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UER Forum > Private Boards Index > Pissed Off > Public Transportation (Viewed 3095 times)
RebelDead 


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Public Transportation
< on 7/14/2011 4:40 PM >
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Here in Philadelphia our PT is called SEPTA. Now SEPTA and I are old friends. I commute everyday, therefore leaving my travels in the hands of SEPTA. Could I drive, yes. But it's too much to park, gas is expensive and I HATE TRAFFIC. So I actually enjoy the train. I can sleep, read, just relax and actually believe it or not I've been able to scout UE locations (That's one good thing). That is when they do their job. So the problems that I have with SEPTA are endless when it comes to reliability.

Just in the past year-

1. Train is late going home everyday. Yeah I know trains are late sometimes but this is EVERYDAY. Don't understand why they don't just change the time.

2. The other day my train got stuck 2 stops from work. No shuttle was provided and we were left to our own devices to get home. Some older folks had lots of problems with this. I get out of work at 3:30. I didn't get home until after 8pm. That is 2 buses, and a car ride to get my car so I could finally drive home. See they say it was the lines. Well I just happen to be on lines that SEPTA shares with Amtrak. SEPTA took no blame in the situation and denied my claim because it wasn't their fault. Ummm hello, I pay SEPTA $200 a month, not Amtrak.

3. Train broke down, chugged along to next station, broke down, chugged along to the next station, and then they made us get off to catch the train after them. I put a claim in for this as well because technically the train didn't arrive at it's destination (my stop) at it's scheduled time. So they didn't have to stop anymore they made it an express all the way to the last stop. I get off one before that, so technically it never made it. Claim denied. They said I had the wrong date. BULLSHIT! Not possible, I document everything

4. In between stops the wire from above breaks. I'm stuck in a car with a LIVE wire on top of it. We had to be rescued by the fire department. 3 hours later a NJ Transit train pull up along side us and we have to disembark, squeeze between trains and get on the NJ train. I have video of the fireman cutting fences just to get to us.

5. Train breaks down about 3 stops after I get on in the morning. They are able to go but we can't go above 10mph the whole rest of the way to my job. I was over an hour late.

6. I'm waiting to go home, and I'm on the platform. A train, not mine, breaks down on the track mine is supposed to come in on. There is another train right behind the broken one and my train was already on the track so it couldn't switch. Ok so the next train, or next time, is now coming in on another track. The problem is I can't take that one because it doesn't stop at my stop. The broken train is still stuck at the station. They make an announcement that the train that came in on the other tracks is indeed my train and not the one that doesn't stop at my stop. I go over, get on the train, sit in the very last seat available. A conductor comes through and said that the announcement was wrong and I was basically on the train that doesn't stop at my stop. I get off. By this time the broken train is gone and finally my train arrives.

7. SEPTA recently spent all this money on some new trains. It's about time too because some of the older ones seem like they are from the 70's. So you think this would be a somewhat good thing. Wrong! They seat less. Oh and the door placement wasn't thought out because now none of the doors line up with certain stops. Some of the stops have raised platforms. It doesn't do you any good if you can't stop the door on the platform.

I could keep going. Sorry for the long post. Just had to rant a little since I got the one denial yesterday. My only options right now are to write a letter. Yeah, like that will get me anywhere. They will probably disregard it just like my claims. Since I live in the furthest zone away from my job I pay the most. I think that the trains should be more reliable. I don't know what else to do, therefore I am extremely PISSED OFF!




Closer than you think~ When you dig up the past, you tend to get dirty.

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Samurai 

Vehicular Lord Rick


Location: northeastern New York
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No matter where you go, there you are...

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 1 on 7/15/2011 4:10 AM >
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buy a car/scooter/motorcycle.
problem solved.




RebelDead 


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 2 on 7/15/2011 5:10 AM >
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I have a car and a motorcycle actually. It wouldn't help to drive. It would cost about $200 more. Kind of defeats the purpose of working to make money when all it would be doing is go towards just me getting there. Oh and not to mention the traffic and wear and tear. So I can't win no matter how you look at it. Not unless I win the lottery and quit my job




Closer than you think~ When you dig up the past, you tend to get dirty.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebeldead/
vicexsquad 


Location: Oshawa, Ontario
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Explorer / Pediatric Nurse / Axe thrower / Bowler

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 3 on 7/15/2011 6:44 PM >
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I hear ya..
Where I live, I take something called the "GO Train" to Toronto everyday for work. It costs me $100 every two weeks (I only work 4 days a week) and there's never a week that goes by without some kind of lateness issue, train break down or anything like that. I remember one time, the employee in charge of opening all the doors and calling out stops was 30 min. late for his shift. Everyone was waiting for this one train and finally the guy showed up, went into the train and finally loaded everyone.

The best delay excuse (back in the fall) was that there were leaves on the track and someone had to get out and brush them off the track. This resulted in a 15 min. delay!




RebelDead 


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 4 on 7/16/2011 11:48 PM >
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Posted by vicexsquad
I hear ya..
Where I live, I take something called the "GO Train" to Toronto everyday for work. It costs me $100 every two weeks (I only work 4 days a week) and there's never a week that goes by without some kind of lateness issue, train break down or anything like that. I remember one time, the employee in charge of opening all the doors and calling out stops was 30 min. late for his shift. Everyone was waiting for this one train and finally the guy showed up, went into the train and finally loaded everyone.

The best delay excuse (back in the fall) was that there were leaves on the track and someone had to get out and brush them off the track. This resulted in a 15 min. delay!


They had to brush the leaves off! Wow...it's a train not a delicate machine. My train won't run if there is a certain amount of snow but I wouldn't be going in work anyway. But leaves... they are just silly.

The time the live wire fell on my train, since I was so late for work already I just decided not to go. So when I got to the station I called work, then found a train to go home. Well there was a train sitting there so I got on. 15 minutes later it's still there. I asked the conductor what we were waiting for. She says to me "We are waiting on a driver". I felt like saying umm where is the one that drove the train in. So I waiting about 10 minutes more. I hear others asking. She gives them the same excuse. I like we are in a train station, how is there not an engineer around. He showed up 30 minutes later. That was a day I shouldn't have gotten out of bed.




Closer than you think~ When you dig up the past, you tend to get dirty.

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jeepdave 


Location: Anderson, SC
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It's also a gun.

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 5 on 7/17/2011 7:51 PM >
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$200 a month for that? Shit, buy a $1000 beater and drive to work. I would never deal with PT but then again, I stay the hell out of big cities. I have ridden the BART in San Fran and the subway in DC and they can keep both of em.




Ezekiel 25:17
RebelDead 


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 6 on 7/18/2011 1:46 PM >
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Still wouldn't matter. Gas + Parking = $400




Closer than you think~ When you dig up the past, you tend to get dirty.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebeldead/
TRAINS 

Foaming at the Mouth


Location: Canada
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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 7 on 7/19/2011 9:59 PM >
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You might think with my username I'm going to disagree with your post, but no. I agree completely -- North American public transit is disgustingly poor.

For one and a half years I took GO Transit to school every day. Hamilton to Brampton and back, about 120km and 4.5 hours (minimum) per day on public transit. I was purchasing monthly passes from GO at the student rate of $300/month for my route. On top of this, I needed to purchase city bus passes because the GO Buses did not directly serve my school. I was spending roughly $18 per day in transit costs alone.

Eventually I had enough and decided to create an (informal) experiment to see if transit or driving myself was cheaper. I drive a 1998 Chevy 1500 pickup truck, so NOT an ideal commuting vehicle. In the summer of 2010, I was paying an average of $14 per day for fuel costs for my commute.

Obviously, this does not take into account other consumables for my vehicle, such as engine oil or washer fluid, etc, and doesn't consider increased maintenance costs. But driving myself also saved, at minimum, 2 hours per day of my time. And this is driving along the 403 and QEW which are notorious for awful rush hour traffic.

I continue to drive myself to school, despite fuel costs rising enough over the past year to offset my initial per day cost savings. But my time is still worth more than the miniscule cost savings I would gain by taking public transit.

Public transit, specifically in Ontario, needs a lot of work if anyone expects it to be taken seriously.

In regards to the leaves on the rail, GO Transit operates the longest (thus heaviest) commuter trains in North America, and leaves on the rail may prevent the lead locomotive from gaining enough traction to move the train. Same deal with your automobile and wet leaves on pavement... not an ideal surface to drive on.

....As an aside, GO Transit's train ridership is quite high and the network is expanding at a fairly quick rate. It's funny though, how many people are crying out for the electrification of the railway lines to provide clean transportation and the protests to diesel trains are actually preventing new services from being added. The irony is that people don't realize that a single train can take thousands of polluting automobiles off our highways... but that isn't good enough because it's being pulled by a "dirty diesel" locomotive.
...But this is a WHOLE OTHER topic of discussion that I won't get into here... god damn NIMBYs.




Baby like the way I wake her up, 'Cause I'm a gangsta, I grab her by the butt, Pull her to my side, I'm in deep, Woke that ass up just to put her to sleep
shadowedsmile 


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mines always on the mind

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 8 on 7/22/2011 12:16 AM >
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I take the TTC to school everyday and could spend days telling you about all the reasons I hate it. I also own a vehicle, but parking is unaffordable in downtown Toronto (and my school doesn't have a parking lot, just street parking) so it's not a reasonable alternative to transit. (I would be looking at $20+ a day most likely, and no guarantee of finding parking or how reasonably close it may be)

Both the system itself and the other passengers make me want to jump in front of the subway train every time I have to take the transit.




"Adventure is the respectful pursuit of trouble." - Expedition Overland
etchleon 


Location: toronto today...
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E Tenebris Lux

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 9 on 7/25/2011 5:54 PM >
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I hate the TTC. Where I live, they are ripping on the tracks EVERY year. I notice that the CN tracks nearby are hardly ever worked on. Can't the TTC get their civil engineering right for once? I would imagine the CN tracks take more abuse due to the heavy trains that run on them, vs the streetcars on the TTC.




TRAINS 

Foaming at the Mouth


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 10 on 7/26/2011 12:52 AM >
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Posted by etchleon
I hate the TTC. Where I live, they are ripping on the tracks EVERY year. I notice that the CN tracks nearby are hardly ever worked on. Can't the TTC get their civil engineering right for once? I would imagine the CN tracks take more abuse due to the heavy trains that run on them, vs the streetcars on the TTC.



While having to rip out tracks on a yearly basis does sound a bit excessive, the dynamics of streetcar infrastructure are substantially different than railway. It could have been a Toronto utility company that needed access underneath the streetcar line.

I don't know where you live so I don't know what CN line you're talking about, but railway tracks are routinely inspected (especially if GO trains operate on it), and small problems are fixed quickly before an issue arises that requires significant reconstruction.

As an aside, take a look at CN's recent track record (pun intended). CN isn't exactly respected for it's preventative maintenance. Infact, a whole subdivision in Southwestern Ontario was reported to have nearly been closed by a Transportation Safety Board inspector unless CN immediately initiated an emergency tie replacement program.




Baby like the way I wake her up, 'Cause I'm a gangsta, I grab her by the butt, Pull her to my side, I'm in deep, Woke that ass up just to put her to sleep
etchleon 


Location: toronto today...
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E Tenebris Lux

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 11 on 7/26/2011 7:36 AM >
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True CN is not the best safety record, but the line near me carries freight, VIA passenger rail and GO transit. I often see it being inspected; I rarely see major work, I've never seen them outright replace large portions of track.

It's been TTC crews doing track replacement 3 years in a row on the same section of track.

i'm not expert, but the amount of noise the streetcars make while taking a curve near me is far more than I hear on the CN/via/GO rails which also have a curve. Would I have any basis to suspect the friction around the curve is causing the noise, and that possibly the TTC has less accurate gauging of their rails than is present on the heavy rail line?

It's a line of inquiry based on my unrelated but still technical education and my training as an INT officer in the C.F. (where you always try to find answers to differences you find) You know more about railway engineering the I do, so I'd like to know if I so far off target that I'm bombing myself so to speak.




TRAINS 

Foaming at the Mouth


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 12 on 7/27/2011 12:54 PM >
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Posted by etchleon

i'm not expert, but the amount of noise the streetcars make while taking a curve near me is far more than I hear on the CN/via/GO rails which also have a curve. Would I have any basis to suspect the friction around the curve is causing the noise, and that possibly the TTC has less accurate gauging of their rails than is present on the heavy rail line?




Some curve squeal is due to the physics of a fixed axle wheel. The wheel traveling the inner rail of the curve travels is required to travel a shorter physical distance than the wheel on the outer rail of the curve. So while friction plays a substantial part in curve squeal, some of the noise is generated by either the inner or outer wheel to keep up to it's mate on the opposite side of the axle, and spinning on the railhead.

Since the TTC uses some very small radius curves to reduce the land space required, the wheel spin (and resulting squeal) is quite exaggerated. The TTC's gauging methods are fine though.

Trains require a much larger curve radius than streetcars so the wheel-slip squealing is less, but it's still very common to hear.

Most squeal noise is generated by the wheel flange contacting the outer rail in a curve as described by the pictures below:


Normal wheelset travel on straight track.


Normal wheelset traveling through a right hand curve.

And again, since the TTC uses such small radius curves, the friction squeal will be more exaggerated than on a railway.




Baby like the way I wake her up, 'Cause I'm a gangsta, I grab her by the butt, Pull her to my side, I'm in deep, Woke that ass up just to put her to sleep
etchleon 


Location: toronto today...
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E Tenebris Lux

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 13 on 7/27/2011 5:39 PM >
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I am familiar with the basic idea behind the noise... (I've destroyed a few final drive gears in our off road veh's after someone left the differential locked and parked it on pavement )

The small radius in the turn makes sense for increased noise...and probably increased wear on the wheel from rubbing up against the track.

Is there a reason for the solid axle? It seems like it would cause a lot of maintenance issues. What's the reason for not using a split axle like the rear end of a front wheel drive car?




TRAINS 

Foaming at the Mouth


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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 14 on 7/28/2011 11:25 PM >
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Posted by etchleon
Is there a reason for the solid axle? It seems like it would cause a lot of maintenance issues. What's the reason for not using a split axle like the rear end of a front wheel drive car?


A split axle would add a ridiculous amount of complexity to operations. Also, you'd lose the strength and rigidity that a solid axle can offer. And in the railroad world, strength and endurance is obviously very important.

The cost of maintaining such a truck design would far exceed the current cost of maintenance or rail replacement on railway track curves.




Baby like the way I wake her up, 'Cause I'm a gangsta, I grab her by the butt, Pull her to my side, I'm in deep, Woke that ass up just to put her to sleep
M. Fuzzy 


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Machine Gun Bunnies!

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Re: Public Transportation
< Reply # 15 on 8/21/2011 6:42 AM >
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Posted by TRAINS


A split axle would add a ridiculous amount of complexity to operations. Also, you'd lose the strength and rigidity that a solid axle can offer. And in the railroad world, strength and endurance is obviously very important.

The cost of maintaining such a truck design would far exceed the current cost of maintenance or rail replacement on railway track curves.


And with streetcars sometimes you get a lot of wheel slippage starting (they use sand a lot to help this), what with there being less friction with steel on steel than rubber on asphalt.

In this case methinks spinning both wheels on a solid axle would still be more efficient than all the power being lost through one crazy spinning wheel on a differential. Unless we want to get technical and have some specialized wheelslip controls implemented (which means spending $$$$).




Keep it fuzzy.
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