Passenger Trains > PATCO disaster drill Sunday morning

Delaware River Port Authority Transportation Company's High Speed Line had a disaster drill on the border of Westmont and Collingswood Sunday morning. Fire equipment from Collingswood, Westmont, Haddonfield, Pennsauken, Cherry Hill, Gloucester, Bellmawr (not Belmar), Mount Ephraim, and other nearby towns participated. Revenue trains single-tracked at restricted speed past the drill.

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Thanks for the pictures. The last one (squad 51) is an excellent example of why preparedness drills are so useful.

There are lots of wires in view. Coming into contact with a bucket truck, ladder, squirt, etc could have disastrous consequences. Knowing how to access the rail embankment, and where, is a lesson best learned ahead of time.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Thanks for the pictures. The last one (squad 51)
> is an excellent example of why preparedness drills
> are so useful.
>
> There are lots of wires in view. Coming into
> contact with a bucket truck, ladder, squirt, etc
> could have disastrous consequences. Knowing how to
> access the rail embankment, and where, is a lesson
> best learned ahead of time.


Lots of wires, but not all of them are dangerous.

The stuff at the top of the pole is power, that is dangerous.
The stuff at the bottom is phone company cable, 48 volts DC, not dangerous.
The stuff just above the phone cable is cable TV coax cable, no voltage, not dangerous.

General rule of thumb, the more dangerous it is, the higher it is.

PATCO was running six car revenue trains this AM which is unusual but the reason had nothing to do with the drill. It was Philadelphia Marathon Sunday!!! Special events in Philly always attract Jersey crowds and the winner is PATCO!

stone23 Wrote:
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> PATCO was running six car revenue trains this AM
> which is unusual but the reason had nothing to do
> with the drill. It was Philadelphia Marathon
> Sunday!!! Special events in Philly always attract
> Jersey crowds and the winner is PATCO!

Instead of the usual 20 minute frequency, trains were running 35 minutes apart this morning. Given the special event, was this a good day to disrupt the normal schedule with a drill?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/12 10:55 by prr60.

The Eagles are losing in Washington; the disaster drill would not have been planned on a date that they were scheduled to lose at home.

The problem with all of those lower wires being safe is that when there is a disaster and those high up wires are down on the lower wires, everything is hot including chain link fences!

Been there, done that!

KR

chuchubob Wrote:
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> The Eagles are losing in Washington; the disaster
> drill would not have been planned on a date that
> they were scheduled to lose at home.


LOL!

PHall Wrote:
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> Lackawanna484 Wrote:

>
>
> Lots of wires, but not all of them are dangerous.
>
> The stuff at the top of the pole is power, that is
> dangerous.
> The stuff at the bottom is phone company cable, 48
> volts DC, not dangerous.
> The stuff just above the phone cable is cable TV
> coax cable, no voltage, not dangerous.
>
> General rule of thumb, the more dangerous it is,
> the higher it is.

Generally speaking, a pretty safe comment but a good rule of thumb is to expect any wire to have lethal voltages on them at anytime. It's kind of like trains, expect one anytime, any track, or any direction. I'm retired from the phone company (I worked inside but I worked with a lot of outside techs) and if wires were down, they didn't touch anything until the power company came out to clear their system first. We often had customer mad at us for not repairing their circuits (business systems that required power) until the power company got their wires cleared up. Often they had no power and their stuff wouldn't work anyway but they still wanted us to fix our part.

Telephone lines usually have 48 volts (52 volts in modern equipment) and that is generally safe on a dry day. It will get your attention but it won't kill you. However, telephone companies put up to 105 VAC on the lines to ring a phone. That's will rattle your chimes. Still, it shouldn't physically injure you unless you jerk your arm for example and hit something else. Done that more times that I'll admit to. Also, sometimes higher voltages (260 VDC is typical, +130 and -130 VDC) are put on the phone lines to power equipment (amplifiers, or repeaters as the phone industry calls them).

Bottom line, always respect utility wires, either in the air or on the ground. Leave them to the professionals. And yes, a fence can become dangerous also.

Be save out there.

John

wa4umr Wrote:
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> Telephone lines usually have 48 volts (52 volts in
> modern equipment) and that is generally safe on a
> dry day. It will get your attention but it won't
> kill you. However, telephone companies put up to
> 105 VAC on the lines to ring a phone. That's will
> rattle your chimes. Still, it shouldn't
> physically injure you unless you jerk your arm for
> example and hit something else. Done that more
> times that I'll admit to. Also, sometimes higher
> voltages (260 VDC is typical, +130 and -130 VDC)
> are put on the phone lines to power equipment
> (amplifiers, or repeaters as the phone industry
> calls them).
>
> Bottom line, always respect utility wires, either
> in the air or on the ground. Leave them to the
> professionals. And yes, a fence can become
> dangerous also.
>
> Be save out there.
>
> John

Uhh, John you don't what you're talking about here buddy.

Telephone cables have 48 volts DC on them. This is because the phone system uses battery power all the time.
Been that way since Alexander Ghram Bell.
When a phone rings what you're getting is polarity reversals, i.e. +48 vdc to -48 vdc, the effective voltage is 96 volts DC.
There are some high speed data ciruits (T-1's, ADTRAN, DAML) that do have up to 186 volts DC on the pair.
Stuff like Repeaters, Doublers and Load Coils are either powered by the 48 vdc that is on the line or have seperate power supplies.
There is no AC voltage on phone cables, if there is, then something is wrong.

You are right about power lines falling and engerizing guy wires, support strand, fences and water pipes.
Which is why when the wind blows we get the voltage tester and the rubber gloves out and test everything before we touch it.

But what do I know. I've only been a Maintenance Cable Splicer (aka MST) for AT&T for the past 31 years.