Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s list:
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- • Crossrail to generate electricity from wind its own trains (Wired)
- • What can London learn from Barcelona? (BanPrivateCarsinLondon)
- • Woolwich hybrid battery ferries in service late 2018 (PassengerShip)
- • French bike trains (AtlasObscura)
- • Lisboa tram route reinstated after 23 years (Metro-Report)
- • 6 secrets from Sevilla’s Lightning Bike Network (Streetsblog)
- • The Trolley – IMAX documentary premiere (StephenLow)
- • How 2 MTA decisions pushed subway crisis (NYTImes)
- • BART urine problem has low tech solution (MassTransit)
- • The world’s fastest walking cities (Mahabis)
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Referring to the Crossrail article,the Italian company Greenrail has developed three new sleepers,partly made from recycled plastic and rubber from tires,that are 15-20% cheaper and 50% less maintenance costs,that also have a 50 year lifespan and reduce noise,useful on the 24 hour Tube thats getting complaints about the noise from people living near the lines.
Greenrail Smart comes with sensors,Solar has a solar panel, and the Piezo sleeper that generates electricity from the slight downward movement of the track when a Train passes over it.
@Jason Leahy, you sound like their salesperson
The issues in New York about fitting wrongly functioning signals, incompatible training and disciplinary processes plus the engineering work protection rule changes are pretty incredible. While no organisation is perfect it suggests to me that there is inadequate consultation / challenge within the MTA Subway and really poor approval / governance. The decisions were clearly wrong headed and not fully considered nor were the consequences understood across the organisation and processes / training changed.
I fear Andy Byford has an enormous mess on his hands to clear up if these two examples are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of poor management and decision making. Even allowing for the financial mismanagement imposed from “on high” these sorts of crass practices were booted out of the Underground decades ago. There is also far more rigour and challenge (typically) about how signalling changes are implemented (and designed / specced in the first place) and also how engineering works / possessions / protection arrangements are changed / updated while ensuring safety. I know New York has unique challenges as a result of its complexity and 24/7 operation but even so.
It will be interesting to see if Mr Byford can reform the organisation to stop such bizarre decisions being taken and then unpick the mess that has been created. I see the potential for problems with the unions is already there but there must be a way to stop engineering workers being killed.
WW
Ah, but introducing sensible signalling (etc) practices to NY will have been “Not Invented Here” & the US is even worse than us, or even LUL in that respect …..
Woolwich Ferries
Built in Danzig, oh dear … can we have these back, please? ( I can just remember them )
Piezo electric power and trains under the ground.
Has anyone else here read The Subways of Tazoo?
Woolwich ferries being built in Polish shipyard.
How are the mighty fallen!
@Greg T: Organising a fact finding mission would be fun, you’d have to start from basic principles:
1. Check everyone has a passport….
😉
With regards to the ferries, surely they are truly British? From all over the world just like the citizens?
From the NY signals article this sentence stood out:
“Before the 1995 Williamsburg Bridge crash, the M.T.A. had installed less expensive brakes with longer stopping distances without adjusting the signals to compensate.”
The plain line block signalling on MTA is a 3 aspect system with a yellow caution preceding a red, so I would expect the spacing between signals to be at least braking distance, with special sequences with shorter spacing when closing up at platforms. Decreasing trains’ braking performance so they couldn’t stop in the long established caution distance appears unbelievably negligent in the first place, but authorities might have assumed that sighting distance on approach to the caution could compensate to an extent. In straight tunnels sighting can be very good and often a number of signals ahead might be visible. There are some cases where good sighting might not be the case however, on curves for instance. In London, difficult sighting cases are often the only sites where distant signals are provided.
The timed mechanical trainstop operation is similar in concept to London’s ‘Moorgate controls’, applied there after the incident and in a number of other terminal platforms without overruns. In that case a series of additional trainstops were deployed along the platform each with their own timers triggered from a fixed point on the track on approach. The NY systems seems to use the existing trainstop at the signal. What wasn’t clear from the article was whether the signal itself is also held at red until the timer expires. I think that’s unlikely as it would mean a green could never be displayed at the distant and there could be preemption risks if approached reds were routinely expected to clear.
This deliberate hobbling of the old signalling seems only to strengthen the case for widescale conversion to CBTC. Even if money was no object that would still take decades to achieve however.
The engineering safe working arrangements requiring closure of adjacent tracks is particularly disruptive in NY as most routes are arranged with fairly closely spaced tracks in the same tunnel.
The article’s animated graphic illustrations are excellent.
@ Mark T – you know far more about signalling than I do but I find it reassuring that you use the term “negligent” when talking about the decisions re signalling and then use of weaker train brakes. It’s one of those things then when you read it you go “they did what?”. How on earth they did this but did not consider the full planopy of likely consequences is beyond me. I wonder what sort of safety risk assessment and technical / operational assurance processes they have?
I struggle to see how such “odd” (putting it mildly) changes could be introduced in the UK but perhaps I have my “UK rose tinted specs” on given some of the cock ups we are seeing on the NR network (though these are more policy / franchise related than safety / engineering )?
Are they talking about these?:
https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Subway_Signals:_Time_Signals
From the article I understood it to be referencing something similar-ish to the ‘multiple homes’ Robert Dell enjoyed using – signals with occupation timers attached to limit speed. Except, somehow the timing relays are poorly adjusted?
Do they have what would be akin to ‘Moorgate Control’ or TETS over there?
Is/was there an element of compromised overlap occurring?
@SH
It isn’t that they are foreign. It is a further sign of this country’s long term manifest contempt for its various engineering and manufacturing industries, many of which have been run down to the point of extinction.
I’d make a list but it is too depressing.
@BEN – It looks like the GT (grade time) configuration would be applicable in either the one or two shot form. These are normally used for controlling approach speeds “on grades, hence the name, or curves, or in approach to bumpers” according to the page you linked to. A general problem with braking capability could mean its use has become more widespread on plain track which previously did not need it. The ST (station time) method is used for “closing up” with multiple homes as we would classify it in UK. ‘Moorgate Control’ provides a series of additional trainstops along a terminal track, not at signal locations, each with their own elapsed timer. I haven’t seen such additional trainstops described in connection with MTA, but can’t categorically say they don’t exist in NY.