Bridges don’t just go bad from one day to the next, do they?
It looks like it has been a bad week for Capitol Corridor riders, due to the fact that Union Pacific had to undertake some urgent bridge replacement work on that route. Here are a couple extract from Gene Skoropowski’s “Message to Riders“:
Then the bottom fell out of the plan. Union Pacific engineering forces discovered major deterioration of two bridges in the middle of the planned tie renewal work area. (…) So, this week, UP bridge forces undertook a major effort to get the bridges replaced. (…) Due to the ongoing bridge replacement, this week has been a colossal mess, especially on the later morning trains and the early afternoon trains. Throw in a few signal problems, a drawbridge opening or two, a couple of vehicles and assorted debris intentionally placed on the tracks, a freight train with a crew that reached its legal ‘hours-of-service’ limit (federal law says the freight train stops when the crew uses up their allotted work hours, and the train then sits on the track until a relief crew can be found and sent out by van, taxi …or helicopter…!!) and we have the basic ingredients for the collapse of service.
I am really amazed by all this. I mean, seriously: do bridges just suddenly go bad from one day to the next (short of something like a washout)? Aren’t they (Union Pacific - they own the track) doing some sort of ongoing maintenance and checks on their trackwork? Shouldn’t they detect issues like that early on? And also, how can a crew just ‘die’ on the road? Shouldn’t the dispatchers, etc. know about this? Wouldn’t it be way more efficient to run all trains in a scheduled manner? They’d be much more predictable that way.
This almost seems like an impossible task for Amtrak and the Capitol Corridor folks: they are trying to run a frequent, scheduled, reliable service, but they have to do that in an environment that is completely unstructured (it appears), unscheduled, unmaintained and thus unreliable.
I also wonder if Amtrak and/or the State of California receives some kind of compensation (at the very least refunds of track usage fees, better would be some kind of money to reimburse for damages) in cases like this? I mean there must be a contract in place that has certain incentives for Union Pacific not to let this happen … I’d be very curious to see this contract …
Posted in: Amtrak, California, Capitol Corridor, Union Pacific | January 16, 2007 5:07 pm
5 Comments »
Paul, on January 16, 2007 @ 5:53 pm
Unfortunately, in extreme circumstances, a bridge CAN go from OK to BAD in one day. Factors such as freeze/thaw, inexperienced bridge inspectors, and accidents on the bridge can create an emergency bridge repair/replacement need. I’ve also seen instances where emergency bridge repair was necessary because a previous repair was done incorrectly, and the repair itself was going to cause a larger failure. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.
Also, on a note relating to the crew “dieing” on the track, I know it happened this past weekend on Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer. The train had to stop due to a BNSF equipment failure ahead. During the wait, the Amtrak crew died and the train failed to make it into Oklahoma from Texas that evening.
Marcel Marchon, on January 16, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
About the crew “dying” - in this case, this happened on a busy doubletrack mainline in a very populated area. You’d think that in a case like this, a) the dispatcher would make sure that the train’s crew doesn’t die out there on the mainline and b) there would be a relief crew nearby …
Derek Webber, on February 4, 2007 @ 8:00 am
US Hellgate Bridge with high speed trains video
Gary, on October 29, 2008 @ 11:25 am
If a crew dies (on Hours of Service) on a mainline there are generally only three reasons: Bad (inatentive) Dispatching; No “rested” crews for relief; Relief crew delayed arrival. Rest assured that the railroads DO take a penalty for delaying Amtrak. This can often amount to sizable amounts. Generally, frieght and coal traffic is held up for the priority passenger trains. Train crews expend their “Hours of Service” ven when their trains are not moving. This of course can lead to a train crew “dying” while in transit on their HoS.
Hayden, on December 30, 2008 @ 10:32 am
UP doesn’t always complete timely maintenance of its crossings–an example is the mainline crossing of Cordonices Creek in Berkeley (by UC Berkeley’s Albany Village student housing, and next to the Albany Target). Not only was that area of track subject to regular flooding, the crossing flexed in a very obvious way when trains crossed it.
Although the need for a repair was obvious for at least several years, UP delayed getting the necessary permits and initially submitted a design that it should have known was not permittable, and then initially refused to make any changes, thus resulting in further delays. That kind of permitting approach often seems to be status quo from UP.
Perhaps other areas of track were higher priority than that one crossing. However, UP seemed to move slowly on it once it did start moving.
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