What would you do during a SunRail crash?

Have you ever paused for a moment when boarding a SunRail train to look at the posted diagram showing the emergency escape exits?

Most people never pay attention to those diagrams on the train, or on an airliner.

Folks figure, “Hey, it will never happen to me.”

Hopefully it won’t, but just last week six people were killed and several others were badly injured when a commuter train collided with a car on the tracks in suburban New York.

Five of the deceased were passengers on the train. We don’t know if the lack of knowledge of the exits played any role in the New York deaths, but common sense says it’s better to know in advance how to get out than trying to figure it out during an emergency.

Please take a look at the emergency exit diagram today. Let’s hope none of us ever has an emergency aboard SunRail.

Scoop on SunRail crossing gates

Recently we published a post about our concerns that some SunRail railroad crossing gates seemed to be malfunctioning.

We reached out to SunRail with questions, and for their explanation on what we see happening sometimes at crossings.

Here’s are SunRail’s responses and explanations:

“We know that the operation of these signals is quite complex.

“For instance, it is important to note that the safest mode for the gates to be in -- is in the down position-- in fact they are designed to go into a fail-safe mode in the down position. This would not necessarily mean that there is a malfunction, because this is how the gates were designed to operate.

“For the last month there were a total of 21 reported crossing malfunctions, for the week in question of January 25^th through January 31^st there were a total of 5 reported crossing malfunctions...”

“Regarding Holden Avenue, we have had recurring issues at this crossing which have been identified and should be repaired in total this week (planned for today). In the interim, train crews have been directed to verify the crossing is operating correctly and proceed across the intersection at 15 MPH. This does not cause delays to SunRail trains.

“Regarding Michigan Street, a mechanical failure was reported on Friday that required a single train crew to stop and flag for protection pending repairs. The crossing gate was placed back in service at 1500 hours. No delays were reported to SunRail trains.

“Regarding the Central Boulevard crossing, this gate was working as intended. When a train is stopped NB at Church Street Station, the crossing control equipment sees the train on approach to the crossing, predicts the train’s speed and distance, and then activates the crossing. 

“When a train stops at the station, after a predetermined time, the gates will go up to allow for the flow of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Once the train starts to leave the station, the crossing gates will be re-activated and the engineer is not allowed per CFRC operating rules to cross through the intersection until the gates are fully deployed in a horizontal position.”

We also asked SunRail to review a video we shot showing the crossing gate at South Street in downtown Orlando remaining down in a horizontal position after the train left the station.

SunRail wrote:

“This does not appear to be a malfunction. The gates are working as intended. The gates likely stayed down on South Street due to where the locomotive engineer spotted the train in the block at the station. (In other words, where the train was parked at the station in relation to a sensor)”

So what did we learn from this?

The crossing-gates system is very complicated. The gates can and do fail, but SunRail seems to be diligent about making timely repairs.

That said, we’re going to tell our loved ones to be very careful when they pass through a SunRail railroad crossing. Even though the gate just went up, a train could be on its way to the crossing.

Don't trust SunRail railroad crossings

We don’t know about you, but we don’t trust SunRail crossing gates.

Friday morning shortly after 9 we were driving to an appointment in downtown Orlando. Driving east on Central Boulevard we saw the lights flashing and the crossing gates lower at the tracks next to the big fire station. There was an SUV in front of us at the crossing. The gates were down for more than 30 seconds, but from our vantage point we couldn’t see a train. A female passenger got out of the SUV, and much to our horror she walked around the gate and crossed the tracks. Still no sign of a train.

After the woman crossed the tracks, the gates went up. Mind you we still couldn’t see a train. But the SUV in front of us (the one the woman got out of) didn’t budge. And then a moment later we could see the locomotive of a northbound SunRail train slowly rolling toward the Central Boulevard crossing. But get this: the crossing gate was still up. As the train reached the crossing the gate came down and the warning bells started ringing.

WTF!

What if we were coming down Central at a good clip and the gates didn’t come down until the train was actually crossing the street?

Now we understand why we’ve been seeing angry Tweets from motorists complaining that they almost got killed by a SunRail train. We thought those motorists were just SunRail haters, or reckless drivers. But no, we’re now convinced that there is something wrong with the SunRail crossing-gate system, and this problem isn’t isolated or new. We’ve been seeing Tweets about the crossing gates for months.

Think about it riders, how many times have you been on a SunRail train that had to stop so the conductor could climb down to the ground and use a red flag to stop traffic for the train to cross a street? (Shades of “Petticoat Junction”, Google it millennials) This past week we rode SunRail in the evening on Wednesday and Thursday and both nights the train had to stop for the conductor to flag traffic and Holden and Michigan Street in south Orlando. We’ve also seen crews working on crossing signals at several locations.

Thank goodness there have only been a handful of accidents with SunRail trains. To our knowledge, the crossing gates were not at fault in any of those incidents. But considering what we – and other riders and motorists – have seen, something is not working right in the crossing-gate system. How long before a malfunctioning crossing gate gets somebody killed?

No one should feel as though they’re rolling the dice when they cross the railroad tracks. Local government officials should be asking SunRail some tough questions.

We sent an email on this issue to SunRail on Friday. They told us they’re looking into it and will get back to us next week. Stay tuned.

Hooray for SunRail Ambassadors, they're coming back!

We’re so excited! The SunRail Station Ambassadors are coming back.

When SunRail launched in May Ambassadors were assigned to each of the 12 commuter-train stations to help riders understand the schedule, wrestle with the ticket vending machines and address other issues.

The Ambassadors were hired as temps, and in August – much to the dismay of many riders – they were let go. Their departure has been the source of complaints by many riders, especially new riders who arrived at stations and didn’t have a clue on how to use the ticket-vending machines or even which platform they should wait on. New riders tried to help the newbies, but that’s a heck of a way to run a railroad.

Wednesday afternoon during the Technical Advisory Committee of the Central Florida Rail Commission, a SunRail official announced that the Ambassadors would be brought back.

Officials acknowledged that their decision was driven partly because of continuing problems with the ticket-vending machines. In addition, the officials noted that new people are trying SunRail every day and they many have questions about the train, schedule and other details. The Ambassadors also played a very important safety role in making sure riders waited behind the warning line on platforms and stayed off the tracks. (Without Ambassadors present we’ve actually seen riders jump down on tracks to pose for pictures – what are they thinking?)

Bringing back the Ambassadors was very good public relations decision by SunRail because many regular riders really bonded with the Ambassadors. The SunRail commuter train system needs a friendly face at every station – especially when the unavoidable happens and things go wrong. With the massive construction project starting on Interstate 4 early next year there are bound to be hundreds -- probably thousands -- of new riders between now and next spring. The Ambassadors will have their work cut out.

We probably won’t see the Ambassadors in their familiar black golf shirts back for another four to six weeks. There’s paperwork and training that needs to be completed before they on-duty again. It will be good to have them back.