GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Jonny5]

The whole thing is bizarre. The part about "people had to take turns sitting" doesn't make sense if there were only "600" on the train. Each coach has seats for over 100, and this train had to have at least 10 coaches. While GO passengers are mostly complete idiots, that is beyond even them.

GO PR is hot garbage, and the Metrolinx board is a complete joke, but most of the public don't seem to know that yet, so they can choose to humiliate themselves to a small minority while endearing themselves to everyone else.

 

[jamincan]

As far as pushing with passengers is concerned, I was on a Barrie train heading northbound when we had an engine failure. They simply waited for the next train, coupled them together, and then pushed our train, stopping twice at each station to unload both sets of coaches. It's definitely permitted in certain situations. Perhaps the nature of the problem with the train precluded that option though?

I think this is video of the actual train I was on. I was returning from the PDAC at the time, and it would have been around 2011 or so.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The whole thing is bizarre. The part about "people had to take turns sitting" doesn't make sense if there were only "600" on the train. Each coach has seats for over 100 and this had to have at leat 10 coaches. While GO passengers are mostly complete idiots, that is beyond even them. Their PR is hot garbage and the Metrolinx board is a complete joke, but most of the public don't seem to know about that, so they can choose to humiliate themselves to a small minority while endearing themselves to everyone else.

And where is our provincial Minister of Transportation? Too busy announcing service extensions and expansions that won't happen in 5 years I suppose? All is swell.

AoD

 

[Mr_Praline]

The whole thing is bizarre. The part about "people had to take turns sitting" doesn't make sense if there were only "600" on the train. Each coach has seats for over 100 and this had to have at leat 10 coaches. While GO passengers are mostly complete idiots, that is beyond even them. Their PR is hot garbage and the Metrolinx board is a complete joke, but most of the public don't seem to know about that, so they can choose to humiliate themselves to a small minority while endearing themselves to everyone else.

Believe me, there were plenty of seats. There were two stations out of four left from the express run. I think people wanted to gravitate to where there were others, and I did the same thing. I started out in the westernmost end car, and there were maybe 5 people in the entire top section of my car when the engine failed. But I made sure to get a seat when I walked to go find CJ of This Crazy Train. As all of you other GO commuters know, there is a certain percentage of GO riders who must be closest to the door to make that sprint to their bus/car/etc. Those are the people who did not sit down for the duration of the delay.

 

[crs1026]

Pushing a trainset with another trainset is in theory an easy thing to do, but we don't know what the mechanical problem was, so we can't say it was easily doable here. If the mechanical problem was interfering with the brakes, or if the crew suspected a seized axle (this happens with locomotives every so often, the wheel bearings or the gearing between the traction motors and the axles can jam) they would have been reluctant to move the unit at all.

I wonder whether this is covered or practiced in training for BBD crews. In the era when many GO train crew had previously worked for freight railways, it would have been a rather straightforward matter, but this may be different with so many new street hires with fairly low seniority, who may never have seen this done.

I know that on occasion GO will send an uncoupled locomotive to rescue a consist, but where I have heard of this it was between Willowbrook and Union... a fairly short distance. It would have been more complicated to round up a locomotive and a qualified crew, then weave the rescue engine through the operating trains to Ajax, then reverse backwards onto the train, etc.

Much troubleshooting is done by radio (shut down and reboot is a tried and true suggestion) but it wouldn't have taken hours to conclude that the unit was dead as a doornail. One wonders why that didn't lead to a more immediate plan to rescue the passengers.

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Such troubleshooting is done by radio (shut down and reboot is a tried and true suggestion) but it wouldn't have taken hours to conclude that the unit was dead as a doornail. One wonders why that didn't lead to a more immediate plan to rescue the passengers.

This. Is the end goal of their process about getting a disabled train to the station, or is it about getting the passengers off a disabled train.

Like did anyone come to the conclusion that guys, this isn't working and it's going to take 4 hours to get everyone off the train, and that we need another plan? If not, why not - how is it that a 4 hour delay is acceptable in the calculus of decisions?

AoD

 

[Mr_Praline]

This. Is the end goal of their process about getting a disabled train to the station, or is it about getting the passengers off a disabled train.

Like did anyone come to the conclusion that guys, this isn't working and it's going to take 4 hours to get everyone off the train, and that we need another plan? If not, why not - how is it that a 4 hour delay is acceptable in the calculus of decisions?

AoD

If I was to guess, the decision to try to stop fixing and instead move the inert train came about halfway through, something like 630 or 700? That was when the tone of announcements changed from "we're trying to fix this" to "we're getting outside help". This was really what we were all chatting about - why would a crew continue trying to fix a broken train? How is there not a standard procedure saying "attempt to restart for 15 minutes, then abort and get another train. If can't get train for > 1 hour, attempt to evacuate passengers?"

NOTE: I'm not a railway professional, so I have no idea how any of this would work. However, it's funny how after a few hours locked in seclusion, we've all convinced ourselves we're experts and we could've solved this problem in 20 minutes or less.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

If I was to guess, the decision to try to stop fixing and instead move the inert train came about halfway through, something like 630 or 700? That was when the tone of announcements changed from "we're trying to fix this" to "we're getting outside help". This was really what we were all chatting about - why would a crew continue trying to fix a broken train? How is there not a standard procedure saying "attempt to restart for 15 minutes, then abort and get another train. If can't get train for > 1 hour, attempt to evacuate passengers?"

NOTE: I'm not a railway professional, so I have no idea how any of this would work. However, it's funny how after a few hours locked in seclusion, we've all convinced ourselves we're experts and we could've solved this problem in 20 minutes or less.

Exactly. Just what is the policy here? I can imagine why evacuation is not preferred (safety, disruption to the rest of the corridor, involvement of other services e.g. police) but at the same time - we aren't exactly talking about the middle of nowhere in this particular case.

A good chunk of us aren't professional (though there are those who are on here) - but having said that from a customer's perspective the questions are more than valid - it is their time being wasted and their plans having been upended. Failure to convince riders the situation and solution is at hand just encourages some individuals to take their own initiative and act in a risky manner (like prying the doors open). Not to suggest that it is to be emulated, but said individual solved the problem in what, 5 minutes?

AoD

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Thanks vegeta, that's a super detailed lay of the land, really goes to show you how shitty of a situation it was.

So what can/should they do? Have more just a single standby train at one time - the same amount that they had a decade ago for half the trains. But they won't do that. They'll just try to blame the shop for not maintaining the unit and catching the problem in time. There might be some blame there but often you can't predict or prevent such failures.

Can't they retain a couple F59's when they get replaced by MP40s or MP54s?

 

[Northern Light]

Whelps, one could say GO sure had a rough day But I have to say, I'm kind of happy that of all trains it happened to CJ's train. Her site does serve a useful purpose, but I've butted heads with her unnecessarily in the past. Can't expect me to be too happy when she continues to make uninformed assumptions like these;



Uh no, we don't make those kinds of decisions. Trust me if we knew there was a significant problem with that train we wouldn't hesitate for a second to call it in. Then it's up to (Willowbrook)shop to provide us with assistance and GO Op's to make the final call on what we're going to do.

Anyhow that said, what a shitty situation. They must of used the one standby consist/rescue train that they have for Barrie service and the shop didn't have any other trains available at the time. Somebody at GO op's must of made the call to use what I call the 'hope and pray' method, the same method that I used on my SAT's!(joke). That is hope and pray that the crew and with help from the shop could get the train running again. Since they didn't have any spare consists the shop would of had the crew try everything they could to get it started again via instructions over the radio. Then they probably would of sent somebody down there(from the shop) if nothing was working after a certain amount of time but it takes a long time to get there from Willowbrook. At some point much later another consist and crew became available and GO would of sent them on their merry way to help.

Also they would never use a single engine to tie onto the train and move it. A "single unit"(the engine) is restricted to a maximum operating speed of 30mph. So not only would it take forever to get there from Willowbrook, more importantly it would be causing a massive traffic jam of trains behind it right in the middle of rush hour, a non-starter. So it's always going to be an entire train. Another problem is that it's far from ideal to use another rush hour train to go in there and rescue the disabled train. A lot of trains are express to Rouge or Pickering and are completely jammed pack. Because of where the train was stopped, within the controlled location at Harwood - that is the place where trains can switch from one train to another - the rescue train would have to enter into the track where the rescue trains was from either Bayly(west of Pickering) or Henry(west of Whitby), meaning a long ways away. Add to that the process of approaching and then coupling onto a disable train takes a long time. Basically your taking another revenue train completely out of service. Plus there is no precedent to do that, though maybe that might change going forward. There would already have been huge delays on the line on the account of only being able to use a single track for nearly an 8 mile long stretch too. Essentially the passengers on that train became the sacrificial lambs from all the other commuters on the line.

The funny thing is that train was stopped on a moderate uphill grade. Release the brakes and she'll start rolling back immediately in that spot. Of course, aside from the fact that you can't back up on the mainline without the proper authority (not doing so would probably get one fired), it's not really an option without the engine running. Because the engine is what charges the trains air brakes. Having come to a stop after the engine failure means the brakes are applied. However because of the fail-safe way the brake system works, in order to release the train brake air must be pumped into the brake pipe. Likewise the brakes apply when air is removed from the brake pipe. That way if a train separates the brakes will automatically apply(with an emergency brake application). So without the engine running there is no way to pump air into the brake pipe to release the brake. And you wouldn't really want to because you also wouldn't be able to recharge the trains braking system. So yeah, she could roll back but she might not stop... until she hits something that is. Another non-starter. The crew would of likely put on hand brakes to additionally secure the train so that it doesn't roll away when the air bleeds out of the brake cylinders on each coach. It would be very unusual for that to happen in a couple hours, but you don't know how long your going to be there for and you really don't want to take that chance either.

Now what they could of done is just let those passengers off - evacuate the train from the cab car(rear coach). But GO is absolutely petrified of the idea, it's an absolute last case scenario. I swear 9 out of 10 coaches could be on fire in a train and they'd probably rather have the passengers huddle up together on the last coach rather then have them disembark. Their worried about safety, which really means liability. From all the minor stuff; a detrained passenger spraining his/her ankle. To the major stuff; a detrained passenger getting smoked by another train. Of course the latter would be unlikely to happen since they would most definitely shut down the tracks before they started detraining passengers from a train. Which is exactly why they didn't do it, they didn't want to stop all the other trains while making sure all the 600+ people disembarked safety. And no way they'd let just the crew handle that crowd. Unfortunately like I said before the passengers on that train were the sacrificial lambs to minimize the delays to all the other commuters on the line.

So what can/should they do? Have more just a single standby train at one time - the same amount that they had a decade ago for half the trains. But they won't do that. They'll just try to blame the shop for not maintaining the unit and catching the problem in time. There might be some blame there but often you can't predict or prevent such failures.

Thanks for the details Vegeta.

This is why you need to post more often, again!

What I take out of this is as follows, the decision not to detrain is the key.

If the distance described (within 300M or so of Ajax station) is accurate, closing both tracks and evacuating needn't have taken long.

Perhaps a 20m delay.

The train crew, aided by staff from Ajax Station should really be sufficient for this purpose.

If needs be, some emergency personnel could have chipped in, and a couple of paramedics should have been at the station to meet passengers as a precaution anyway.

Avoiding liability, causes liability, sometimes. ($100 per passenger x 600) $60,000 to start

 

[steveintoronto]

They'll just try to blame the shop for not maintaining the unit and catching the problem in time. There might be some blame there but often you can't predict or prevent such failures.

Well speak of the devil, even before it happens. I didn't post reference to this prior today, it's a shocking accident, and far too easy to jump to unfounded conclusions at this time, but Aikens just blew my cool. I can't believe the gall of the lady:

Officials at Metrolinx say they are closely watching the investigation into Thursday morning's commuter train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey that killed at least one person and injured more than 100 others.

"We were all horrified," Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins told CBC News. "Our hearts go out to them. We have never been through something as horrific as that, but we know that when you run a large railway system, it is always possible."

Witnesses say the New Jersey train did not slow down as it entered the Hoboken station. The train was not equipped with an emergency system to slow it down in the event the operator was unable to work the brakes.

Aikins doesn't want to speculate about the cause of that crash, but says GO Transit trains have a number of safety features in place.

250,000 passengers pass through Toronto's Union station each day (Grant Linton)

"We always have a two person crew, so that if one person got sick or something like that, there is another person who can take over. Our control centre is always monitoring the train," she said.

She says there are alarms throughout the trains which allow passengers to bring the train to stop in an emergency. There are also automated systems that put on the brakes should a passenger force open a door.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins says GO Transit there are measures in place to prevent accidents like the one Thursday morning in New Jersey. (Grant Linton)

Metrolinx says more than 250,000 passengers pass through Union Station each day. With such a busy daily schedule, it has implemented strict speed limits for trains entering and leaving the station.

""We have a lot of customers complain about how slow it is," said Aikins. "The trains come in very slowly and that's for safety, because that's our first priority."

A GO Train pulls out of Union Station. There are alarms throughout the trains which allow passengers to bring the train to stop in an emergency. (Grant Linton)

She says there are differences between Canadian and U.S. rail safety regulations, but adds when the New Jersey investigation is complete, Metrolinx will review the findings to see what improvements could be made here.

"Nothing can ever be 100 per cent safe," said Aikins. "You can build in all the safety procedures you want, but they're called accidents for a reason. They can happen to anyone."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...trolinx-seeks-to-reassure-commuters-1.3784775

The ONE thing she didn't mention, the thing that is going to explode in US news, is PTC. She danced all around it, I'm amazed she didn't mention Ouija boards and incantations for safety too.

I'm really ticked right now..."It couldn't happen here..."...I'll post more later as more facts come in.

 

[steveintoronto]

The train crew, aided by staff from Ajax Station should really be sufficient for this purpose.

If needs be, some emergency personnel could have chipped in, and a couple of paramedics should have been at the station to meet passengers as a precaution anyway.

[Meanwhile, a gas leak at the Aurora GO station halted train service on the Barrie line during the evening rush, stranding as many as 10,000 passengers on four trains.

Metrolinx worked with police to get people safely out of the trains. There were no reported injuries.]
http://www.680news.com/2016/09/27/go-passengers-delayed-hours-major-problems-two-lines/

So why in Hell wasn't the same procedure followed for the Ajax incident?

Edit to Add: This is a repost of MDRejohn's in the PTC-CBTC forum:

This post was updated April 2016

Hello,

GLOSSARY:
PTC = Positive Train Control
CBTC = Communications-Based Train Control (can also do positive train control safety responsibilities too).
ATC = Automatic Train Control, often piggybacked on PTC or CBTC

CBTC is now part of Metrolinx requirement for GO RER

Positive train control does an automatic slowdown/stop of your train for safety if train tries to exceed speed limit for any reason (grade, error, inattention, traffic) and/or if it detects known danger ahead (such as a train ahead, a curve ahead, TSOs, PSOs). This saves everybody's asses when the train driver does not manually slow down the train on time for any reason.

Shorter Headways
These requires more advanced control systems. All major RER systems worldwide with tight headways (e.g. 3-minute, 5-minute) now use an enhanced control system such as PTC or CBTC or an Europe variant called ECTS. Paris RER, German S-Bahn, all use variants of these systems. The GO $13.5bn electrification budget includes the cost of this upgrade. Such systems are particularly important for the "SmartTrack" route of GO RER, which may have the tightest headways on the GO network.

TTC Uses It
TTC already has been using a PTC variant for a long time. They are upgrading to CBTC to allow ~2-minute headways on Yonge. The addition of the system to GO's system is one of the pieces necessary to make GO feel more like a metro system, similar to other RER/RER-like systems worldwide.

GO already is researching 5-minute headways on some RER routes (like the "SmartTrack" routing)
Several Metrolinx documents mentions 5-minute headways on some RER routes (like the SmartTrack route). While there is a lot of debate whether or not this is possible with the first $13.5bn of GO RER, there is definitely no doubt given sufficient money, a CBTC system makes this path possible as has already occured elsewhere in the world.

How much is PTC or CBTC?
The assumed cost of installing CBTC into the GO network is estimated by Metrolinx to be $800 million, embedded as part of the existing $13.5bn GO RER/electrification budget. PTC is estimated only $200 million, but Metrolinx is planning on going beyond and planning CBTC for RER.

Saves Lives / Amtrak Disaster
With the Amtrak disaster, and the fact that positive train control would have prevented deaths:
www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/14/406652406/positive-train-control-the-tech-that-couldve-prevented-amtrak-derailment
www.cnn.com/2015/05/15/us/philadelphia-amtrak-train-derailment/
The train and track was equipped with this safety system, but wasn't turned on yet because they hadn't yet gotten permission to turn on the train control radios yet (radio frequency permission issue)!

Automatic Train Control?
This is often an optional feature of advanced train control systems (variants of PTC and CBTC). GO will not use this unsupervied due to unions and safety issues, especially given platform overcrowding, but the technology provides that option for some systems worldwide. In reality, automation is like an autopilot, which the train driver supervises. This is a speed optimizer, to keep a train more easily in its headway between trains, accelerating and decelerating precisely.

Union Station Bottleneck?
Recent 2015-2016 Metrolinx documents mention other planned major upgrades (Union Station Rail Corridor) plan to increase train throughput at Union station to approximately 50 trains per hour (by ~2031). This includes 45mph crossovers in the east and 30mph crossovers in the west. With this speed and signalling upgrades made available, combined with CBTC, trains will no longer need to crawl slowly towards Union for several minutes before entering the beginning of a Union platform. Combined with short-dwelling, and (potentially expensive) optimizations elsewhere, this potentially allows at least one combined route to have approximately 5-minute same-platform headways at Union, presumably on one of the wider platforms. Whether the debate of ultimate headways are 15-minute or 5-minute, it is assumed that headways will progressively decrease as upgrades are rolled out, and will likely further continue beyond the initial completion from the $13.5bn GO RER budget.

GO RER requires CBTC -- See Newer Post
The short headways in GO RER objectives require very tight train headways. During frequent train services, this can mean increased risks and safety issues (collisions, etc). CBTC will help greatly permitting trains to follow trains at braking distances. TTC, and many other frequent-service subways, already has positive train control on their subway train for a very long time now, and are upgrading to CBTC.

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...ntrol-ptc-cbtc-safety-shorter-headways.21483/

Keep this in mind as some of the weasel excuses continue from Metrolinx PR.

As to the NJT accident particulars, revealing engineer statements here:

September 29, 2016, 12:44 PM Last updated: Thursday, September 29, 2016, 12:50 PM
System for stopping trains in Hoboken antiquated, NJ Transit engineers say
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
staff writer |
The Record

The system for bringing trains to a stop in Hoboken is antiquated according to three NJ Transit engineers interviewed Thursday. Unlike more modern terminals, including New York Penn Station, the system in Hoboken relies entirely on human engineers, with no automatic mechanisms to override the train crew in case of an emergency.

Before a train enters Hoboken Terminal it must pass through a train yard, where the maximum speed is 10 miles an hour, said the engineers, who declined to be quoted by name because they are barred from speaking to the press. As the train nears the terminal’s platform the speed limit drops again, to five miles an hour.

If the train breaks either speed restriction, sensors along the track send signals to the train’s cab, alerting the engineer that she is going too fast.

At other terminals including Penn Station, the engineer must then press a button acknowledging that he heard the alarm and is reducing speed. If the engineer fails to take those steps, an automated system immediately applies emergency brakes. No such external controls exist at Hoboken, the engineers said.

Instead, the primary emergency brake at Hoboken is the “dead man” brake, a long-established tradition in the railroad industry. To operate a train, the engineer must keep one foot on a pedal in the floor at all times. If his foot leaves the pedal -- say, if he experiences a heart attack, goes unconscious or dies -- and his foot leaves the pedal, the train’s emergency brakes automatically engage.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/sys...antiquated-nj-transit-engineers-say-1.1668956

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Thanks for the details Vegeta.
This is why you need to post more often, again!
What I take out of this is as follows, the decision not to detrain is the key.
If the distance described (within 300M or so of Ajax station) is accurate, closing both tracks and evacuating needn't have taken long.
Perhaps a 20m delay.
The train crew, aided by staff from Ajax Station should really be sufficient for this purpose.
If needs be, some emergency personnel could have chipped in, and a couple of paramedics should have been at the station to meet passengers as a precaution anyway.
Avoiding liability, causes liability, sometimes. ($100 per passenger x 600) $60,000 to start

If you have no policy in place and no training in place - trying to have all the pieces together for evacuating in the train might prove time consuming. It just makes the already stated preference of avoiding it all the more comfortable as a solution.

Well speak of the devil, even before it happens. I didn't post reference to this prior today, it's a shocking accident, and far too easy to jump to unfounded conclusions at this time, but Aikens just blew my cool. I can't believe the gall of the lady:

The ONE thing she didn't mention, the thing that is going to explode in US news, is PTC. She danced all around it, I'm amazed she didn't mention Ouija boards and incantations for safety too.

I'm really ticked right now..."It couldn't happen here..."...I'll post more later as more facts come in.

It can be a bias on my part but it find her really irritating. Yes, we know safety is your number one priority and empathy is laudable - but you're a transit system, not a children's aid society.

AoD

 

[Garuda]

A "single unit"(the engine) is restricted to a maximum operating speed of 30mph.

What's the reasoning behind this? I'm curious.

 

[DKsan]

Phase 1 Interim Summary Report Niagara GO Hub and Transit Stations Study
(page 198 of the PDF)