The signal outage of august 2010 and all i got were these lousy photos. (56k heavy)

[metsfan]

It took 2.5 hour to get trenton to newark penn, but it was free and at the cab end of a keystone amtrak used to get all the stranded (NJT) pax from trenton. We had to bypass metropark, a usual stop on the keystone due to the ops people straight tracking all the entire way.

 

Here is the resulting feast of juicy photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More in next post.

 

- A

[metsfan]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, the night ones are the trip home that night. Was a very nice night out.

 

More in next post.

 

- A

[metsfan]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy.

 

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7604164

 

More detail:

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2010/08/stuck_at_the_train_stations_-.html

 

That acela was stopped at trenton for 25 minutes, should give you some idea of the massive s**t the signal system took. A long distance traction power cable fell onto the signal cable and fried everything between Morris (morrisville, pa) and Midway (monmouth jct, nj). It was quite interesting to look out that front window and see us going through red signals. Rail operations guy was up front with engineer double checking everything, that's who's shoulder you see in the one photo.

 

Pretty much all the trains you see west of county were stopped or going extremely slow. The NJT trains were all stopped, some sitting for 2 hours in the same spot. The acela i caught a glimpse of out through the front window was going ~40 mph.

 

I got to enter through the cab door, usually not something that goes on as it's an operational area of the train.

 

- A

[IRT Bronx Express]

Excellent images, metsfan! :cool:

[metsfan]

Thank you!

 

I was the only one up front taking photos & usually loco leads aside from keystone, so i may be the only one with photos of this from this perspective at all.

 

It was surreal, i was the last one to board, rest of the train was closed, they had the cab door open & they let me in. Then hearing all the radio chatter between dispatch, other trains & the guys keeping an eye every few miles at various switch points along the route. They had to watch in person, because the signal system was being fixed, and there was no communication between signal & switch, which means a train could easily, without watching like a hawk, just go right over into the stationary train parked just passed said switch. That was the big issue, not so much the signals themselves, which were ALL red.

 

- A