We’ve just gotten word that Link is back to normal in the tunnel again. A circuit breaker was flipped earlier in the day, and it took ‘rebooting’ the whole tunnel signal system to get things back to normal.
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Hope they got a warranty on the system from GE.
I sure hope that doesn’t happen again. That sure messed things up.
I’m not as upset about this as a lot of people seem to be. It’s a new system there’s gonna be problems. What upsets me is that all these anti progress idiots we have running around are gonna feel like they’ve been proven right.
Should have seen some of the posters on SeattlePi.com’s Seattle Transportation Watch article on this. There were a few calling this a toy choo choo. Then again, on the Oregonian stories about MAX, there are still a few in Portland that say the same thing about MAX. Also, I am getting tired of the either/or when it comes to bus and rail. Both work together, in my opinion.
The only people pitting bus against rail are BRT boosters.
Or Monorail fanatics
Does “choo choo” refer to the sound of a steam locomotive or its whistle? If it’s the whistle, or horn now, I heard Link go “choo” at a jaywalker on Wednesday.
the steam loco
Then I take it back – I never heard Link go “choo.”
Although I do try at times to convince those in the soundoff on PI.com I mentioned, I gave up expecting them to listen a long time ago. Especially the guy who was close-minded and called LINK a Limo Liberal toy. I looked online, found that in some parts of the world, the definition of Liberal painted by talk radio does not exist. Just North of 49, you have provincial government run by a “Liberal Party” that acts conservative, but comes up with a revenue neutral carbon tax. Too the naysayers, everything has to be black and white, yes or no.
The last time I saw a streetcar with a whistle that sounded like a Steamer was on the Waterfront Streetcar.
Ha and some guy there calls them “little toy trains”. Sure, my “little” train can T-bone your PT Cruiser and can probably smash an articulated bus, too.
There is a bell, which is heard most of the time, and there’s a horn that is used for greater attention.
That messed up my commute pretty royally today. Instead of Bus->LRT it was Bus->confusion (I wasn’t confused but plenty others were)->bus->wait->confusion->LRT.
If I know Joni Earl (and I don’t except by reputation) this will be used as a learning experience for the future. That is all anyone can really ask – learn, plan, move on. The naysayers can be ignored. Link speaks for itself and will continue to do so day after day, month after month, year after year. The sum total of performance and consistency in the long term is what people will remember.
Excellent comment – thanks!
I always wonder how many of the nay-sayers had warranty “issues” with their fabulous new US$40K cars and how much the bitched about it on the SeaTimes web-site..
I really do like comments like this. :)
Damn how embarassing
Have you asked them when they plan on posting news of system disruptions to the light boards at the stations? Riders need this kind of information at the stations (or even on the trains) in order to make informed travel decisions.
Right now, those boards are being set up to show the next train. After that, they can add that feature, but that’s a great idea.
I could have sworn that the message boards in at least one of the DSTT stations (ID station, I think) was scrolling a message about the outage. Also, at least in the University St. station, the PA system was playing an automated audio announcment about which buses to board to reach the Stadium station.
I wouldn’t be surprised. They’re pretty good about doing stuff like that. It’s only the first week, too!
The reader board at the street level at Westlake (Nordstrom entrance) was scrolling a message about the outage and to take a tunnel bus to Stadium to catch the train. That was about 5:15 on Thursday.
There you go. :)
I first heard it at 2:30 Thursday.
It’s the first week. Stuff happens.
It amazes me how many posters here minimize the significance of this event. (And just so you know, I am a full-throttle rail booster. I grew up loving trains as a kid and rode Metro in DC for years. I drive a car as little as possible in Seattle.) But this major disruption in the first week of service deserves an immediate full scale investigation and full public disclosure. (Try finding a detailed article about this in the Times or PI online- just small blurbs). The public needs to be told exactly what happened and reassured that it will NEVER happen again. Joni Earl should call a press conference today to explain what exactly caused this and what steps ST has taken to prevent it from ever happening again. If the public’s full confidence in LINK is not restored, ridership will suffer. It even made me think twice before riding it again downtown.
I work on projects bigger than Link. Yes, defects happen. Often, they’re not detected for months after you’re done. The more complex something is, the more room for error there is, and the more defects you have.
Confidence for the first week has nothing to do with ridership over the long term. Everyone who used it two days ago will be using it today.
This major disruption in the first week of service is to be expected. Everything is new and the institutional “do X when Y happens” knowledge is still being assembled. It doesn’t help that this signaling system is unique since we’re the only ones crazy enough to run trains and buses in the same tunnel.
This wasn’t a problem that will require closure for weeks and lots of money in remediation fixes (see: Las Vegas Monorail). Presumably the next time a power outage occurs they’ll know what to do to get the signaling system back online and the disruption will be minimized.
Today, I took the 8:50 am train from Tukwila. At Rainier Beach, we were asked to get off and switch to the train in front of us. They said that the train we were on was going back to Tukwila. Anyone know what happened?
Joni Earl should address that in a separate press conference.
It could be that with the tunnel issue, they didn’t need all trainsets operating.
This was on Thursday morning, after the tunnel issues were fixed. After switching trains I made it to Westlake just fine.
I meant Friday morning.
Oh, okay. I don’t know, then.
It might be good if they rethought the out-of-service planning.
Twice now, I’ve seen trains pull up to beacon hill station (around 10am) and fare checkers pull everyone off the train.
With people trying to get to work, an additional 10 minute delay isn’t good service.
It would be much less disruptive to take morning trainsets out of service on the run to Tukwila, instead of into Seattle.
Reverse for evening runs, though.
I’m really curious about what the hell this is. They’re taking trains out of service?
Is this because Beacon Hill is closest to the maintenance facility (aka engine shed)? It would seem to make more sense to finish the run to downtown and then return non-stop with an out of service sign. That’s assuming they can get there from the southbound track.
They can get to base from both tracks. It might be that this is what happens when trains go out of service for the lower midday service level. It should just be made more clear.
This really is one more argument for a printed timetable so that passengers know that a trainset is going out of service at some mid-point station or another and can thus make their transport plans accordingly.
Not really, if they just put it up on the destination signs as “Beacon Hill Station” instead of “Downtown Seattle/Westlake” and announce at every stop that “This train terminates at Beacon Hill Station” should be sufficient.
I think there are several trains that stop at random points. I had to stop at the Beacon Hill station on Wednesday because the train wasn’t going any further.
As for the tunnel closures, that’s not a big deal to me. Stuff happens, stuff breaks. No worries.
The bigger issue is the communication. When I boarded the train, I wasn’t told that the tunnel was closed until the stadium station. Had they told me earlier, I would have rerouted when I had better options for transfers. But that didn’t happen.
Could there be announcements on the overhead readers at the stations stating there is a problem? Can the drivers announce before the passengers have to get off?
Again, not so upset about things not working, but we should definitely beef up communications.