Passenger Trains > Surfline Service Disruption

This weekend construction in the Mission Viejo area caused Amtrak to cancel train service between Irvine and San Diego and offer limited service between LA and Irvine. A bus bridge was operated to most stations between Irvine and San Diego (SJC and San Clememte were not served). Metrolink cancel their Inlamd Emipre Line train and Orange County trains ran LA-Irvine.

This has happened in the past and will in the future in order for construction project to be complete quicker without working around train in the work area. The one thing that struck me was that there could have been more information available about the shutdown of service. I heard about on a website and I tried to confirm it. I checked the Amtrak site and the was only one service disruption listed - service on the Boston-Portland route. The Metrolink site did not have any notice that I could find. It turned out that if I had gone to the Amtrak Cafifornia site I would have found the information about the service disruption for Amtrak. It seems that Amtrak and Metrolink could do a better job in providing information to people that would like to use their trains. There was notices posted at station that would have informed regular or recent passengers, but other may have had a bad surprise at the depot.

Cliff

Go here and you will find what you needed. You will find delays of this type under 'news, then commuter' since it is a commuter service.

http://www.metrolinktrains.com/news/commuter.php

The sad part of this is the decline in the technical skills of Maintenance of Way forces. In the "old days" railroad employees could and did change out track panels in "work windows" of 4-6 hours. Now the owner has to hire contractors who may or may not have the dedication and skills to work so quickly, and there is an elaborate inspection and finishing process. In the old days when the track foreman said it was done and the signal foreman said it was done, the dispatcher began running trains. Give the present situation with so many different contractors and levels of authority, the only prudent thing for Metrolink to do is set aside 24 hour periods.

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> The sad part of this is the decline in the
> technical skills of Maintenance of Way forces. In
> the "old days" railroad employees could and did
> change out track panels in "work windows" of 4-6
> hours. Now the owner has to hire contractors who
> may or may not have the dedication and skills to
> work so quickly, and there is an elaborate
> inspection and finishing process. In the old days
> when the track foreman said it was done and the
> signal foreman said it was done, the dispatcher
> began running trains. Give the present situation
> with so many different contractors and levels of
> authority, the only prudent thing for Metrolink to
> do is set aside 24 hour periods.


They're turning a single turnout into a dual crossover with a new stub track in tight quarters under a freeway overpass in the pouring rain. They're also redoing the signal system at the Control Point for the new tracks, and moving the signals from a mast to a cantilver.

Give them at least a LITTLE bit of credit!

The Amtrak website did not have a service notice posted, however if you tried to book a trip it automatically provided the bus bridge information. Metrolink posted notices on their website and Twitter pages.

cs16 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Go here and you will find what you needed. You
> will find delays of this type under 'news, then
> commuter' since it is a commuter service.
>
> http://www.metrolinktrains.com/news/commuter.php


I stand corrected, Metrolink did post a notice of the service disruption on 2/20 and it did indicate the dates of the work. However I think that they could have made a note on the home page. It was noted in another post that if you checked specific trains on the day of the disruption you would get info on the service disruption, but it is not any help if you just checked the schedule pages.

Cliff

railstiesballast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The sad part of this is the decline in the
> technical skills of Maintenance of Way forces. In
> the "old days" railroad employees could and did
> change out track panels in "work windows" of 4-6
> hours.

In the "old days" they did not have to worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry scum bag lawyer waiting in earnest for the smallest of an accident to occur so that they can make bucka bucks on suing everyone in sight for anything and everything, nor did they have to contend with the prolific levels of bearacrtic dog dodo at every turn.

Additionally, as some one else pointed out, this was a bit more than changing out a few track panels.