ShonTron
Moderator
A very good editorial by the Globe. Bang on.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Willybru21
Active Member
Yes they are.
Willybru21
Active Member
The morning train still doesn’t need 4 bike coaches, that’s an absurd number and it’s strange that they didn’t evenly distribute the 6 bike coaches between the two consists.
Dan416
Senior Member
Never really thought about it that way but I have to say I agree with the article.
IRT_BMT_IND
Active Member
Somewhat related, but if Metrolinx can't add weekend train service to Kitchener they are going to have to start operating extra sections on route 30 bus trips like Greyhound used to do, as its increasingly common for people to get stuck waiting for multiple buses. I wonder if anyone has been stuck overnight at Bramalea station because the last bus was full?
smallspy
Senior Member
They already do this. There are buses and drivers staged all throughout the system to help carry any overflow loads.
Dan
ShonTron
Moderator
GO Transit/Metrolinx’s safety slogan is “safety never stops.”
I guess they take that literally.
www.thestar.com
I guess they take that literally.
A GO employee alleges he tried to stop a train that killed a woman, raising doubts about Metrolinx safety
The email obtained by the Star details the events surrounding the horrific death on the GO tracks in Burlington in June.
www.thestar.com
Northern Light
Superstar
GO Transit/Metrolinx’s safety slogan is “safety never stops.”
I guess they take that literally.
A GO employee alleges he tried to stop a train that killed a woman, raising doubts about Metrolinx safety
The email obtained by the Star details the events surrounding the horrific death on the GO tracks in Burlington in June.
A full read of that article is in order for everyone.
It goes on to describe another similar incident in January, and a further incident in which a passenger on-board a train was suffering medical distress and it was requested that the train in question hold at the next station to get the passenger medical attention and this too was declined.
That is a pattern. In some cases, there may have been reasonable actions short of fully stopping trains; its difficult to say w/o further facts; which will bring us back to Mx, and in crisis management, as in all other matters, they seem to default to secrecy and opaqueness rather than transparency and accountability.
When asked by The Star, they wouldn't even provide a number for GO involved fatalities!
That's absurd and offensive. One can redact personal info; one can even, perhaps, shield a specific location so as not to encourage others to trespass there; but to not admit to fatalities caused by one's operations is at whole other level.
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Allandale25
Senior Member
crs1026
Superstar
^Obviously we don't have all the facts here, but Ml's explanation is certainly less than satisfying.
Radio channels do get congested in the Hamilton-Aldershot-Burlington area, and the scenario where an RTC has trouble reaching a train quickly is all too believable, especially where the train is crossing between territories and likely changing radio channels. The question would be, did the RTC drop every thing else and keep trying, and is that even possible.
ML's excuse related to HBD alarms is a bit lame. When a train receives a "no alarm" messsage from a HBD, the transmission is very short - a few seconds - and RTC's are experienced in carrying on with communications despite those interruptions. If on the other hand the train received an actual "trouble" alarm, its primary course of action would be to a) stop immediately and b) contact the RTC (who also sees the alarm on their console) - so how a HBD alarm worked against the intended direction to stop is hard to understand.
One presumes that the complainant here was an experienced security officer qualified to assess the severity of the situation (and likely recognized that the victim was at severe risk)....Not all trespasser reports have that credibility, but this one clearly should have. (the trauma of trying to prevent the incident, and having the system break down, and then witnessing the victim struck.... is a huge thing to bear. All the more credit to them for speaking out.)
To me, this incident simply portrays the reality of "another day in the life of a railroad". First, if every trespasser spotted led to full stoppage of trains, we'd have a lot more stoppages. Second, every link in the chain is a busy worker responding to many things at once. The premise that a "stop your train" message will get through the system immediately with 100% certainty is not where things are at out there. The weak links in this event likely apply to every RTC and every train in the country. ML simply runs more trains in the most populated urban area, so the failures are most likely to happen here first.
Stepping back - While I am a huge believer in transparency in our society, I'm not a fan of society's faith in solving problems by first broadcasting them in the press (where the issue may be embellished in the interest of story telling) and thereby putting the "accused" against a wall (and invoking some combination of silence, lawyering, and spin doctoring).
Personally I would see the need for more regulatory action on this one so that there is some rigourous professional analysis and in a venue that is less sensitive to spin. I suspect the regulator may have also not seen a problem here, and changes will be opposed by the railways who will argue that their system is good enough (and costly enough) and works most of the time. That's an issue that the Toronto Star can't fix by itself.
- Paul
Radio channels do get congested in the Hamilton-Aldershot-Burlington area, and the scenario where an RTC has trouble reaching a train quickly is all too believable, especially where the train is crossing between territories and likely changing radio channels. The question would be, did the RTC drop every thing else and keep trying, and is that even possible.
ML's excuse related to HBD alarms is a bit lame. When a train receives a "no alarm" messsage from a HBD, the transmission is very short - a few seconds - and RTC's are experienced in carrying on with communications despite those interruptions. If on the other hand the train received an actual "trouble" alarm, its primary course of action would be to a) stop immediately and b) contact the RTC (who also sees the alarm on their console) - so how a HBD alarm worked against the intended direction to stop is hard to understand.
One presumes that the complainant here was an experienced security officer qualified to assess the severity of the situation (and likely recognized that the victim was at severe risk)....Not all trespasser reports have that credibility, but this one clearly should have. (the trauma of trying to prevent the incident, and having the system break down, and then witnessing the victim struck.... is a huge thing to bear. All the more credit to them for speaking out.)
To me, this incident simply portrays the reality of "another day in the life of a railroad". First, if every trespasser spotted led to full stoppage of trains, we'd have a lot more stoppages. Second, every link in the chain is a busy worker responding to many things at once. The premise that a "stop your train" message will get through the system immediately with 100% certainty is not where things are at out there. The weak links in this event likely apply to every RTC and every train in the country. ML simply runs more trains in the most populated urban area, so the failures are most likely to happen here first.
Stepping back - While I am a huge believer in transparency in our society, I'm not a fan of society's faith in solving problems by first broadcasting them in the press (where the issue may be embellished in the interest of story telling) and thereby putting the "accused" against a wall (and invoking some combination of silence, lawyering, and spin doctoring).
Personally I would see the need for more regulatory action on this one so that there is some rigourous professional analysis and in a venue that is less sensitive to spin. I suspect the regulator may have also not seen a problem here, and changes will be opposed by the railways who will argue that their system is good enough (and costly enough) and works most of the time. That's an issue that the Toronto Star can't fix by itself.
- Paul
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ShonTron
Moderator
A few things though:
The whistleblower who came to the Star put their job in jeopardy, and is a veteran employee, not a new hire unaccustomed to Metrolinx or railway practices and work culture. It sounds like he went the internal route first, and was not satisfied.
Secondly, it speaks to a pattern, likely to help with KPIs for those very limited amounts of information provided publicly at those secretive Metrolinx board meetings. Keeping the trains running on schedule makes Verster look good.
Finally, this is just another example of the increasingly troubling culture of secrecy at Metrolinx.
The whistleblower who came to the Star put their job in jeopardy, and is a veteran employee, not a new hire unaccustomed to Metrolinx or railway practices and work culture. It sounds like he went the internal route first, and was not satisfied.
Secondly, it speaks to a pattern, likely to help with KPIs for those very limited amounts of information provided publicly at those secretive Metrolinx board meetings. Keeping the trains running on schedule makes Verster look good.
Finally, this is just another example of the increasingly troubling culture of secrecy at Metrolinx.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Just one small clarification: the article quotes Weir saying it was a HBD not Verster.
How long does it take out of curiosity to transfer on radio between the Metrolinx territory and the CN territory?
crs1026
Superstar
The operators simply switch their radio to a different channel at the appropriate point.
They are not required to make contact with the RTC to do so although crew members may transmit to each other to confirm they have all switched over.
It's then a matter of the RTC selecting which channel to use if they need to make contact with the train, based on their information about where the train is. There is nothing fail-safe in this.... the crew may have been distracted and failed to switch over exactly on time, or inadvertently chose the wrong channel, or the channel is in use when they switch over so they disregard any conversation on the new channel for a bit. The RTC has a choice of continuing to hail the train on the "correct" channel in hopes they respond, or try hailing them on the old (or some other) channel until contact is made. There is an element of patience to all this as it regularly takes several tries (or several minutes) to make contact.
- Paul
Allandale25
Senior Member
Thanks Paul. I guess I'm surprised the radio territory switchover is manual rather than automatic. Seems like something additional the crew has to do that could be streamlined.
crs1026
Superstar
Railway radios are still in the pre-cellphone era, although newer systems may turn up one day.
There are pro's and con's to an automatic switchover. The obvious one is if the crew on one end of the train is switched over automatically but the crew on the other end - or the crew on an approaching train - remains on a previous channel, their communcation is no longer possible, possibly at a critical moment.
The theory is that every crew must be on the same "road" channel so they are aware of everything around them and can talk to others as needed. If they need to have a lengthy conversation with the RTC or will otherwise be tying up the common airwaves (during switching for instance) - then they move off to another channel.
The "road" channel can get busy in its own right, which is why different subdivisions or zones may have their own dedicated "road" channel.
- Paul