail ferries (to augment existing car service), and am trying to educate myself on the topic. I also wanted to see examples in use, and it turns out there are numerous videos of these on youtube.
Danish, loading from the viewpoint of the crew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NshLxjrMEKE&NR=1
Germany-Puttgarten
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWig83piUwg&feature=related
Getting off the train at Rodby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlfP4ureGb4&feature=related
Italy-shows the counterweights and rail splicing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9bRS9Jl9B8&NR=1
Italy again-It would have been cool to see the actual connection of the two into one trainset, but you still get an idea for what is going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ap6xBwtRlw&NR=1
Italy-exiting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ4fUNRS9Es&NR=1
So let me know if you have a better example, or can educate me on rail ferries in general…these are just links for a snowy Sunday evening.
The rail ferry facility on Harbor Island is indeed roll-on/roll-off, in addition there are a number of container on barge services going from Seattle to various points in Alaska.
However I don’t think a rail ferry service would make much sense to the other side of the Sound. For one thing there never was much right-of-way out there. What there is was built to serve the Naval Bases. Having people transfer at the ferry terminals makes more sense. Furthermore other than Bremerton there really aren’t any large areas with the density needed to support rail.
Well I may have confused things for you…I’m talking about a commuter line that would run across both peninsulas, Kitsap and OP. A simplistic map of commuter rail in Puget Sound would look something like a backwards “K”, with our current North-South system as the spine, and two branches (Northwest: Eagledale-Poulsbo-Port Townsend-Sequim-Port A; Southwest: Eagledale-Shelton-Bremerton-Grays Harbor/Aberdeen/Hoquiam) via rail ferries. There would actually be two acess points (Port of Seattle-Eagledale; Everett-Kingston).
This would relieve congestion of the car ferries, as well as congestion in road traffic on the two peninsulas themselves, while augmenting both the current ferry and commuter systems already in place in Puget Sound. And, it could act as an “organizing principle” for planning in the west Sound region, which currently is sprawl that slowly eats away at rural and semi-rural areas.
So I should have been clearer in my description.
You’re absolutely right that there is little if any rail currently in that area. What little was built in the first place appears to have been pulled up to create hiking trails.
Thanks for the confirmation of rail loading/offloading at Harbor Island. Sounds like you’re intimately familiar with that operation…
Thanks again
New York City has had passenger ferries connecting to rail stations in New Jersey for many years. San Francisco/Oakland had them for awhile too. Seems like it would be more cost effective (both in capital expense and O&M) to simply have good intermodal connections at the waterfront than put whole trains on a ferry.
Hey Paul, could you expand on that? I’m a little fuzzy on what you’re proposing.
If we had rail on both sides of the Sound, then I don’t know why we would put people through the motion of having to get off the train, get on a passenger ferry, get off the ferry, and then get on another train on the opposite side. Especially when one of the benefits of a rail ferry is the shortened turn-around time of loading and unloading a rail car.
As for the cost of purchasing rail ferries and building a terminal in Everett (we may already have one on Harbor Island in Seattle) and two additional terminals at Eageledale & Kingston, well since a rail ferry can hold far more capacity than a car ferry, and since the state was proposing larger car ferry terminals, than it would seem that the cost savings would be favorable (much added capacity to augment the current car ferry system, for what we can WAG to be the same amount of $).
Of course, building track 60 miles northwest up to Port A, and…what…another 60 miles southwest to Grays Harbor, that would cost some bucks. But it would give both peninsulas a much more solid link to the commercial center of the state, while enabling them to control the impact of that new economic vitality (read: without encroaching on semi-rural areas such as Hood Canal). A lot of these towns have somehow managed to both sprawl AND be economically depressed over the course of the last 15 to 20 years. A commuter line would give them vitality, and a way to plan…well, to be like they were originally planned to be, if you look at old town Port A, etc.
Then again, maybe your experience in New York and East Bay lead you to know otherwise.
Thanks for you comments everyone; I hope you enjoyed the links. Looks like our snow & ice is slowly melting…
This isn’t on their website yet, but all route 10’s and 12’s have just been canceled.
Just saw on KING 5 the mess with Sounder after the Seahawks game; it looked pretty bad in King Street Station, definitely the most crowded I’ve ever seen it. Does anyone know if they eventually got the trains running?
Yeah there was a small angry mob at King Street Station due to the frozen switches, the trains were loaded and took off an hour later. Union Pacific, BNSF, and Amtrak were all out there to get the 10 stubborn switches unfrozen.
So that explains all the police cars and tons of police and security on the platform.
I’m reposting this again: I took a video of the last trains out on YouTube. It was a rowdy crowd down there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXkR3Zd4jYE
I didn’t have time to stick around to wait for the last southbound train to get the green to leave. So it took an hour for it to leave? Or was that before any of the outbound trains could leave?
For many years there was a Seattle-Port Townsend rail ferry that served the mills in PT and Port Angeles. I’ll put a post about it at Orphanroad.
I’ll be sure to look for it, thank you
I’m not sure “frozen track switches” (what freezes? are they using just plain water as a lubricant?) is the problem so much as the tracks being at the same grade level as the street. Thus the groves fill up with junk from the road and there’s only so much gunk a little man running around can clean out.
http://photos-f.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v650/94/35/15400036/n15400036_31100693_1186.jpg