InsideTransit

Sad news out of Mathura, India today. A train bound for Delhi has crashed and killed 21 people and injured another 17 passengers. Read the full story about the crash on AFP. Local railway manager Rajendra Dutt Tripathi said a train travelling from the southern state of Goa to New Delhi had run into the back of the stationary Mewar Express, an overnight service from western Rajasthan to the capital.

From the AFP: Tripathi said initial reports suggested the Mewar Express was at a standstill because a passenger had pulled the emergency chain and the driver of the Goa express had overlooked a signal requesting him to stop.”

“R.D. Vajpayee, chief spokesman for northern railways, said that the company would pay 500,000 rupees (10,800 dollars) to the families of the dead.”

Nearly 18.5 million people ride the trains in the state-run transit system in India. There are 3oo train crashes a year in India.

Finally!! The transportation authority here in NYC (MTA) has finally decided to realize that it’s a damn pain in the butt to try to haul luggage on a bus bound for the airport. Today they announced a pilot program to test luggage racks on the bus routes that serve both LGA and JFK airports (i.e. M60, B15, Q3, Q10, Q33, Q48 and Q72).  One bus running on the M60 to LGA has the rack installed.

“We believe that the racks will be a great amenity, making things more comfortable for our customers and even helping our bus operators speed their trips. We are going to have our managers out monitoring these buses, asking our customers and bus operators if they are seeing an improvement,” said Joseph Smith, Senior Vice President in the Department of Buses. “If the results are positive, we will expand the installation of the racks to other buses on these routes.”

The issues I see with the luggage rack location are:

• security – placing the racks right next to the rear door allows a criminal to easily exit with your bag
• you must drag the bag from the front of the bus to the rear – my guess is many passengers will just continue standing towards the front with their bag

In any case, good for the MTA for testing out a feature that many other cities already offer on their airport-bound buses. I’d rather see larger and wider buses running on the airport routes rather than the low-floor tiny buses.

Vodkaster has put together a subway map that includes the best movies of all time. Subway lines on the map are organized by film type. Some of the movies on the map include: Godfather, Casablanca, To Kill a Mockingbird and Die Hard.

Download the full movies map here.

Last week the TFL (Transport for London) group put out a new London Tube map. The map removed the fare zones along with the Thames River. London Mayor Boris Johnson was “furious” over the Thames removal.

Apparently both items were removed for clarity. I think the river is one of the things that makes the Tube map special. For me it “grounds” the map and I agree with the London Mayor that it must be re-added.

The BBC has a story about the map change and notes that the Thames River will be re-added later this year during the next map update. TfL said the Thames would return on future maps following an “overwhelming public reaction”. From the BBC story, “Mr Johnson said: “I hope Londoners will imagine the Thames in place until it reappears on the maps, and will not forget their beautiful river.”"

For us NY’ers, it would be like the MTA removing Central Park from the subway map.

If you are planning to ride the bus in Honolulu, you better make sure you put on another coat of deodorant. And forget about getting some stinky food in a to-go carton. Gordon Pang of the Honolulu Advertiser is reporting that:

The City Council is considering a bill that will make it illegal to “bring onto transit property odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system, whether such odors arise from one’s person, clothes, articles, accompanying animal or any other source.”

Councilman Rod Tam, a co-sponsor of the bill, explained why it is needed:

“As we become more inundated with people from all over the world, their way of taking care of their health is different. Some people, quite frankly, do not take a bath every day and therefore they may be offensive in terms of their odor.”

I like that part – “some people do not take a bath everyday” – maybe Mr. Tam should come to NYC or San Francisco or any city on the mainland. Tam took the language for his bill from the Seattle transportation system.

Over 400 people have left comments on the post on the Honolulu Advertiser and I’ve seen thousands of comments on other posts about this proposed idea.

Under the bill, a person found in violation may be ordered to leave transit property and issued a summons or citation by a police officer. If convicted, a person could be fined up to $500, spend up to six months in jail, or be both fined and jailed. Could you imagine being jailed for smelling on the bus? What do you tell your celly?

The ACLU is now concerned with this smelly bill.

Earlier this week, bricks and tiles fell from the ceiling of the 181th street subway station in NYC. Work has been ongoing 24 hours a day to get the line open again and I am hearing that the line should be open on Monday.  The MTA has been posting photos from the work site at 181st – I’ve posted a few of them below.

This is a perfect example of why the MTA should have a blog – to humanize the conversation of events like this ceiling collapse. Posting images on Twitter is meaningless for the majority of transit riders who would be interested in viewing the work progress. Give me a call MTA – let’s talk. Instead of a blog, we get silly television commercials telling us how Bloomberg wants to fix the MTA – how come now he wants to do it – why not any of the other years? Oh yea, it’s an election year

Here a work crane is on the tracks on the right and a meeting is being held on the right platform:

Here is a photo showing bricks from the ceiling being removed – probably to be saved:

The bus company we love to think of as first-class all the way (note sarcasm), Greyhound, is moving across the ocean to the UK. You can see an example of the buses that Greyhound will roll with below – it’s a pretty nice looking bus from the outside.

From the announcement:

• The first UK Greyhound coaches will run between London Victoria and Portsmouth and Southampton with services scheduled to launch on September 14.
• The Greyhound UK coaches will have leather seating, free wi-fi, power sockets, air-conditioning and complimentary newspapers.
• First says the Scania Irizar coaches will have up to 20% more legroom than rivals’ vehicles while traffic light displays on the coach dashboards will inform drivers how well they are driving their vehicle. (LOL – “attention passengers, the driver of this coach is going well past the speed limit”)
• All Greyhound UK coaches will be named after women from popular American songs such as Sweet Caroline, Barbara Ann, Jolene and Peggy Sue. (will there be a britney spears – probably not since it would be prone to crashes)

I thought it was us Americans that wanted to be like the Brits not the other way around. There will be an online marketing campaign when the buses roll out targeting the young Internet audience. I sure hope the drivers remember that in the UK they drive on the left.

As a side note, why do buses in Europe all have those huge ass mirrors – I’ve never seen them state-side but on my European trips, they are everywhere. They remind me of the sticks used in cricket.

It looks like it might be a couple of days before the #1 train is back to its full route.  From the MTA, “At approximately 10:30 p.m. Sunday, a section of the brick architectural façade fell 35 feet to the track bed below. A downtown 1 train was in the station, but did not sustain any major damage…A contractor has been called in to remove any remaining loose brick and make temporary repairs, but those repairs may take several days to complete. 1 service will not resume until it is safe to operate trains through the area.”

My suggestion is to stay away and use other subway lines is possible – of course the only real suggestion is to take the A line and if you are in the Bronx, just stay home

Here are the official recommendations from the MTA:

• 1 train service will operate in both directions between South Ferry and 168th St
• Free Shuttle buses will operate between 168th St and Dyckman St (the M3 bus is also listed as a free option)
• 1 train service will operate in both directions between Van Cortlandt Park – 242nd St and Dyckman St

There are some impacts to wheelchair-based service – so call the MTA for the latest info at 1-800-834-1173.

They also let us know that the 181st Street station is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This is certainly exciting news for those passengers who need to get home! Please be patient and make sure to drink lots of water as it’s going to be hot and humid.

This is exciting except if you are one of the riders of the BART subway in San Francisco. As of Sunday night, the Amalgamated Transit Union has decided to strike. A strike would basically completely suspend service across the entire system.

The BART website has lots of suggestions on how to handle a strike if it happens. They include (sarcasm is mine):

• adjusting your hours – yeap that’s certainly possible for most
• telecommute – sure if you work a cash register or make coffee at a starbucks you can do that from home
• carpool – i wonder if those with vans will start gypsy service similar to that in some parts of nyc
• alternate routes – yep, you could walk all the way – wonder if they will let you walk through the bay tunnel
• ride a charter bus – this might be the best option but will still be massively overpacked with people
• bicycle – yep, another great option for 12-20 miles lol
• take other transportation

The San Francisco Chronicle has put together a forum where BART riders can express their thoughts and get help on how to commute in the event of a strike. Here’s their full post where they also note that over 340,000 daily riders use BART.

Best of luck to our bay area friends – just remember to breathe and don’t do anything that will put you on Alcatraz!

As a railfan, I am often asked which subway gets you to the new Yankee Stadium fastest. Well it’s clear from the video below that it’s the 4 train. The video below which I found on Subchat shows a race between the B, D and 4 trains from midtown Manhattan to Yankee Stadium. As one of my friends pointed out, the D is not blue in real life. Of course the trains are longer than one car, they don’t share the same tracks and the B is a local so it should never win a race. It’s sponsored by Subway (the sandwich place) and if you ignore all the transit mistakes, it’s a whole hoot of fun!