Rock and rail

And now here’s an example of using the scanner for subjects other than fictional prostitute stings. By now you’ve probably heard about the incident a few weeks ago at about 5am when an eastbound train hit a large rock in the right of way near the Murray overpass between Beaverton Creek and Millikan Way.

Bowling-ball sized rock

Broken rock

Leaking hydraulic fluid

I was asked on Twitter if this was something that the sweep train (the first trains through the alignment in the morning that run at a slower speed to check for debris, damage, etc) should have seen. However, the sweep train goes through there at about 3:30am, and four more trains follow it before the one that hit the rock, so it’s very unlikely that the rocks ended up there overnight and were somehow missed by five trains.

Looking east from the Murray overpass where this happened

Given the size of the rock (I think it took both the supervisor and the operator to get it out of the way) and my complete lack of detective abilities, I’m not sure if it was thrown from the overpass or whoever did it trespassed down in the ROW and left it there. Regardless, TriMet is looking for anyone who might have information and is offering a $1000 reward for information.

Coordination when things go wrong

When something goes wrong on a train, it can be very frustrating for passengers to not know what’s going on, why are we stopped, how long are any delays going to be, and so on. Generally speaking, operators are going to try to keep you as updated as possible because the last thing anyone wants to deal with on a stopped or broken down train is passengers redknobbing the doors and potentially getting hurt trying to leave! Unfortunately, sometimes the available information is limited and your operator doesn’t have any better idea than you do when things will be moving again.

Wait, let me say that one again: Unfortunately, sometimes the available information is limited and your operator doesn’t have any better idea than you do when things will be moving again.

Annnd, once more for luck: Unfortunately, sometimes the available information is limited and your operator doesn’t have any better idea than you do when things will be moving again.

Additionally, your operator isn’t just keeping all of the passengers informed, but he or she also has to communicate with Control, sometimes almost constant communication depending on the situation which means less time to convey information to the passengers. Consequently, it can seem like you’re sitting there wasting time while nothing is being done to fix the problem. This isn’t the case, it’s just that you’re most likely not going to be able to hear all of the coordination that’s done over the air to address the issue.

Because the rock incident happened very early in the morning, there wasn’t a lot of other traffic on the air and so the scanner got just about all of the related calls. I like this because it shows how the operator, supervisor, and controller worked together to get service going again with as little interruption as possible (also, no one was injured in this incident so I don’t think there is anything sensitive in any of the calls). Due to the relative simplicity of this event as compared to, say, the power issues from last week, the radio calls for this are pretty easy to follow along. If you’re interested in listening to how this played out but aren’t familiar with TriMet’s open air radio, you might find this radio refresher helpful – remember that when on the air, controllers don’t use an identifier, operators use the train number, and supervisors have four-digit call signs beginning with 95. In this incident, the train is 21, the supervisor is 9514 (both male voices), and the controller is the female voice.

Here are the highlights: The beginning of the incident is a little choppy (some problems with the radio where 21 couldn’t hear the controller), but the controller was able to understand that 21 hit an object in the ROW, so she called westside supervisor 9514, who is monitoring everything from Washington Park to Hatfield. 21 was able to get through with a description of what happened, and then relayed to the controller what problem indications he had in his cab (among them are friction brake faults - this will be important in a moment). Since this train was in service, the most ideal thing to do is to try to get it into Millikan Way where passengers can be safely offloaded if the train has to be taken out of service, and 9514 would meet up with 21 there to assist.

21′s follower, Train 22, is held at Willow Creek. This keeps the eastbound alignment from Millikan to Willow Creek clear, which would allow 21 to run reverse traffic (west in the eastbound alignment) if necessary back to the Elmonica yard. Meanwhile, 9514 meets up with 21 and sees a friction brake hangup in the A-truck of his lead car. For a quick refresher of what that means:

These red lights on the outside of the train are located above each of the three wheel trucks (A and B at either end and C in the middle) in the Type 1s, 2s, and 3s. It’s a little different in the Type 4s, but I’m skipping that for now since this incident didn’t involve a 4. When illuminated, these tell you that the friction brake in that wheel truck is applied. You want this when the train is stopped, as in the above picture. You do NOT want this when you expect the train to be moving! So 9514 was able to see that the exterior brake indicator in the leading truck of the lead car was lit as the operator was trying to move the train into the platform, and he knew that this meant that friction brake was “hanging up”, or staying applied. The way to troubleshoot this is to pump off the hydraulic fluid from that brake and manually release it.

MRU, Type 3

Each train car has an MRU, or “Manual Release Unit” where a friction brake can be pumped off. This is a fairly basic procedure that every operator learns how to do in training, but the standard procedure is for the controller to pull up a checklist to follow for consistency. After the train made it into the platform and passengers exited, 9514 was able to inspect the car for damage, including the leaking hydraulic fluid pictured above which explained the brake problem. If the only problem a train has is a hanging friction brake, it can continue in service with one brake pumped off, but you can’t do more than 30mph so it’s not really ideal. Any more than one brake pumped off and the whole train has to be taken out of service. In this situation, because the train had hit an unknown object and 9514 was still assessing damage, the train most likely wouldn’t remain in service even with the brake pumped off, but they needed to figure the best approach to getting it out of the way. The controller suggested that the best solution might be a dead car tow – that is, pump off all three of the friction brakes in the car and have it be pulled back into the yard by the other car.

9514 decided to begin pumping off the friction brake in the A-truck of the car – they’d have to do that anyway for a dead car tow, but it was possible that pumping off that one brake might be enough to get the train rolling. At this point in the radio calls, there is a lot of back and forth between the controller and 9514 as she read through the checklist and he carried out the procedures. After the brake was pumped off, 9514 confirmed that it was holding (i.e., it’s staying released), and the controller asked 21 to take a point of power from the eastbound cab. Although the train would be going back west to Elmonica, this is just a fast way to verify that the brake is no longer applied in that truck. She then told Train 1, the incoming westbound train at Beaverton Transit Center to hold there (remember that 22 has been holding back at Willow Creek, so this is leaving both the eastbound and westbound alignment clear from Willow Creek to BTC). 9514 said he’d ride back with 21 to see if he can find what had been hit.

Not the train involved in this incident, but it’s a train running reverse – this one going east in the westbound at Willow Creek

Now 21 was running reverse back to Elmonica west in the eastbound alignment. If you want more info on what running reverse traffic means, I did a post on it a while ago, and other posts with related things you’ll hear if you’ve been playing the transmissions so far (such as needing to key-by a dwarf signal and running at restricted speed). 21 made a brief stop under the overpass to see what had been hit and try to clear it so that other trains could safely get through, and that’s when they found the rocks pictured above. They got them out of the way so that the westbound trains (Train 1 still holding at BTC) could get moving again. 21 then arrived at the yard limit and took the train into the yard so that normal train movement in both directions could resume. The whole thing took about half an hour from start to finish, though given the spacing between trains, it wasn’t a major impact to service.

But consider train 22 who was behind the incident train. They would’ve been around Fair Complex when this happened, and then holding at Willow Creek for about 15 minutes while all of this played out. If someone on 22 asked the operator when things would get moving again, there’s no easy answer to that – if you played through all the calls, you now have as much information as that operator did. There’s no secret operator-to-operator information service that gets additional information and a timeline out (though that would be cool). At best, the operator can explain the situation at a very un-detailed level because once you start getting into brake pump-offs and technical things, people’s eyes are going to glaze over. But if that procedure had failed or if there was serious damage to the train, or if 21 and 9514 couldn’t get the rocks out of the ROW, this would’ve taken longer, but there’s no way to know how things are going to go while the incident train’s operator, the supervisor, and the controller are working on it. So once again, unfortunately it’s very likely that your train’s operator isn’t going to have any better idea than you do of how long something will take to fix and get rolling again.

Overall I think this incident was a good example of what’s going on “behind the scenes” when something breaks down. Getting things moving as quickly as possible again is on the mind of everyone involved; no one’s doing this to get a kick out of passengers missing their (often infrequently) connecting buses (and on a self-interest side, no operator enjoys running late and losing part or all of a break due to delays!) There’s a lot of coordination between operators, supervisors, and controllers in every kind of service disruption, but unfortunately most of it is going to happen where passengers don’t see or hear it.

Sometimes a cat is just a cat

Or, a cautionary tale about not believing everything you read on the internet. Or that MAX isn’t as scary as you might have been led to believe.

A few nights ago, there was a report of a cat on the fishhook. For folks not familiar with where the fishhook is, it’s this section of single track near Gateway used by the Red Line to head toward the airport:

Looking at Gateway from above, colors and arrows indicating which tracks are used in each direction by trains on different lines

Animals get in the ROW sometimes, and when it happens, Control will put out an informational call to trains in that area to use extra caution. In short, this was all pretty much a non-event. You can listen to the call for this incident here, it should be easy to understand once you know what section of the alignment he’s referring to.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, @TelemachusRome who’s been satirizing TriMet (my personal favorites among recent tweets include the off-leash dog park on MAX and coin-operated seat belts for bus drivers) took this as an opportunity for another joke:

Pretty obvious to everyone that this was a joke, especially if you played the audio for the call. Except… except… a talk radio host/blogger who has never been fond of TriMet takes this at face value and runs this story in several places online:

Look, I know it’s trendy in some circles to call MAX the “crime train” or act like the only people riding it are involved in some kind of criminal activity and you should expect to be assaulted if you ride, but come on. I’ve played this call a few times intentionally trying to parse it as some sort of hooker sting and I still can’t see how someone can seriously confuse a cat with prostitutes. They must go to a more interesting PetSmart than I do.

After this “story” ran, the talk radio host apparently contacted TriMet who replied that no, there’s no prostitution ring on the system and this is audio about an actual cat, not a security bust of said non-existent prostitution ring.

Just in case you were worried about who you are riding a train with.

Oh, and for future reference, when an operator calls in  a “Bambi alert“? That really does mean that someone saw a deer in or near the tracks, not a stripper. The more you know…

Corrosion? No, TriMet, I think you just spelled “corruption” wrong

We all remember that MAX train that went down the Banfield with a door open, right? Which is not how the train is supposed to work – if your doors are open and you try to take power to move the train forward, the doors will close. The interlock should prevent the train from moving if any doors remain open.

Door open, train still moving

For some reason, this door stayed open between the Hollywood and Lloyd Center platforms, but no cause had been identified until last Friday afternoon, when TriMet issued a press release that the cause of the door’s malfunction had been determined:

That would be great except for one thing – that door doesn’t have a bridgeplate. The incident happened in a Type 2, and like all other low-floor cars in the fleet, bridgeplates are located at doors 3, 4, 5, and 6 near the middle of the train on both sides. The doors closest to the ends of the train (1, 2, 7, and 8) do not have bridgeplates. They aren’t missing or corroded, they are just not there by design. It’s impossible that there was excessive corrosion on a bridgeplate mechanism in that door because there is no mechanism there to corrode in the first place.

Type 2 with bridgeplates out. Notice the middle doors have them but the doors near the ends of the car do not

What does our executive director of safety have to say about this?

Yeah, the corrosion on that switch was apparently so severe that the switch and bridgeplate are just GONE. Let me give you an analogy for how mind-blowingly confusing TriMet’s official statement is:

TriMet would tell you that this cat’s bicycle is showing the same advanced corrosion as the bridgeplate switch

Now while the major media sources I’ve seen so far are just parroting back that the issue was due to corrosion on that door’s bridgeplate switch, many people are realizing this doesn’t add up. You don’t need to be an expert in the trains to notice that the doors near the upper deck seating of the train don’t have bridgeplates. One of my astute blog readers picked right up on it, other bloggers and Twitter users caught it too. That explanation seems to just be made up.

DID NO ONE THINK TO CHECK THE BRIDGEPLATE?? Actually that’s going to be my new excuse for everything. Signal went dark? Probably a corroded bridgeplate switch. TVM not working? Most likely due to bridgeplate corrosion. Fight on the train? Yeah, that pesky bridgeplate corrosion again. 

But hey! Let’s not miss an opportunity to blame the union! In other words, let’s look at this part at the end of the press release that has NOTHING to do with the door issue:

Do you like how those goalposts have been moved? TriMet used to call the union benefits  ”some of the most generous in the transit industry” – now that’s been bumped up to THE most generous benefits in the entire COUNTRY. Hoo-wee!

Once again, TriMet non-union benefits aren’t too shabby either. Will we mention those as a cost-cutting measure? Course not.

Must be hard being an executive at TriMet, not getting a raise on some of the most generous salaries in the transit industry after three years? I’d say “no disrespect to office workers” here, but you know what? If you’re offended by my belief that people who work all hours of the day all days of the year in all weather conditions in hot/noisy/dirty/hostile environments should get health care that compensates for that, and that the people making 6-figure salaries working in climate controlled environments with weekends, evenings, and holidays off paying less than $100/month to insure their entire family don’t exactly have room to complain that the union health benefits (for which union employees pay higher premiums per month than the non-union employees) are “too generous”, you and I just aren’t going to see eye-to-eye.

And hey, ATU would be happy to negotiate when TriMet agrees to full transparency by letting the sessions be open to the public. Because funny enough, there’s been a lot of instances such as this explanation of a bridgeplate problem in a door that has no bridgeplate, last-minute fixes of long-standing alignment problems right before an inspection, and  stealth raises to executives while crying poverty and blaming the union that have us all kind of thinking that TriMet can’t exactly be trusted to be transparent.

Anyway, back to the door issue. I’m really stumped here. If whoever looked at the door was not able to replicate the problem, the correct response would be to just say so, and maybe dedicate more resources to monitoring the condition of the doors. I find it next to impossible to believe that a mechanic said the problem was because of a bridgeplate-related issue in that door (and even if a mechanic DID say that, that no one else involved in the process said “Hey guys? This door doesn’t have a bridgeplate.”)

Who knows what actually caused it? Maybe whoever grabbed the door bumped it in such a way that the interlock registered it as closed. Maybe some connection in there was loose anyway and the person trying to get in just broke it all the way. Even if the cause were a problem with a bridgeplate in another door of that car that might have affected the interlock system for the whole car (I don’t even know if that’s possible), then the press release should have stated THAT. Because if what the press release said is the complete and final answer, and TriMet is going to say it was a bridgeplate problem in that specific door, then we still don’t know what actually did it and we’re not going to be able to prevent it from happening again as long as the explanation is to technobabble an answer that has no basis in the mechanical reality of that door.

I can’t tell if this is intentional deception and assuming the public is too dumb to question why the explanation involves a component that isn’t part of that door, or just plain old-fashioned incompetence. Either way, it’s incredibly disappointing of TriMet, and it’s also disappointing that they take a safety issue as an opportunity to throw slurs at the union.

(and if someone wants to provide pictures of the corroded bridgeplate switch in the mechanisms of that particular door, please do so! All the other rail personnel that I batted this one around with don’t see how TriMet’s official explanation makes any sense given what we know about the construction and operation of the trains, so if you want to use this opportunity to give us all a learning experience, we’re open to it.)

Au contraire..

And the results are in….

The previously mentioned ODOT inspection (full report courtesy of the Oregonian) was released late last week, and ODOT found no concerns for public safety. Some say now that this undermines the union’s credibility; on the contrary I think it strengthens it.

I didn’t personally take any of the damage photos that the union had circulated, but y’all may have noticed I take a lot of pictures for the blog. Before ATU even circulated those track damage photos and any kind of ODOT inspection was on the radar, I had independently taken photos of some of the trouble areas.

These are both just west of the Lloyd Center platform, where switches 17A,  17B, and 17C allow trains to diverge into the Doubletree Siding. I took both of these pictures on January 26, 2013. The damage here necessitated a slow order (that’s what the yellow cone is for), and the damage to the rail and surrounding pavement is pretty obvious.

How long was that track in this state of disrepair? Well here’s the same spot, July 30, 2012. At that time, I’d taken these partially to show the damage, and partially just as an example of wayside flags in case I ever needed it for the blog. You can also see how the pavement around the rail in the above picture from January is visibly worse than it had been in July, indicating that little to no repair work was done on this during that time period.

Now these switches in particular weren’t shown in the ODOT report, but nearby switches  (15A and 15B) west of Lloyd closer to 9th Ave were pictured in the ODOT report from March 5, 2013:

There had been a flurry of activity of repair work on the rails once the inspection was announced. ODOT was even able to tell that the welding in the 15 A switch had been done recently.

While the 17A switch that I took photos of in July 2012 and January 2013 wasn’t pictured in the ODOT report, here’s how it looked as of March 10, 2013:

You can see that the holes in the pavement around the rails have been filled in, again clearly showing that this problem had been there for months and only was addressed when the inspection was announced.

The only other pic I got recently was this at 11th Avenue on February 12, 2013.

I took this facing north and looking down on the westbound track at 11th & Morrison.

And what the inspectors saw:

This picture is taken facing west – my photo of the same area was taken on the left side of the first switch you see (you can see where the brick/cement/cobblestone pavement meet). Similar to the switch on Holladay, the holes in the area surrounding this switch have been repaved as well.

So I’m really struggling to see how this is supposed to undermine the union’s credibility. Apparently TriMet thought these issues were enough of a concern to patch these areas up before the inspectors came. I mean, the above pictures show the Holladay track damage going back as far as last July and still an issue at the end of January (and yes it was like that later than the end of January, but in fairness that’s the most recent I’d been there to take a photo) – if this was just “routine maintenance” and not last minute patching, wouldn’t it have been addressed sometime in the last 8 months and not immediately prior to the inspection?

Doesn’t the fact that these areas were in disrepair for months, and that TriMet saw fit to make last minute repairs right before the inspection just serve to strengthen the union’s concern that the alignment was not properly maintained?

When values become buzzwords

I’m not sure who came up with this whole “Safety at TriMet is not just a priority, it’s a value” thing, but it’s really turning into more of a slogan than an actual practice. Like if we cram the word “safety” into a speech as many times as we can, SUCCESS! That means we have a safe system!

Open door on the MAX

Except, you know, in practice it doesn’t really work out like that, such as the recent failed door interlock on a MAX train. Or the not as publicized but still recent failed door interlock on a bus. Or all the track damage out there on the alignment that passengers might not notice unless they spot some of the wayside cones/flags denoting a slow order, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are a lot of areas of the alignment that are in need of repair.

Is everything at TriMet as safe as it could be? The official answer would have you believe yes, that’s the case. The rest of us aren’t convinced.

I know that the Ruby Yard is safe. Why? Because the sign says so!

For those of you playing along from home, KOIN Local 6 has had the most thorough coverage. It began when Bruce Hansen, the president of ATU 757 called TriMet “a series of disasters waiting to happen.” He brought up numerous safety concerns about rail (this is not to say that there aren’t at bus as well, but that rail was the focus of this particular statement, mainly because of the recent door issue), including track damage, equipment failures, and Type 4 visibility issues.

TriMet’s response? Spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt issued a statement that MAX is perfectly safe and these safety concerns are just an attempt to discredit TriMet and draw attention away from the contract negotiations of the union’s excessive healthcare benefits.

How dare you, Roberta? Is it really the hallmark of an organization that values safety like TriMet claims to dismiss broken track and equipment problems as “attempts to discredit TriMet?” I don’t even want to dignify your jab at the union with a response.

KOIN’s latest step in the investigation (no story, just video) looks at some more photos of track damage and briefly goes over a letter from the union in October 2010 detailing in particular the visibility issues with the Type 4s. You read that right, a letter from the union in 2010. So much for Roberta’s claim that the union is only now bringing up safety issues now to try to detract attention from contract negotiations.

The KOIN report didn’t cover this other safety issue, but here is a video from the January 2011 board meeting where union representatives attempted (again, without any resolution) to address the Type 4 visibility problems with the TriMet board, several months after a lack of response from the October 2010 letter:

In short, the union has been trying, without success, to do something about these safety issues for a long time. Addressing this now has nothing to do with the contract.

But if piggybacking off the recent media attention given to the train with the broken door is finally going to get something done about this? Well okay then.

If you haven’t yet, take a look at that October 2010 letter, it’s an interesting read. Here are some of the highlights (and background): In July 2010, ATU gave TriMet formal notice that there were visibility issues with the Type 4s that required immediate attention, including the lack of mirrors, cab design, and external cameras. The “response” from TriMet in August 2010 was essentially “There’s no problem with the trains, they are safe.” The October 2010 letter that is now available on the union website was ATU’s response to TriMet’s refusal to address the problems, and it provides photograph evidence of some of the issues to further support the concerns about safety:

The field of vision you get from the cab in a Type 2/3 on the left and a Type 1 on the right, given the position of the side windows and size of the window pillar

And the view you get in a Type 4, which is substantially more obstructed

This photo was taken from the same train cab as the above pic – you can hide multiple trains in adjacent tracks in the blind spot of a Type 4

And what the cameras in the 4s are like sometimes – remember, Type 4s don’t have mirrors to rely on when the cameras go screwy. Technically there are detachable ones, as seen below in the Clackamas break room, but those are only used by supervisors to get Type 4s with defective cameras out of service. You won’t see a 4 running in service with those on.

But back to the KOIN investigation – what was Safety Director Harry Saporta’s response to the union’s evidence?  ”I didn’t see anything that was unsafe.”  Clearly Harry has never played the “Gee, I hope everyone on the platform got on my Type 4 because the way the sun is hitting the camera I can’t see a flipping thing, gonna close my doors and hope for the best” game. He should sometime, it’s great fun. And I guess he’s pretty mellow about cracked rails too, since he said those are just routine maintenance problems. (By the way, there have been attempts to call attention to track damage problems as well, long before the contract negotiation mess. THIS ISN’T NEW, ROBERTA.)

My favorite part of the KOIN investigation is that they asked a member of the National Association of Railroad Safety Consultants who has no affiliation with TriMet or ATU to comment on the union’s safety concerns. The response? “This does not look like a routine maintenance issue and could be a bigger issue. If they have proper maintenance they would not have situations like these.”

Well, you know maybe this is a sign that TriMet needs a more capable safety guy if the one we’ve got doesn’t see any of this as a problem while assuring the public that “the system is absolutely safe and there is no need to worry.”

Is anyone else thinking of this or is it just me?

Then the plot thickens when ODOT orders an immediate inspection of the rail lines. This was covered by the Oregonian as well, which of course has the outcome of bringing out anti-union trolls in the comments (seriously, there are folks there saying that the union has zero concern for safety, people need to turn against all unions, and that ATU has been hiding these safety issues from TriMet managers as an “ace in the hole”. Hmm, speaking of ace holes…)

The problem is that TriMet is not a welcoming environment in which to escalate safety-related issues to try to get them fixed. Sure, you can find supervisors (who are also union) that will agree with your safety concerns, and even some of the lower levels of management do as well, though neither of these groups will necessarily have the teeth to do something about it. But when several tiers of upper management and the public information officers so vehemently deny any safety issues (as seen in this very instance), operators are often unwilling to try to buck the party line and speak out against them to try to address safety problems – the nail that sticks out is the one that gets hammered and all. Or we see what happens when an attempt is made: sometimes there’s just no response, like the union reps at the 2011 board meeting. Or we are told that our concerns are “an acceptable risk” or like the public is now getting, “there is no safety concern! Everything is just fine!”

I mean, look at the way this incident has been handled. The public already knew about the open  MAX doors on the Banfield, so clearly something wasn’t right. The union then brings up other safety issues that have been going on for years. And what is TriMet’s response? Not even a cursory “We’re glad this has come to our attention and are working hard to fix it.” No, it’s “Everything is safe and this is all just a smear campaign by the union.”

Yeah, way to show that safety is a value.

Look, the union negotiations are a messy issue, but that’s not what’s going on here. The public has a right to know if equipment or other issues are putting their safety at risk. Simply saying “Everything is safe” does not make it so. If safety is a value, it’s time to start acting like it.