[PRCo] Re: METRORAIL DISASTER

[Schneider Fred]

Yes, I saw the movie Ten.   But I don't think there are any people  
who are really Tens.   I think there are some pretty fine 6s and 7s  
out there.

Yes, Herb, you understand that I worked all my life as a statistical  
analyst and manager in that area.   And I think if you can be the  
second busiest transit agency in North America and be as safe as  
WMATA has been since 1976 is miraculous since considering that it is  
a government agency.

If you want to see the comparison ... come with me some day and we'll  
go for a rush hour stroll on some of the expressways around the  
district.   Express can mean 30 miles per hour but that can still be  
faster than city streets.   Population of the Washington DC has  
dropped from 802,000 to 572,000 (-29%) since 1950 mostly due to  
ethnic flight.   However, because government needs to hold meetings  
it remains one of the three cities in the USA with the strongest  
urban core.  You have to keep all those Executive Branch offices  
around the President ... The Secretary of Transportation, for  
example, has to be where he can be called in for cabinet meetings  
with the president and his department has to be nearby (FTA, FRA,  
etc).   Same goes for all the other agencies.   The Legislative  
Branch has to be there too.   And then hundreds of thousands of  
lobbyists have to be there to tell us how to live our lives.   The  
commuter trains come out as far as Perryville Maryland (50 miles to  
the northeast), Fredericksburg on the south, Brunswick and Frederick  
on the west.  And the subway system is the heaviest hauler outside of  
New York.

Ed Tennyson echoed something I wanted to say but didn't on one the  
posts ... "you don't spend $900,000,000 replacing 300 cares that are  
not worn out yet" because some petty bureaucrat thinks they don't  
have the same strength as some of the other cars.   Furthermore, if  
you had begun to place an order then (2006) you still would not have  
them running today (June 2009).   And I guess I'm a little concerned  
with the design quality in an industry where all you need to qualify  
is having won a bid before.    You would probably wind up replacing  
inferior cars with something that doesn't match structurally other  
cars in the fleet.   Sounds to me like a no win situation no matter  
you do.

I think the only reason Chicago Transit Authority has so much success  
over the years with cars is because they had their own in house  
design team and they knew how to write specifications.  The car  
builders may not have like dealing with Walter Keevil and his boys  
but CTA got what they asked for.   But the rest of agencies go out  
and say we want 200 cars and leave it up to the car builder or the  
consultant who does a cut and paste job from prior specification  
books.   Ya gets what ya pays for.  (Signed resident cynic)

Maybe I shouldn't say that Chicago is alone.   Russ Jackson at SEPTA  
was rather instrumental in making sure that Kawasaki built the Broad  
Street subway cars, the streetcars in 1980 and the Norristown cars.    
We're talking equipment that has been running 20 to 29 years with no  
problems in an agency not noted for supreme competency.

When you have a business in which we have gradually abolished all  
repair shops because they require you to use local tax revenues to  
fix your equipment out of operating funds but if you defer  
maintenance until the whole damn thing nearly collapses and then you  
can get federal funds, you send your fleet away to have someone else  
fix it ... what is the quality of the fleet in the final years before  
you sent it away?   Toronto, for example, used to have a standard  
number of years between replacing all wiring in a streetcar or  
trolley bus or subway car.   Would that sort of thing be done today  
in the USA when you are trying to shift expenses over to Washington?

I don't have statistics available to compare private sector  
operations versus public sector operations.    It would be invalid  
anyway because there are 49 electric railways in the USA and Canada  
today that didn't exist before subsidized operations.

But I suspect prior to about 1965, Cleveland Transit probably paid  
all expenses out of the farebox including all maintenance.   Today  
they probably have shifted a lot of maintenance to capital by bidding  
out a lot of overhaul work to private corporations.   Am I correct,  
Herb?   If I'm not, they're different than most companies.

Somewhere on this list (or another one recently) someone was asking  
why they saw San Diego cars heading north on or south through  
California.   Reason was for overhauls.   Someone else was doing the  
work.

It's not like it was when Pittsburgh Railways cycled cars through  
Homewood every few months.  Why does PTM have 1138?   It was removed  
from service because class inspections were cancelled on all 1000s  
and 1100s were.   It was retired when it came due.   We did not run  
cars past inspection dates in those days.   The PUC would have had a  
field day.

On Jun 24, 2009, at 9:05 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> You apparently never saw Bo Derek. How come no women are 10s, but  
> men are?
> I know what you meant. I'm sure you agree the accident was tragic,  
> however,
> knowing your former occupation, I can understand what you were  
> trying to
> say. The statistics point to a top rate safety record per passenger  
> mile.
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Schneider Fred  
> <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:
>
>> Gentlemen:    There are no women who are 10s.   There are men who are
>> 10s.
>
>
>
>>
>> Fred Schneider
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Herb Brannon
>> On America's North Coast
>> One cannot accomplish anything without fanatacism.
>> *Evita Peron *
>>
>
>
>