Passenger Trains > LA Metro Gold Line Monrovia & Arcadia

I just received another camera; it's a used Canon A570, just like the one we've had for a while.  My wife an I are planning a trip and this will give us a backup camera that we won't have to climb the learning curve to use.

To try it out, I took it to Monrovia for a look at the Gold Line Operations Campus.  I found two of the new KinkiSharyo light rail units in the yard, and spotted two more in the shop.  The ones in the open were 1005 and 1006, which have been there a while, and I couldn't get close enough to the shop to read those two.  Just as I was leaving the GLOC area, I spotted a Breda car from the current Gold Line fleet heading eastward on the main line. I headed for Azusa, but by the time I got there, it was heading westward in an area where I would have needed a drone to get a good shot.  By now it was getting dark, so I headed for home, hoping for one last chance at an action shot.  I was at First & Santa Clara, the only grade crossing in Arcadia, when all the traffic signals went red.  And they stayed red.  After several minutes, the gates came down and the test car went by eastbound.  But the gates stayed down, and I finally backed up and took anouther route.  On the way home I stopped at the Arcadia Police station and informed them about the signal malfunction and advised the staff member to call Metro, since the traffic signals and crossing protection are interconnected.  Not sure if this is a glitch in the signal electronics or a result of the local rainstorm, but as a Gold Line booster, I felt rather embarassed that after all the testing, we still had a bug in the system.

1)  Metro P-3010 units 1005 and 1006 in the Monrovia yard (officially known as Division 24, a naming convention that may go back to the days of Los Angeles Railway narrow-gauge streetcars)

2)  We know you're in there!  Two more P-3010s in the shop building.  Last time I tried to get up close to the fence for a better look, some Sheriff's Deputies told me that the parking lot was "off-limits".  I'll probably go by here during business hours and see if I can ask in the shop office which cars have arrived from Palmdale.

3)  Santa Clara and First Ave. in Arcadia.  "East bound and down, not loaded up, but really truckin'."  As far as I could tell, there was only one car out testing Sunday night--they might have been running it to keep rust off the rails.  This is where the gates came down and wouldn't go back up.

---

---

---

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

  I was at First & Santa Clara, the only
> grade crossing in Arcadia, when all the traffic
> signals went red.  And they stayed red.  After
> several minutes, the gates came down and the test
> car went by eastbound.  But the gates stayed
> down, and I finally backed up and took anouther
> route.  On the way home I stopped at the Arcadia
> Police station and informed them about the signal
> malfunction and advised the staff member to call
> Metro, since the traffic signals and crossing
> protection are interconnected.  Not sure if this
> is a glitch in the signal electronics or a result
> of the local rainstorm, but as a Gold Line
> booster, I felt rather embarassed that after all
> the testing, we still had a bug in the system.

There are going to be teething problems. Track circuit problems between there and  Arcadia Interlocking seem to be the issue. It'll get ironed out. If this is the only issue on the extension, call it a success.
 

Yep, things are a lot more complex than they were back in the days when they just had to put the contact brushes on the trolley wire and connect up the wig-wags.