Passenger Trains > SMART Woes

Last night, January 24, SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) suffered serious delays, probably their worst ever.

Southbound Train 35, out of initial terminal Santa Rosa Airport Station, was first. Downline it was delayed over an hour, and the next two trains backed up behind. Northbound trains got caught up... SMART is a single track railroad; schedules and meets are precisely timed to when opposing trains are at passing tracks. Delays continued on into the night until the end of the operating day.

I was at work the whole time and was unable to find out what happened. But it probably involved something at San Rafael because this morning the northbound platform there is out of service with all trains single tracking, using the southbound track and platform. Scheduled meets that normally occur at San Rafael are happening at the two-track Larkspur station instead, with delays to northbound trains of 10 to 30 minutes, also affecting southbound trains delayed at meets.

SMART has had very few long delays outside of fatal trespasser strikes and major grade crossing collisions. Most operational delays appear to have occurred where they didn't affect more than just a few trains. This one affected every train on the line from around 6pm on.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/25 16:24 by GenePoon.

SMART needs smarter route improvements.