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Post by fissure on Mar 17, 2012 0:52:02 GMT -8
I think this accurately captures how they're coming across.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 17, 2012 2:05:31 GMT -8
"Due to Expo construction planned to occur all day on Saturday, March 17, weather permitting, Blue Line trains will run every 20 minutes between 7th/Metro Center Station and Washington Station, and, every 10 minutes between Washington Station and Long Beach Transit Mall. Buses will be provided to shuttle passengers between Washington and 7th/Metro Center as an additional transit option. Passengers are advised to expect an additional 10-20 minutes to complete the trip. Rainy conditions may cancel construction work. The construction involves trackwork to install communication cables underground."
They are still installing new communications cables for the ATP and they still expect to open this line on April 15? I am not even considering the almost-certain cancellation of this due to the rain. Honestly.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 17, 2012 11:10:56 GMT -8
Work completed early according to the Metro website. I just went by on the blue line and saw no workers or equipment. Expo trains are currently testing.
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Post by Transit Coalition on Mar 17, 2012 15:17:18 GMT -8
The guy that wrote this article is completely unprofessional. The signaling issues are still unresolved and the six weeks of pre-revenue testing have not started.
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Post by WhiteCity on Mar 17, 2012 18:37:56 GMT -8
There's still a small pile of uprooted rails along the line in Rancho Park. It required some will power not to take one of the shorter pieces home with me. Has anyone figured out what they're going to do with them?
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Post by wad on Mar 18, 2012 3:55:58 GMT -8
Well... Let's not forget that if we didn't have the Zev's law, the Expo and Gold Lines would never get built... Well, the Gold Line at least. Zev's Law II will just mean future rail projects will be BRTstituted.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 18, 2012 7:34:30 GMT -8
The guy that wrote this article is completely unprofessional. The signaling issues are still unresolved and the six weeks of pre-revenue testing have not started. Maybe. But the author evidently interviewed the Chief Project Officer for Expo and quotes him in the article. What makes you so sure that your information is more correct than his? According to Metro Expo trains should be running every 12 minutes seven days per week from the opening of service to the close of service starting today. If that happens you have to figure that they are very close to being ready.
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Post by masonite on Mar 18, 2012 7:38:26 GMT -8
The guy that wrote this article is completely unprofessional. The signaling issues are still unresolved and the six weeks of pre-revenue testing have not started. Maybe, but he did have a quote from Expo. Maybe he misquoted and needs to retract. If so Expo needs to get ahead of this and clarify.
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Post by Transit Coalition on Mar 18, 2012 8:30:43 GMT -8
The guy that wrote this article is completely unprofessional. The signaling issues are still unresolved and the six weeks of pre-revenue testing have not started. Maybe. But the author evidently interviewed the Chief Project Officer for Expo and quotes him in the article. What makes you so sure that your information is more correct than his? According to Metro Expo trains should be running every 12 minutes seven days per week from the opening of service to the close of service starting today. If that happens you have to figure that they are very close to being ready. A. There are two people who will announce that pre-revenue service has started leading up to the Line opening: Metro CEO, Arthur T. Leahy or Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa.While the Chief Project Officer for the Construction Authority is mentioned, he isn't quoted on an Opening Date. Why? He builds and turns the project over. He doesn't operate or announce. Only the Metro Chair or the CEO announce. The Expo guy wasn't misquoted. It was the work of an amateur reporter that was too lazy to contact the Metro Media Relations Department or never realized that there were more to talk to besides Expo. He also got the opening year for Phase 2 wrong. And I do talk on a weekly basis to Art Leahy and some of the Executive Rail Staff. The technical problems on this line are never ending. Peel back and fix one problem and another pops up. Twenty years ago, no one ever visualized or specified for the operation of different types of vehicles or even a junction. These types of problems were discussed at the Transit Coalition Customer Conference in 2005 (before YouTube) and staff and management has changed several times over since then. One thing you can be sure is that currently the Line is not complete and it will NOT operate until it runs to specification 100% of the time, so it can be brought to the California Public Utilities Commission for certification. B. The Line will open when it is debugged and deemed safe, not only by Metro Executive Staff, but the PUC and the LA Fire Department. It will then pass certification. Right now, it CAN NOT pass.C. TTC is part of the Grand Opening Celebration. We get told of the opening, so we can start planning our booth. We haven't been notified.D. Pre-revenue rides are offered and every insider and transit fan will score a ride who wants one. Friends for Expo and Light Rail for Cheviot, who would be the first in line for test rides, haven't been notified. I realize that it is frustrating for many to see, feel and touch the Line, but not realize any sense of opening. The Metro Technical Crew wants to get to resolution, but they also remember lessons learned, such as the Challenger disaster. Safety concerns have penetrated to the Metro Board level. You don't see any Board Member questioning or worrying why the Line isn't open. Why? They understand that Expo must be safe. Others on this Discussion Board should embrace that concept and watch as the unwitting public learns that there are test trains on the line.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 18, 2012 9:33:31 GMT -8
I'm hopeful that the quick completion to whatever was going on yesterday was a good sign. Unless the Metro website was mistaken and "completed" really meant cancelled due to rain.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 18, 2012 10:17:18 GMT -8
Well... Let's not forget that if we didn't have the Zev's law, the Expo and Gold Lines would never get built... Well, the Gold Line at least. Zev's Law II will just mean future rail projects will be BRTstituted. There will be no BRT! Metro Rail operations are quite successful. LA has just become or about to become the city with the largest light-rail network (highest ridership) in US, surpassing Boston and San Francisco.
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Post by darrell on Mar 18, 2012 12:22:07 GMT -8
A. There are two people who will announce that pre-revenue service has started leading up to the Line opening: Metro CEO, Arthur T. Leahy or Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa. However, when I met with Eric Olson two weeks ago he was next going to meet on this very subject with Art Leahy and Paul Taylor. Although I still look forward to the official Metro announcement. Well... Let's not forget that if we didn't have the Zev's law, the Expo and Gold Lines would never get built... Well, the Gold Line at least. Zev's Law II will just mean future rail projects will be BRTstituted. "Zev's Law II"?? Zev became a champion for the Expo Line -- even standing up for it against the Cheviot-area opposition -- and the other Measure R projects.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 18, 2012 12:51:56 GMT -8
I think April 15, which I still hear from Metro insiders to be the planned opening day, is still Art Leahy's official target/goal, mostly due to Festival of Books, but I don't think it will happen. I don't think the line will be ready to open before May.
I agree with Darrell that Zev has helped a lot with light-rail in LA, especially Expo and Expo through Palms, Cheviot Hills, and Rancho Park.
He did oppose light-rail 20 years ago but he does publicly acknowledge that and he admits that that was a mistake and good politicians evolve their ideas.
The Valley BRT was probably a mistake too but he tried his best to build public transit there given the very strong opposition to light-rail and even BRT in the Valley, which I see as a big village filled with angry villagers.
I agree with his ban on local funds on subway construction, which was needed at that time to build the Gold Line and bring overall financial responsibility to MTA.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 18, 2012 14:06:34 GMT -8
I sat at the infamous junction for about 30 minutes today and can confirm that Expo is running every 12 minutes with a mixture of P2000's and P865's running. Also a mix of 2 and 3 car trains. While I was there I saw one 3-car P2000 and one 3-car P865, with the rest 2-car trains. The light synchronization down Flower is a little screwy now. Every single SB train that I saw and maybe half of the NB trains had to stop at the traffic light by the 10 fwy. Unless there is a new metro signal there...I guess that I didn't observe that closely. Expo intervals are pretty consistent, but the blue line intervals vary. Not sure if that has anything to do with testing as the blue line is sometimes like that. Also, I had asked earlier and no one had answered, but if anyone is interested the trains do not crawl through the junction. Well the blue line trains do, but no more than usual. The Expo trains go through at maybe 25 mph. Especially the SB trains. The NB trains seem slow from 23rd st station to the junction. I'm not sure that they were exceeding 25 mph and from what I could see may have been closer to 15 mph. And they didn't appear to be going slow in order to meet another train at the junction as that was their speed for all trains. All things considered it seemed to be going very well while I was there! The times that trains crossed the junction while I was there are listed below. 1:31 blue line NB 1:34 expo SB (3 car P865's) 1:35 expo NB (2 car P865's) 1:38 blue NB 1:42 blue SB 1:47 expo NB and SB (met inside the junction!) 1:52 blue SB 1:54 blue NB 1:57 expo NB 2:02 expo SB
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 18, 2012 14:17:34 GMT -8
I think April 15, which I still hear from Metro insiders to be the planned opening day, is still Art Leahy's official target/goal, mostly due to Festival of Books, but I don't think it will happen. I don't think the line will be ready to open before May. We'll see. Things seemed to be going pretty well today and it looked to me like whatever problem there was with the junction is now fixed. They can't announce that "officially" until they test it, but I'd guess that we hear something on the Source very soon regarding the junction. And something soon after that regarding an opening date. This is what I was alluding to earlier. They had blocked out all of yesterday to do whatever work they were planning to do and somehow it didn't take very long. I was thinking that what they may have been doing was putting the junction through testing in front of whoever needs to sign off on it and everything may have gone very well. I really doubt that they would be running trains every 12 minutes all day and night if they didn't think that the problems with the junction had been solved.
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Post by jamesinclair on Mar 18, 2012 15:41:21 GMT -8
Metro Rail operations are quite successful. LA has just become or about to become the city with the largest light-rail network (highest ridership) in US, surpassing Boston and San Francisco. not exactly. LA is getting close to SF, but the SF numbers dont include the 20,000 who ride the cable cars every day. Boston is still a long way off, and may not be passed until the regional connector enters service. And by then Boston will see its own extension come online, bumping its ridership.
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Post by masonite on Mar 18, 2012 16:23:46 GMT -8
Metro Rail operations are quite successful. LA has just become or about to become the city with the largest light-rail network (highest ridership) in US, surpassing Boston and San Francisco. not exactly. LA is getting close to SF, but the SF numbers dont include the 20,000 who ride the cable cars every day. Boston is still a long way off, and may not be passed until the regional connector enters service. And by then Boston will see its own extension come online, bumping its ridership. There was one quarter when LA had passed SF in light rail ridership. Even if you count cable cars, we should go by them with Expo Phase 1. Of course, on the Cable Cars, I am not sure they should really count as it is almost all tourists on joyrides. Boston may be a ways off, but I had heard they were having problems with their extension so we may still pass them with Expo Phase 2 and Foothill Gold Line in 2016. Ultimately, we will pass them with Crenshaw and the Connector. It will be nice when we pass BART, although passing BART plus Muni will take a while, especially with BART going towards San Jose (this would consider adding heavy rail ridership to the light rail totals in Wikipedia). I always thought 500k in Metrorail ridership would be a key tipping point where people will really start to notice our system both internally and externally. If Expo is a major success it would go a long way towards this. An 80k line, which is about my guess for Expo a year or so after it is fully open will open things up. Of course, I still think the Purple Line will be so huge that it will really change the city. Finally, Metrolink is slightly behind Caltrain in ridership, although one should also add ACE to their total. However, this figure is only a few thousand and I would expect Metrolink to pass them too with our bigger network. Agh, the comparisons to the Bay Area are always fun. It will shock people when one can say more people ride LA Metrorail than BART. People stalk think we have no public transit system here, especially in the Midwest and East Coast.
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Post by jdrcrasher on Mar 18, 2012 17:49:10 GMT -8
^actually I think there's a chance we'll pass Calgary once the connector is finished.
Now if only we can get a Measure R2, Monterrey will be on the horizon.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 18, 2012 19:39:52 GMT -8
Thanks for the report, Shawn! Perhaps they did finally turn on the automatic train protection at the junction.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Mar 18, 2012 20:36:56 GMT -8
Thanks for the report, Shawn! Perhaps they did finally turn on the automatic train protection at the junction. You're welcome. The time that I was there things appeared to be going very well. Here's a video of the two trains meeting in the junction. The SB train stopped because of the traffic light timing as sometimes happens. I want to try and make it tomorrow during rush hour, but not sure if I will.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 18, 2012 22:17:30 GMT -8
Nice video of simultaneous northbound and southbound Expo trains at the junction!
As you know, the tricky situation is when there is the simultaneous arriving at the junction of
a northbound Expo train
+
a southbound Blue Line train or/and a northbound Blue Line train
(two or three trains, with the nortbound Expo train crossing the track of one or two Blue Line trains)
Therefore, I would like to see reports or videos of the above.
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Post by matthewb on Mar 19, 2012 2:11:14 GMT -8
Nice video of simultaneous northbound and southbound Expo trains at the junction! As you know, the tricky situation is when there is the simultaneous arriving at the junction of a northbound Expo train +a southbound Blue Line train or/and a northbound Blue Line train (two or three trains, with the nortbound Expo train crossing the track of one or two Blue Line trains)
Therefore, I would like to see reports or videos of the above.Do they have coordination of the trains further down the line? If so, this is exactly the kind of situation they would purposefully avoid. It's much better for a blue line train to spend a little bit more time at Grand or Pico, and/or for an expo line train to dwell a bit longer at 23rd street.
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Post by rubbertoe on Mar 19, 2012 5:54:27 GMT -8
not exactly. LA is getting close to SF, but the SF numbers dont include the 20,000 who ride the cable cars every day. Boston is still a long way off, and may not be passed until the regional connector enters service. And by then Boston will see its own extension come online, bumping its ridership. There was one quarter when LA had passed SF in light rail ridership. Even if you count cable cars, we should go by them with Expo Phase 1. Of course, on the Cable Cars, I am not sure they should really count as it is almost all tourists on joyrides. Boston may be a ways off, but I had heard they were having problems with their extension so we may still pass them with Expo Phase 2 and Foothill Gold Line in 2016. Ultimately, we will pass them with Crenshaw and the Connector. It will be nice when we pass BART, although passing BART plus Muni will take a while, especially with BART going towards San Jose (this would consider adding heavy rail ridership to the light rail totals in Wikipedia). I always thought 500k in Metrorail ridership would be a key tipping point where people will really start to notice our system both internally and externally. If Expo is a major success it would go a long way towards this. An 80k line, which is about my guess for Expo a year or so after it is fully open will open things up. Of course, I still think the Purple Line will be so huge that it will really change the city. Finally, Metrolink is slightly behind Caltrain in ridership, although one should also add ACE to their total. However, this figure is only a few thousand and I would expect Metrolink to pass them too with our bigger network. Agh, the comparisons to the Bay Area are always fun. It will shock people when one can say more people ride LA Metrorail than BART. People stalk think we have no public transit system here, especially in the Midwest and East Coast. Masonite, Concerning the last two points. I or someone else (I for get) in the Green Line to LAX thread pointed out the following: 7% of LA county residents and 11% of LA city residents take transit to work. Near the top of American cities.It may take awhile for that to sink into the collective psyche of the rest of the country. A few hundred more miles of train tracks in LA COunty should do the trick... RT
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Post by rubbertoe on Mar 19, 2012 6:08:52 GMT -8
Nice video of simultaneous northbound and southbound Expo trains at the junction! As you know, the tricky situation is when there is the simultaneous arriving at the junction of a northbound Expo train +a southbound Blue Line train or/and a northbound Blue Line train (two or three trains, with the nortbound Expo train crossing the track of one or two Blue Line trains)
Therefore, I would like to see reports or videos of the above.Do they have coordination of the trains further down the line? If so, this is exactly the kind of situation they would purposefully avoid. It's much better for a blue line train to spend a little bit more time at Grand or Pico, and/or for an expo line train to dwell a bit longer at 23rd street. Matthew, The best solution to having to deal with 3-4 trains arriving at the junction at the same time is to not let it happen in the first place. But I think that because the trains are manually operated, all it would take is a few coincidental delays to a few trains and then you are faced with that situation. No doubt in my mind that the ATP system has to sort this all out, letting each operator know when to proceed. Having 3 trains would seem to be the worst case, since the Blue and Expo dispatches going South from 7th/Metro will be 6 minutes apart, so those 2 trains aren't likely to get very bunched up by the time they reach the junction. Although if there is a big event letting out at Staples, they might be dispatching Southbound trains as fast as they can fill them up, so you never know. An automated system controlling a shared resource (junction, tunnel, single track) has a bit of an easier time since it can do what you suggest much easier, since it is in complete control of all the trains. I remember many years ago riding BART in SF, and the train came to a complete stop in Oakland while traveling West, apparently for no reason. I asked another rider if they knew why the train was stopping between stations, and they said it often times happened before the trans-bay tube, so the trains entering the tube from the various lines would have the required spacing. RT
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Post by matthewb on Mar 19, 2012 6:22:59 GMT -8
Do they have coordination of the trains further down the line? If so, this is exactly the kind of situation they would purposefully avoid. It's much better for a blue line train to spend a little bit more time at Grand or Pico, and/or for an expo line train to dwell a bit longer at 23rd street. Matthew, The best solution to having to deal with 3-4 trains arriving at the junction at the same time is to not let it happen in the first place. But I think that because the trains are manually operated, all it would take is a few coincidental delays to a few trains and then you are faced with that situation. No doubt in my mind that the ATP system has to sort this all out, letting each operator know when to proceed. Having 3 trains would seem to be the worst case, since the Blue and Expo dispatches going South from 7th/Metro will be 6 minutes apart, so those 2 trains aren't likely to get very bunched up by the time they reach the junction. Although if there is a big event letting out at Staples, they might be dispatching Southbound trains as fast as they can fill them up, so you never know. An automated system controlling a shared resource (junction, tunnel, single track) has a bit of an easier time since it can do what you suggest much easier, since it is in complete control of all the trains. I remember many years ago riding BART in SF, and the train came to a complete stop in Oakland while traveling West, apparently for no reason. I asked another rider if they knew why the train was stopping between stations, and they said it often times happened before the trans-bay tube, so the trains entering the tube from the various lines would have the required spacing. RT My point wasn't that it couldn't happen, just that it might not happen very often. Therefore Gokhan's request for a video might be hard to supply without waiting with a video camera for many hours.
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Post by masonite on Mar 19, 2012 9:21:43 GMT -8
There was one quarter when LA had passed SF in light rail ridership. Even if you count cable cars, we should go by them with Expo Phase 1. Of course, on the Cable Cars, I am not sure they should really count as it is almost all tourists on joyrides. Boston may be a ways off, but I had heard they were having problems with their extension so we may still pass them with Expo Phase 2 and Foothill Gold Line in 2016. Ultimately, we will pass them with Crenshaw and the Connector. It will be nice when we pass BART, although passing BART plus Muni will take a while, especially with BART going towards San Jose (this would consider adding heavy rail ridership to the light rail totals in Wikipedia). I always thought 500k in Metrorail ridership would be a key tipping point where people will really start to notice our system both internally and externally. If Expo is a major success it would go a long way towards this. An 80k line, which is about my guess for Expo a year or so after it is fully open will open things up. Of course, I still think the Purple Line will be so huge that it will really change the city. Finally, Metrolink is slightly behind Caltrain in ridership, although one should also add ACE to their total. However, this figure is only a few thousand and I would expect Metrolink to pass them too with our bigger network. Agh, the comparisons to the Bay Area are always fun. It will shock people when one can say more people ride LA Metrorail than BART. People stalk think we have no public transit system here, especially in the Midwest and East Coast. Masonite, Concerning the last two points. I or someone else (I for get) in the Green Line to LAX thread pointed out the following: 7% of LA county residents and 11% of LA city residents take transit to work. Near the top of American cities.It may take awhile for that to sink into the collective psyche of the rest of the country. A few hundred more miles of train tracks in LA COunty should do the trick... RT To know that our system has really arrived, I'd like to see local traffic reports give a quick run down of the system to at least say all metro trains are running on time at the end of the traffic reports. They do this at least some of the time in the Bay Area. Yes, once you go across the country or overseas, people think there is absolutely no public transit in LA and one must drive everywhere. I think people have seen LA Story too many times.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 19, 2012 11:08:30 GMT -8
There were hardly any test trains running later this morning. There was one three-car Nippon Sharyo at La Cienega idling and perhaps there was one Siemens train by USC moving but that could have been idling too.
Culver City Station work is progressing with glacier speed. There is still the hi-rail truck with the coil of orange cable at the west end of the structure, with a couple of construction workers doing something at the west end. Train testing cannot start there until they finish what they are doing on the aerial structure.
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Post by bzcat on Mar 19, 2012 11:29:41 GMT -8
D. Pre-revenue rides are offered and every insider and transit fan will score a ride who wants one. Friends for Expo and Light Rail for Cheviot, who would be the first in line for test rides, haven't been notified. All I read is that there will be pre-revenue rides for transit fans. Does "transit fan" mean us? People on this board? ;D
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 19, 2012 11:54:25 GMT -8
Well, apparently CPUC approved the junction on Friday, which means that the line could technically open as early as on Sunday, April 15, 2012, after the FTA-required four-week prerevenue operation, which started on Sunday, March 18, and is currently taking place, is completed.
I will let you know if I find out more.
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Post by matthewb on Mar 19, 2012 13:15:00 GMT -8
Well, apparently CPUC approved the junction on Friday, which means that the line could technically open as early as on Sunday, April 15, 2012, after the FTA-required four-week prerevenue operation, which started on Sunday, March 18, and is currently taking place, is completed. I will let you know if I find out more. Source?
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