B.DoT Wants 3 of the 4 Trolley Crossings Removed Off N Line

Katelinn Neighborhood. Metropolis, BR

The N Trolley soon may go over Savanna St instead of crossing it at level.

Today, Nicholette Casey (president of Metropolis Transit), Felix Dorado (V.P. of B.DoT) & Mayor Simon Casey sat down at City Hall today to discuss the 2016-2017 Budget and Plans. A rather interesting issue was brought up that had the attention of both Metropolis Transit & the city. The number of street crossing accidents along the N Trolley has risen and very soon in 2018 a new rail link to Downtown Metropolis from Boga Island is suppose to cross the busy Ocean Avenue in order to get into the tunnel. This means the game has changed in terms of goals. Now faced with heavy recommendations from B.DoT has laid out, Metropolis Transit might consider two options. One option is adding bridges and tunnels along the N trolley line to improve speed, service, & safety. Three S's the public want to hear. Another is rebuilding Blue Beach station into an open trench to go under Ocean Avenue. This would removed a crossing that hasn't even seen one train yet. Both options would vastly improve service but would cost millions to undertake.

Blue Beach Lower Level might also be replaced.

With talks about $20 Million in total to just to the N Line, it no wonder MT's President, Nicholette Casey was reluctlant on moving forward with the plans. In a statement to TMC she stated "It's money I personally wish not to spend but have to. Right now the trolley system need new tracks and wires, there's a lot of work to be done on Trees Avenue and Casey Blvd's S2 station needs to be rebuilt. Crossings were the last thing on my mind. That was until I was shown the stats, people ARE dying at these crossings." Since 2011, 14 people alone were struck along the N corridor though only 6 of them were fatal. Most recently, a trolley pinned a car into a wire pole after it tried to beat the trolley at Savanna Street's crossing in the Katelinn section of Metropolis. 5 of the 6 fatal accidents in the past 4 years have been at this crossing because of the higher speeds the N trolley operates at. The speed limit prior to Savanna Street crossing was recently reduced from 45 MPH to 30 MPH in order to give trolleys more time to stop. It has not worked. 

Trees and heavy brush is blamed for Savanna St's notorious crossing. 

The current plan right now is to build a trolley bridge over Savanna Street while SW 48th & SW 49th Street crossing will be replaced by an open trench. There's even a hint of possible new station at SW 49th Street. It's been 11 years since the original SW 49th Street station was shut down due to low ridership. The population in the area has gone up, but even so as of right now Metropolis Transit and B.DoT are more focused on just removing the crossings, not adding new stations. Work on these crossing is expected to be completed by 2017 if chosen by November by the City Board. The N trolley will most likely be bussed during the construction of the new bridge and trenches. The 22/26 Elevated lines will most likely be uninterrupted by their construction.

New Buses and Newer Trolleys Are Heading For Metropolis.

Metropolis, BR. March 26th, 2015.

First of New 60 Foot Buses for Metropolis Transit

Metropolis Transit accepted a new bus into it's fleet on Tuesday after completing a mandatory 200 Mile test run to see if any engine or door defects are detected. When the demo arrived last fast, it suffered from a brake defect that sent it back to Solaris/New Flyer's Portland Plant. Now ready for service, the bus was transferred from Justin Slaven Depot to Ran Mourie Depot and will go into service along the 74 Ocean Avenue Line. As more units are delivered they will go into testing for their 200 miles joyrides until they're ready for service as well. 

DashTransit's new trolleys will look similar to one's they're borrowing from Metropolis Transit. 

As Metropolis Transit's order for brand new Siemens S70 trolley cars come to end, there's now time to work on the 20 newer S70 trolley cars that were purchased by Metropolis Transit as an option. These trolleys however are not going on Metropolis Transit's rails. They will however serve DashTransit's Metropolis Connector. The Blue & Light Blue Loop will move their trolley operations away from Ran Mourie Depot in Bay of Silence to the rebuilt House Park Depot that DashTransit now owns. The vintage trolleys being used on the Red Loop will go back to their respective museums. DashTransit is also study bringing light rail service along the south shore of the Byberry River to Sydney from Portland. This however is a few years in making and will probably not have the same trolley cars as the Connector.

The 26 Line Suffering From Frequent Weather Related Shutdowns.

Boga Island, BR. March 4th 2015.

The 26 Boga Island El Line is prone to shutdowns from water & weather. 

The 26 elevated line is an open target for weather. The low bridge that crosses the Atlantic Ocean to Boga Island has been being succumbed by water with every Nor'Eastern storm passing the area and the wire above it has been forming ice even on days where winter storms aren't even present. It's a costly issue that's delaying and shutting down train service. Trains are getting damaged and fires have broken out from poor electricity contact from the train to the wires because of large amount of ice glaze.

Older Train Cars Have De-Icing Equipment for Power Wires. 

All elevated train use a device called a Pantograph which an antenna that acts like an electrical collector bring the power from the wires to the train wheels. About 45 pantographs (that's 45 train cars in total), have been damaged or burned from large chunks of icy glaze. In total about $10,000 was spent replacing them and more trains were rotated out to Boga Island then usual leaving noticiable service gaps on other lines. A few Rt 39 & Rt 65 trains were canceled because their cars were running on the 26 line clearing ice since older elevated cars have ice scrapers attached to the roofs protecting the electrical pantograph from ice damage. The problem comes from ocean spray as well, sometimes ocean spray on clear cold night does form ice on the tracks and wires.

There are plans to replace the Boga Island Bridge with something higher that will clear the ocean spray but will still be open to ice storms. Workers have suggested using beat & pickle juice to coat the wires that way they don't freeze as easily. Another idea was installing insulators who will heat up certain sections of wire. Of course it would require one every 200 feet. A costly amount. Until the agency is keep their fingers crossed there will be no more Ice storms anytime soon.

Metropolis Transit On Ice: El Trains Suffer Equipment Damage

Metropolis, BR. February 16th, 2015.

Icy Wires Wrecked about $4000 of electrical equipment on the elevated trains.

This morning's Rush Hour came to stand still on the 22, 26 & 79 lines when cold artic storm and lots of wind driven ocean spray cause ice to form on the wires that power the subway cars for those line. In an attempt to run trains on the lines, $4000 of overhead equipment was damaged. The lines were shut down at 8 AM right at the height of rush hour. The icy wires also slowed trolley service with speed restrictions on the 7, 21, 56 & 66 lines hampered service. The 5 trolley was also extended to Exhibition Hall to aid the 79's shutdown was impacted. Thankfully not trolley cars were damaged.

Older train cars have ice fighting equipment. 

The 42 remaining 51 year old el cars have overhead ice fighting equipment attached to them and can remove ice at a rapid rate. They are usually assigned to the 39 line with a set floating around on the 79 & 47 but all the 39 cars were taken off and placed on the 79 during the outage to scrape off the ice on the wires. There are also 8 of the old cars that are used for work service that assisted in the ice removal off the 22 & 26 lines. Service was restored by 11 PM this morning.

Trees Avenue Residents and Business Owner Sound Off About Subway

Metropolis, BR. January 26th 2015.

Trees Aveue Subway Construction At Waves-Meadow Loop. 

Months after the first tunnel shaft was dug under Waves-Meadow Loop, residents and business owners are sounding off about the proposed cut and cover construction of the Trees Avenue Subway. Plans to add a station at Trees & Interfair are making business owners nervous.

"Barriers, walls, gates, and anything you can name," said the owner of DeLavia's Pizza. They see it in New York City they claim. "2nd Avenue Subway, a mess! They want to do the same thing here."

Proposals of a Trees Avenue Subway was planned since 1982 but was never carried out due to budget constrains. Under the current plan, the 22 & 26 are planned to be sent into a tunnel under Waves-Meadow Loop and sidewander into Trees Avenue where trains will stop at The Interfair then continues into a new set a platforms adjecent to the Bridgerissa Commuter/Amtrak tracks at Metropolis Central Station. The proposal includes opening the street, digging the tunnel while the street is on wooden planks, the covering it up when the hole is dug and lined. It already causing protesst from the businesses.

The city council of Metropolis granted these business will get some sort of reperation for allowing the constuction in front of their store but for some stores it's not going to change the fact they will be losing business.

"We can't be sitting on our thumbs doing nothing," Frank Eglestien, GM of the 38c Clothing Store in front of The Interfair. "Fashion Week is set to begin in March and that's our cash cow. There is no way the money the city is paying us will cover any loses from Fashion Week."

Fashion Week is the biggest fashion convention held at The Interfair.

Freak Winter Tornado Impacts Two Major Transit Depots

South Morgan, BR. January 7th 2015.

Tornado seen destroying homes along 35th Street.

January isn't the month you'd expect to see a tornado but on Monday, January 5th, 2015 a large EF-2 tornado blew through Pecan Valley, South Morgan & Morganville destroying hundreds of apartments and homes. One of the unique things about the tornado was it's path along the N & 47 Corridor. It cross the N trolley line twice, and the 47 twice both times striking two major transit storage facilities near the tracks. The 47's main train depot was hit and two cars were slightly thrown into electrical wire poles. The depot's main build is missing glass and the power wire that give trains juice has been ripped apart. This has cause the 47 to end short at Morganville Station instead of Freehold. The N Trolley was also downed for a period of time but that was fixed within hours of the tornado strike. 

A Work Train fixing power wires near 35th Street station. 

The elevated train depot wasn't the only victim of the tornado's wrath. Slaven Bus Depot was also struck by the tornado and the result was 12 completely destroyed buses and 100 more damaged in some sort of way. The power wires for the trackless trolleybuses also were mangled in the onslaught. Of the 12 destroyed buses, 2 of them were loaner buses from Great Grundolf Transportation as part of a deal to increase service on the 79 Elevated shuttle bus. The tornado also prove to be deadly killing 2 men and injuring hundreds. It was rated EF2 based on it's damage but almost became a EF3 grade. Some homes did receive EF3 grade damage but it wasn't enough constant degree of EF3 in a pattern to give it that rate. The Southwest Metropolis Tornado is the first natural disaster Metropolis faced since Hurricane Sandy back in 2012.

Front of a leased Great Grundolf bus thrown in front of trackless coaches. 

The 47 Elevated is expected to return to Freehold by the end of the week.

Mandatory Hurricane Improvements Calls For More Elevated Space

North Christine, BR. January 3rd, 2015.

Blue Beach Yard Received 6 inches of Sea Water During Sandy 

For a system that uses the words "Elevated Railway", it actually hard to believe only 60% of the elevated network is above street & sea level. The 22, 26, 39, 47 & 79 lines all have significant portions of track at street level with the 22, 26, 39 & 79 being only a mere feet from the salty ocean. On normal days, this may seem scenic until a storm like Hurricane Sandy hit and engulfs those sections of track under feet of water. This leaves very limited space to store trains out of the damaging salt water's way. The NTSB and BDot spent the past two year conducting a study about train storage in the case of any high wave event whether if it's hurricane, nor'easter, or a earthquake triggered tsunami and the results are very grim. With the system expanding it's fleet with 150 new cars along with current 150 cars from 2005 and the 48 soon-to-retire cars from 1964 it will be nearly impossible to save the entire fleet from salt water unless more elevated space is created.

South Clubs Station is particularly vulnerable. 

Most of the Elevated Subway System in Metropolis stems from experimental elevated trolley routes as well as a few regular trolley routes that were outright converted instead of elevated. This means most lines at some point run on street level and close to waterway that could surge and flood out the tracks leaving rust deposits on rails or outright eatting them to the ballast. Metropolis Transit wants to combat this with more elevated subway space to store trains. Since during storm it's require to keep all running tracks clear, only the 79 elevated's express track, Exhibtion Hall and Blue Beach Depot (barely) are elevated enough to let water run through under it. Still monster surges in Sandy top the levee at Blue Beach leaving NTSB member to push for more elevated space.

Exhibition Hall is a good 45 feet above the street and 50 feet above sea level.

There is no definite location eyed yet for elevated subway storage but Metropolis Transit is urged to work closely with BDot to solve this problem immediately. The NTSB classed the project "Urgent" on the list of US transportation improvements. Governor Patrick Soraz (R) counters this by dismissing the study as "rushed" and "another transportation bill to spend money on" but, the Senate is taking the study finding a bit more serious.

"Sandy crippled the largest transit system in Bridgerissa for almost month because of downed train cars," Senetor Kelly Jones (R) began, "So what is there not to take serious about this study? We can't have subway trains running in the path of danger and I will try to lobby this to get the ball rolling even if Soraz doesn't care."

Only time will tell what will happen in the answer of this potential political spin.