Amtrak Train Takes a Wrong Turn

[bill937ca]

An Amtrak train leaving 30th Street took a wrong turn and eventually wound up at SEPTA's  Cynwyd Station in Bala Cynwyd PA.. And you thought SEPTA was bad.  

 

News stores:

 

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/11/19/amtrak-investigates-how-train-headed-to-nyc-ends-up-in-bala-cynwyd/

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20131120_Amtrak_investigating_wrong-turn_train.html

 

Photos:

 

There is a more detailed description of what happened here.

 

The crew is being held out of work until additional training can be conducted.

Edited November 25, 2013 by bill937ca

[miyakoji]

Looking forward to Mudkip's comments.  Also, thanks for the ogaugerr link, I hadn't seen that.  A lot of info in there.  Two things not mentioned are how late the passengers were (not sure, but certainly hours) and why this was done (this service reverses at 30th Street, and apparently the cab car had a problem, so rather than moving the locomotive to the other end, they tried to reverse the whole train in a wye maneuver).

 

edit: ah, the reason is explained in the ogaugerr thread

Edited November 26, 2013 by miyakoji

[bill937ca]

Basically they were doing a wye on a stub end line.  Good thing they weren't on a main line and they didn't encounter a SEPTA train.

[Mudkip Orange]

The deal here is that the Cynwyd line is basically a single block. There's a whole bunch of flyovery type stuff that's left over from halycon PRR days but in modern times it's been cut down to a single track. There's a position-light signal past the crossover that lets you access Cynwyd and the Pittsburgh Subway (the track they were going to use to make the "Y"), and then the next light isn't until almost the very end of the line a bit over 2 miles later. And THAT light is always set to "15mph" unless there's a train already in the Cynwyd station, which there wasn't.

 

I've attached a diagram.

 

This train runs engine-first from Harrisburg to PHL, then reverses direction and runs cab-car first to NYC. The cab car was wonky, so they got the idea that they'd back it up past the interlocking, then use the Pittsburgh Subway (purple track). However, even after clearing the switch to the subway, the train kept backing, another 2 1/2 miles along the green track, and didn't stop until they got to the end. Once the train got to Cynwyd they were on SEPTA-owned track, the SEPTA tower operator couldn't radio the train (Amtrak is on a different frequency) they cut the power to the catenary. Eventually they needed to get a SEPTA operator to ride with the train until it got back to Amtrak-owned track.

 

So the train really didn't get "lost." They were on the right track (they needed to use the Cynwyd lead to reverse into the subway), they just kept going... about 2 miles too far. It's a bit a comedy of errors because any of several people could've prevented this:

 

---The guy in the cab car (most likely conductor) could've noted when they'd passed the lead to the Pittsburgh subway, or at the very least he could've figured out that they didn't need to back up as far as the bridge over the Main Line

 

---The guy in the engine (most likely engineer) should've seen that they had cleared the entrance to the subway (it should be obvious).

 

---The SEPTA tower guy should've radioed the Amtrak tower guy to see if the train was one of theirs before they freaked out and cut the power.

[brill27mcb]

As a friend of mine joked, it's Amtrak's new Cynwyd Corridor Service!

 

(For those not familiar with Philadelphia's "Main Line" area, there are a lot of Welsh names. Usually a "C" has a hard "K" sound, and a "Y" acts like an "I" so one pronounces it "Kin-wid."

 

Rich K.