METRO NORTH NEW HAVEN RAIL COMMUTER COUNCIL
(Established in 1985 under Connecticut Public Act 85-239, now Sections 13b-212b and
13b -212c of the Connecticut General Statutes)
MINUTES OF APRIL 21, 2010
GRAYBAR BUILDING AT GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Present were: Jim Cameron, Chairman; Bob Jelley, Drew Todd, Jack Testani, John Hartwell, Terri Cronin, Connor Murphy, Jeff Maron, and Jeff Steele, members of the Council; Jim Redecker and Gene Colonese, DOT; George Okvat, Joe Kanell, Phil Diaz, Bob MacLagger and John Hogan, Metro North Railroad; Martin Cassidy, Stamford Advocate; John Austin, member of the public.
The Minutes of the February meeting were approved. There was no March meeting.
BAR CARS
Jim Cameron raised the matter of the April 20th New York Times article stating that bar cars were likely to be discontinued on the New Haven line. He said that it was clear that the old rehabilitated bar cars would continue to be used on trains made up of old cars. He went on to ask Jim Redecker what the situation was for new bar cars. Mr. Redecker said that Kawasaki was presently pricing new M-8 bar car designs, and that the DOT would make a decision about buying new bar cars when it received Kawasaki’s pricing. Jeff Maron asked Mr. Redecker to furnish a picture of the bar car design that was being priced, and Mr. Redecker said he would do so.
FARE HIKE
Mr. Redecker, in answer to a question, said that there was no change in the plans for a fare hike. No hearings have yet been scheduled.
SERVICE CUTS
Mr. Redecker said that the Governor continues to oppose cutting the three trains that Metro North has proposed cutting. Robert MacLagger said that lawyers on both sides were studying the question of the proposed service cuts.
M-8 CARS
Mr. Redecker reported that six cars are in New Haven being tested, and two more cars are somewhere between Baltimore and New Haven. He confirmed that no cars have yet to be tested under power. He said that testing remained on schedule to put some new trains in service by the end of 2010.
NEW LONDON SERVICE ON SHORE LINE EAST
Mr. Redecker reported that one new train in each direction had been added to New London service, and three more trains in each direction would be added on May 10. He said that a midday train in each direction had been postponed until some bridge work has been completed. He said that there was a two-year commitment to monitor the additional trains and their affect on boating. He said there was no weekend service planned for this summer.
DOT STAFF
Mr. Cameron asked whether the State’s financial situation was going to result in forced retirement of additional DOT employees. Mr. Redecker said that he did not know whether a cut in State employment would affect the DOT, but he pointed out that 35% of the DOT staff was eligible to retire within the next five years.
STAMFORD TRANSPORTATION STUDY AND THE STAMFORD GARAGE
Mr. Cameron reported that he and John Hartwell had attended Stamford’s public hearing on its new transportation plan. He said that among other things, there was talk of extending the Stamford station platforms at each end with new garages near the new ends of the platforms and up and over structures directly from the new garages to the two ends of the extended platforms. He said that part of the argument for that solution to the garage problem was to spread out passengers over the full length of the platforms. . . a problem perhaps more easily solved by extending platform canopies. That concept envisioned using the present old garage space for some other kind of building. Mr. Redecker said that the reason the DOT is waiting on the City’s transportation study, is because the DOT wants to know what the City’s priorities are. But he added that there was no real pricing on any of the City’s proposals. He went on to say that the DOT’s priority in the railroad station area is a new garage.
Jeff Maron raised once again the question of the issues raised after the early December walkthrough of the old and new garages. Gene Colonese said that the garage manager was putting in some additional stop signs, as discussed in December. He also said that the garage manager had considered eliminating some parking spaces in order to provide better site lines at intersections but that the DOT was concerned about the loss of spaces. Mr. Colonese also said that he would be sure that we got the promised write-up from the garage manager of things to be done as a result of the walkthrough.
DANBURY LINE
Mr. Redecker said that the project for putting signals on the Danbury line was moving forward. He reminded the Council that starting in August there will be midday buses on the Danbury line.
Mr. Cameron asked about the recent collision on the Danbury line. Joe Kanell said that one train on a side track protruded slightly on the operating track and was hit by a passing train. There were no injuries, and $20,000 worth of damage to one car. He said that the cause of the accident was still being investigated.
GREENWICH TIE REPLACEMENT
It was reported that the reason for replacing concrete ties in Greenwich that were installed in the 1990’s is that they were defective. They are being replaced with new concrete ties.
WEST HAVEN RAILROAD STATION
Mr. Cameron asked why the planned 1,100 car garage was not going to be built as part of the building of a new West Haven station. Mr. Redecker said that not building the garage and replacing it with a 700 car service lot had been mutually agreed upon with the Town. He said that the Town wanted to first consider a parking facility as part of Transit Oriented Development.
PARKING TASK FORCE
In answer to a question from Mr. Cameron, Mr. Redecker said that he had given the Parking Task Force a slightly lower priority because of other things that seemed more important. Mr. Cameron suggested the importance of creating more parking now that the M-8s are so close to coming into service.
MONTHLY OPERATIONS REPORT
Mr. Cameron congratulated Metro North at having done so well in operating trains during bad weather this past winter. There was then discussion of the decline in ridership, and Mr. Colonese said that 2008, in which ridership was the highest ever, was an unusual year because of the elevated gasoline prices which caused more people to take the train.
APRIL 13 PUBLIC ADDRESS EVACULATION ANNOUNCEMENT
Mr. Cameron raised the question of the erroneous platform announcement on April 13 telling people to evacuate the stations and stay 300 feet away from railroad property. George Okvat said that the announcement was caused by a computer malfunction. He went on to say that the announcement was subsequently corrected. Terri Cronin said that many people missed their trains because of running away from the station in South Norwalk. She said the police had closed the station. Mr. Cameron asked why there was no service e-mail alert telling people that the evacuation message had been erroneous. Mr. Okvat said that the MNR thought the public address correction was sufficient. Mr. Cameron pointed out that if people were 300 feet away, they would not be able to hear the correction. Mr. Maron suggested that it might have been useful for MNR to have sent its correction to the “Clever Commute” op-in-e-mail service. Mr. Okvat said that MNR communication will improve in the next 6-12 months. Mr. Hartwell suggested that MNR try out their plans for better communications first in meetings of the Council.
MAY MEETING
Mr. Hartwell suggested that the May meeting be held in Wilton and Mr. Cameron said he would see if he could arrange it.
TRAINTIME
Mr. Okvat and Phil Diaz gave a presentation about the operation of TrainTime. They explained that the location of trains is determined by sensors in the tracks, which then compare the location of the train with the timetable. They went on to say that there are a couple of people who manually input information into TrainTime, probably about 5% of the information presented. They also said that the Danbury branch, which is not presently on TrainTime, will be on TrainTime when the signal system is installed.
There was some discussion of installation of TrainTime monitors at stations in Connecticut. Mr. Okvat said that Connecticut would have to appropriate the money for installation of such monitors. There are two types of monitors: light-emitting diodes (LEDs), on the platforms, as at 125th St., showing the next three trains, and liquid crystal diodes (LCDs), usually in stations, showing the next 12 trains. Mr. Redecker asked whether fiber optic cable was necessary for operation of TrainTime monitors, and Mr. Diaz said that as a practical matter, the answer was yes.
Mr. Okvat said that in severe service disruptions, TrainTime would probably not be able to operate and would have to be turned off. He also said that if the signal system failed, TrainTime, would not operate.
Bob Jelley raised several questions. He said that for trains that run express from Stamford or Greenwich to 125th Street and GCT, there is no way of knowing from TrainTime whether or not the train is likely to arrive at GCT on time. That is because TrainTime at 125th Street only shows outbound trains, and TrainTime at GCT only shows outbound trains. Mr. Jelley suggested that TrainTime for GCT could be divided into three sections, one for each of the lines, so that both arrivals and departures would be shown. Another idea discussed was to have, for GCT, a separate arrivals display different from the departures display. Mr. Okvat said that that problem was being worked on and might be solved by this fall.
Mr. Jelley pointed out that TrainTime is confusing when it shows delays for trains that are already running and then shows trains that have not yet begun to run as “on time”. He suggested the possibility of some indication of whether trains were actually running or not. Mr. Jelley also pointed out that for the Danbury and Waterbury lines, which do not have TrainTime, an indication that an inbound train is on time at South Norwalk or Bridgeport is only displaying actual information when the train arrives on the New Haven line tracks.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:00 pm.
Bob Jelley
Secretary
Phone: (203) 498-4306
E-mail: rjelley@wiggin.com
[In a conversation with Bob Jelley just prior to the meeting, Mr. Colonese confirmed that the West Haven station will be built on the sides of four tracks. He said that it was the plan of the DOT to rebuild the fourth track (the inbound local track) from the Housatonic River to New Haven. At present there is no fourth track from the Housatonic River to Orange, and there is the old fourth track from Orange to New Haven, but it is bolted track, not welded track, and has no signals or catenary. He said the State would first rebuild the fourth track from New Haven to Orange, and would subsequently rebuild the track from Orange to the Housatonic River. That will require moving the inbound Milford platform, which presently sits on top of the location for the fourth track.]
