Watch the doors
March 13th 2008 03:39 pm
The Asbury Park Press reports that doors on NJ Transit trains have been opening while trains were in motion:
United Transportation Union officials revealed a list of six incidents in February in which doors opened up while trains were in motion on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Morris and Essex lines.
In addition, a train car door closed on a Raritan Valley Line passenger, said officials from the union, which represents NJ Transit conductors and assistant conductors.
The article lists the six incidents where doors opened, including at least one case where the center doors of a car opened while the train was traveling through the Hudson River tunnels.
NJ Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles said he was familiar with the door malfunction reports and will have a report for the board by the April meeting.
“Our number one priority is safety,” he said.
[Patrick Reilly, general chairman of UTU Local 60], also detailed two design defects with NJ Transit’s Comet V rail cars, the second-newest cars in the fleet, and the new multi-level cars now being delivered. Those involve hand brakes on the rail cars, which he said don’t meet standards of the FRA safety appliance act.
Sarles said that issue is being addressed.
MainLiner responded on 13 Mar 2008 at 6:26 pm #
NJT could learn a few things from Metro-North about door safety policies (among other things). The latter organization truly takes them seriously. I wish the NJT board had the balls to bring in someone like former MN president Don Nelson to tell them how bad things really are! His report on the LIRR is fascinating reading:
http://www.mta.info/lirr/pubs/Assessment09-27-07.pdf
In a related incident, here’s an interesting blog post about a guy who claims he almost fell out onto Watching Avenue when his train blew past the platform and the door opened on the bridge. Nice job, NJT.
http://www.baristanet.com/2008/03/talk_about_your_scary_commutes.php
Joe Versaggi responded on 14 Mar 2008 at 7:34 am #
To think this pathetic excuse for a transit agency was winning APTA awards a decade ago.
APTA should start a new category of class clown or dunce awards.
MainLiner responded on 14 Mar 2008 at 1:42 pm #
Mr. Stessel on the Watching Avenue incident:
“The incident was investigated by our senior railroad managers. It was determined that the train’s engineer erroneously pulled two cars off the platform, following a special instruction for a different station. We have taken appropriate action.
In addition, the railroad’s general superintendent reached out directly to the customer who took the picture to follow-up, and we had supervisors aboard the train the following night to talk to other Watchung Avenue customers.”
…as reported on http://www.baristanet.com/2008/03/nj_transit_on_overshooting_the.php
Typical of NJT to blame the crew and not equipment failure, poorly communicated special instructions, or inadequate safety training. Stessel shouldn’t be mouthing off until a formal investigation has been concluded, unless someone owned-up to a mistake. I’m beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt at this point, I’m sorry to say.
I’m not sure about NJT, but on Metro-North, it is my understanding that the conductor is responsible for ensuring that doors don’t open if they’re not on the platform — they need to know the ’spots’ and platform lengths as well as the engineer. This policy doesn’t prevent problems due to equipment failures, but dual-responsibility reduces the chances for human error.
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 14 Mar 2008 at 2:19 pm #
Metro-North also does not have two types of platform, except on the West-of-Hudson side (operated by NJT) and perhaps one remaining exception east of the Hudson (Poughkeepsie has had a high platform for a number of years).
Have NJT passengers forgotten about the time when trains ran with the doors open all the time? There are signs on the doors, too, that state “Do not ride in the vestibule” and “Do not lean on the doors”. Perhaps it would be cheaper to not reduce crew size and go back to manual door operation?
Bob Scheurle responded on 14 Mar 2008 at 4:48 pm #
Do the Metro-North trains open their doors while the train is underway in a tunnel?
coffeelen responded on 18 Mar 2008 at 8:22 pm #
The NJT door situation is something I live with everyday traveling on MidTown Direct from Chatham to Penn Station- NY. On every ride, I will hear the familiar refrain at least once: “Check end doors”. When all else fails, someone just says: “Go to bypass”. On the double-deckers, they are having door problems. Combine having to go upstairs or downstairs in order to exit with malfunctioning doors and you have additional dwell time & delay. There does not appear to be anybody at NJT able to correct the problem and there is no accountability. Mr. Sarles saying they are “looking into it” is not an acceptable response. Don’t come down too hard on Dan Stessel–he’s just a mouthpiece telling folks what he is told to tell them. Blame the person telling him what to say because the excuses are worse than “the dog ate my homework”.
Jishnu Mukerji responded on 20 Mar 2008 at 10:29 am #
As long as NJT is unwilling to fix institutional problems of less than ideal level of competence at MMC and their mechanical department, these problems will keep on occurring, and they will keep blaming everything and everyone other than where the blame is due.
stuw6 responded on 20 Mar 2008 at 10:11 pm #
Want to see the doors close properly? Simply make their pension dependent upon doors closing properly. I bet they would have the problem fixed in no time.
Joe Versaggi responded on 22 Mar 2008 at 7:30 am #
Their bonus’s should be a function of OTP, which is a by-product of door-problems; their base pay a function of scheduled running time.
Jishnu Mukerji responded on 23 Mar 2008 at 12:03 pm #
I agree that schedule running times of trains should be a metric on which NJT-RO performance is measured. At present the only metric appears to be OTP with nothing to prevent fixing OTP by simply extending running times. This needs to change. Given the current situation, the more the doors fail the more they extend the schedules to work around it. No incentive to do anything else.