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Wire problem from April 30


metsfan

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The cause of much delays canceled trains and missed photo ops of the drama earlier was indeed a fallen high voltage wire near metuchen station.

 

From (NJT):

 

bout Northeast Corridor Delays of Thursday, April 30, 2009

 

 

 

To Our Northeast Corridor Customers:

 

NJ TRANSIT apologizes for the delay and inconvenience many of you experienced this afternoon and evening due to an overhead wire problem in Metuchen.

 

Shortly after 3 p.m., an Amtrak high-voltage transmission line fell on to the westbound tracks near Metuchen Station, resulting in the suspension of westbound Northeast Corridor trains from New York to Trenton and delays to eastbound trains ranging from 15-30 minutes.

 

To provide customers with additional travel options, North Jersey Coast Line trains made all local stops between New York and Rahway for the benefit of inner zone customers, and Midtown Direct trains added stops at Secaucus for customers making connections to Main, Bergen County, Pascack Valley and Port Jervis trains. In addition, we established cross honoring with NJ TRANSIT and Suburban buses from the Port Authority Bus Terminal for customers traveling west of Rahway.

 

Amtrak dispatched electrical crews to the scene to assess the problem and make repairs, which were completed shortly before the start of the peak period. Westbound Northeast Corridor service was restored at 4:19 p.m., with congestion-related delays up to 45 minutes for many trains during the peak period. Delays steadily eased through the evening, and resumed normal schedules at approximately 7:30 p.m.

 

During this incident, we provided the most current service information on our website via station PA announcements, broadcast traffic reports and the My Transit alert system, which delivers travel advisories for your specific trip to your cell phone, PDA or pager. (If you are not yet a My Transit subscriber, we encourage you to sign up.)

 

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. If you have questions or comments regarding this incident, please contact us online or by calling NJ TRANSIT Customer Service at (973) 275-5555.

-----------------------

 

Man i'd like to see a photo of that mess!:eek:

 

On a more serious note, i think it's time that the 80 year old (then brilliant & cutting edge) PRR era wire system is replaced with a modern system that doesn't have so many issues.

 

- A

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It's really time to bolt on wire arms onto the PRR poles for Constant Tension Catenary. The suspended catenary are just not durable during winds and for long periods of time. I just don't understand why PRR didn't build their catenary like DL&W with Constant Tension Catenary. I mean both installed catenary around the same time, both use catenary with an auxillary wire, and both have similar infrastructures.

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The catenary isn't constant tension, it's simply arm/beam. Constant tension involves tensioner equipment. HBLR is constant tension. You can see the pulley system at hoboken terminal. It's pretty neat actually.

 

The wires in some sections were taken down, and then rebuilt in the 80's.

 

The lines mostly had the streamliners and other stuff till they were retired.

 

- A

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They were having problems with the wire on the Coastline the past few days too, so don't blame the PRR, as the cat problems on the coastline were on the newer poles.
I bet you that it's in the section north of the Raritan since south of it has constant tension catenary, while north of it has PRR suspended catenary.

 

The catenary isn't constant tension, it's simply arm/beam. Constant tension involves tensioner equipment. HBLR is constant tension. You can see the pulley system at hoboken terminal. It's pretty neat actually.

 

The wires in some sections were taken down, and then rebuilt in the 80's.

 

The lines mostly had the streamliners and other stuff till they were retired.

 

- A

 

Thanks for correcting me! But don't you think that having the arms/beams are still are better than suspended catenary?

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It was between Lloyd and Bank thats way South of the Raritan and on a different voltage. Even today they were having problems on the Coastline with the wire. I have to wonder if its a lack of maintanence.

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It was between Lloyd and Bank thats way South of the Raritan and on a different voltage. Even today they were having problems on the Coastline with the wire. I have to wonder if its a lack of maintanence.

 

Then most likely you're correct. I'm pretty sure that the 25Kv60Hz section has Constant Tension Catenary and therefore needs to be maintained extremely well.

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I know its a lack of maintanence...I was being sarcastic..should have put the brackets around it haha. The PRR used to keep a constant eye on the cat adjusting every week as needed now were down to every month or two.

 

They have this creature for Cat work but he seems to only go out when they are doing projects or if something breaks. They also have another wire train that sits in Hoboken and does nothing as well. They recently scrapped a true wire train, which was IMHO a big mistake.

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Yea the arm anchored to the cross beam type is much more stable than using stay wires. The stay wires expand and contract and will eventually pull out of the anchor points, which is what i believe happened in this instance. If they are not adjusted often you will see it happen a few times a year vs once a year or less.

 

Using brackets instead of whatever its called now that they have where the ends of the wires simply loop around a hook on the insulators would solve this as well, because instead of pulling on the end with a flexible assembly, you have a solid connection not dependent on the pin anchorage of the insulators, which is 100% relying on the in tiniest surface area to keep it up.

 

Basically instead of trying to suspend the overhead wire set with another set of wires you'd have the catenary (curved) wire, (vertical) suspenders, messenger wire and contact wire held up by a semi-flexible support. This arrangement also reduces flexing on the suspenders and messenger wire, keeping them aligned more as one single unit. This obviously in turn reduces the chance that the wire will fall onto the track vs just slump down due to thye 2 arms, one holding the messenger, one holding the catenary (curved) wire.

 

I believe they actually originally had a triangular design, but then changed over to this more economical design. The triangular design used 2x the number of "suspender" wires, which was indeed 2x more expensive and not nearly as stable as what we use today. The early PRR electrics had trolly style pantographs which were more stable on this type of wire system.

 

I think we are all glad they switched to something more stable, but at least arm/beam needs to be implemented to keep these incidents from happening. They have it here and there on the NEC, but it needs to be the whole route. :cool:

 

- A

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I know its a lack of maintanence...I was being sarcastic..should have put the brackets around it haha. The PRR used to keep a constant eye on the cat adjusting every week as needed now were down to every month or two.

 

They have this creature for Cat work but he seems to only go out when they are doing projects or if something breaks. They also have another wire train that sits in Hoboken and does nothing as well. They recently scrapped a true wire train, which was IMHO a big mistake.

 

Cat Vehicle OP-1001 is only meant for minor maintanence. The wire train which was scrapped could do a lot more heavy duty work as Kaback9 stated. The down fall to the wire train was that you always needed a diesel locomotive to pull it. When I was 6 or 7 years old I recall seeing the wire train return to Red Bank through Little Silver being pushed by a NJ Transit F40PH-2 locomotive.

 

http://erickreszl.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=491718

 

http://erickreszl.rrpicturearchives.net/locoPicture.aspx?id=77920

 

 

Eric

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That wire train is at the amtrak MOW yard near edison. There are 3 old cars like that each one is connected to some maintenance consist........

 

One is a horizon car with windows closed up.

 

- A

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That wire train is at the amtrak MOW yard near edison. There are 3 old cars like that each one is connected to some maintenance consist........

 

One is a horizon car with windows closed up.

 

- A

 

I think you mean heritage car as all Amtrak Horizons are either in daily operation or at Beech Grove. That is Amtrak's wire train, they have one of their own. NJT's has been scrapped. The Amtrak train sits in Adams MOW base which is in North Brunswick, it was brought out the other day when there was a problem in Metuchen.

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I'm not sure about the Heritage cars, but the Horizon cars were definitely not used to be owned by Conrail. The Horizon fleet is basically original Comet IIs with Amfleet-styled schemes. You don't see them as much as the Amfleets b/c passengers had been complaining that they are more slated for regular commuters trains than intercity expresses.

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I'm not sure about the Heritage cars, but the Horizon cars were definitely not used to be owned by Conrail. The Horizon fleet is basically original Comet IIs with Amfleet-styled schemes. You don't see them as much as the Amfleets b/c passengers had been complaining that they are more slated for regular commuters trains than intercity expresses.

 

He was asking about the train origin. I already explained that no way in hell would a Horizon be used for this service, they are all needed out in the midwest. Conrail went out of PAX service in 83 BTW.

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Yea, it just seems weird that the wire trains are identical, it seems conrail or PC had 2 and amtk got one and njt got one. The MOW yards have very old cars, one is obviously a baggage car, one is obviously a coach car, and there's another one that i believe was a diner car, but have all 3 been assigned to work duty.

 

By the way bit off topic, but the tie replacement train is well underway, being moved by the smaller of the 3 work locos they keep at adams. According to (NJT) conductor (actual conductor not just fare collector) amtk bought out the company that made the ties after it couldnt pay for the replacement. The tie connectors look different, and they seem slightly different shape.

 

- A

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