A resource on teenage suicides

Earlier in the day, I made a small app with Yahoo Pipes to pull the information off Twitter and show it on transitunlimited.org. Because I don’t use IPhones or Blackberries, I check the wiki see what’s going on. I use Yahoo Pipes to basically limit tweets to those that were made within two hours (anything past that are not useful).

When the Chief Operating Officer Chuck Harvey came to our CAC meeting, he was delivering a grim news about SamTrans’s $30 million deficit and the possibility of cutting bus service by 15%. While we were discussing the topic, I was checking the wiki for information on routes that could be eliminated, but I when I check the front page, I found all the tweets about that incident, and that’s when I made the announcement.

The front page also shows service announcement for BART and other operators. BART has its own RSS feed and other transit operators rely on emails, which are converted into a RSS feed.

Unfortunately this is no surprise for me. The politicians have ignored Caltrain’s needs for too long. This time we need to take action to preserve the service we fought for and we use.

Stayed tuned.

In addition, I also see the weekend Baby Bullet as a way to get more political support for Caltrain. The fact is that most commuters (voters) travel locally and wouldn’t be able to take advantage of Caltrain on a daily basis. For them, their weekend experience on Caltrain is a make or break deal. Unfortunately, Caltrain only offers the least attractive service on weekends.

What prevents Caltrain from providing weekend Baby Bullet service? Caltrain’s answer is that it needs the weekend work window to accomodate construction. Caltrain has a long list of construction projects coming, from platform reconstruction to electrification. Because Caltrain is an active railroad, these construction can only proceed when trains don’t run as often in high speed.

Even so, I believe there are opportunities for some limited weekend express service. From a revenue and a political standpoint, it is a win-win. Despite the upcoming construction projects, weekend Baby Bullet does not require new taxes or a 10-year wait.

Bicyclists:

• Just to be honest here, some people will choose to park their bikes if more safer parking is provided at stations.
• Also to be honest here, some folks will take advantage of a folding-bike subsidy if it is provided. Remember this is commuting, not some kind of a bicycle outing or a race. Caltrain shouldn’t be designing the bicycle program around those who only want to take their $5000 bikes between their homes and their offices. Remember, there are those who commute with K-Mart bikes and generally they are not as vocal as others are.
• Some bicyclists feel that they’ve a special privilege because they believe the bicycle program has saved Caltrain. Regardless, Caltrain is still the most bicycle accessible rail system in the country with no surcharge, permits, or peak hour restrictions.

Caltrain:

• Caltrain should strive for consistent bicycle capacity. 16-bike limit on some Bombardier trains is not acceptable, and that gets the most criticisms. Every Bombardier trains should have two bike cars for fairness sake.
• Bike rack design on Bombardier cars wastes space and the idea of a flow doesn’t work with the current rack design. Caltrain should look at ACE, who also operate Bombardier cars. ACE puts the bike racks on one side of the car and all seats on the other side. That leaves more room for bikes to move around. Caltrain could easily increase capacity from 16 to 20 by just rearranging racks on these cars.
• With the gallery cars, Caltrain should consider relocating the second bike car closer to the first car, as well as providing clear signs in front of the train indicating a second bike car. Unlike most other rail systems, Caltrain experiences unususally long dwell times at station, which increase overall travel time and decrease average speed. Bicyclists crowding on the first car, and with some running to the second car, only worsen the situation.

No one is truly right and no one is truly wrong here. It is just too much political bickering. With the approval of a bike parking plan, both sides should be working on practical solutions to reduce bumping and get the upgrade Caltrain needs in the long run.

Above is an Australian public service announcement on train safety.

Even for someone who is deaf or other hearing difficulties, there’s no excuse because flashing lights and lowered gates provide a visual warning. Of course everyone should always look both ways before crossing the tracks.

Generally, a lot of people think heavier is better. In the previous Metrolink collision three years ago in Glendale, a cab car was leading the train. As a result of that tragedy, there has been attempts by some people to ban the use of cab cars, with the belief that the accident would be less severe if a heavier locomotive were leading that train. However, this accident shows that, due to the strength and the weight of the locomotives, the locomotives would essentially transfer the energy to the next railcar rather than to absorb it. That next car was where most fatality occurred when it was pushed into the Metrolink locomotive by its momentum.

Also, this collision appears to be preventable. For a head on collision to happen, or for any collision between trains on the same track, someone must have ignored signals. Unlike driving an automobile, train signals (like regular traffic lights by the tracks) determine how fast trains should go. Train signals are to be observed strictly. More advanced railroads (including the Northeast Corridor) deploy an automatic system where the train would stop if the engineer violates a train signal. As a part of the electrification program, Caltrain is currently investigating some form of positive train control that would be built on top of the current system. Such system would prevent train to train collisions.

The new car at the left look almost identical the older Bombardier car at the right, except with larger windows.

The new car features vinyl seat covers, which hopefully will be kept cleaner overtime. A problem with cloth seat covers is that they trap dust, odor and dirt overtime. The older Bombardier cars are starting to smell bad because of that. Otherwise the seating configuration is the same as the older cars.

The windows are larger on the new cars. For some reasons, Caltrain has included overhead racks on the new cars. It is very easy to hit you head against the overhead rack when you try to stand up. Even Norm Mineta, then Secretary of Transportation, accidentally bumped his head against the rack when he publicly rode on the Baby Bullet a few years ago.