Why it took SunRail time to recover from Irma

With the threat of Hurricane Maria in our future, many people want to know why it took SunRail so long to recover after Central Florida was hit by Hurricane Irma.

Here is how an FDOT spokesman explained the steps taken to get SunRail rolling again after the mega storm:

“There were many RR crossing without power and we did not want to open SunRail service until we believed we could operate safely on the corridor. Also, there were more than 100 trees that had fallen onto the tracks that had to be removed.

“The trains people saw on Sunday were test trains. This was done to give SunRail a reading of how well we could navigate the corridor on Monday. It also allowed trains to make a first pass over the railroad tracks to break them in again, so to speak, after train service had been away, due the storm.

“Equipment needed to be checked, gates at RR crossings installed and put back into service, everything SunRail had to do to prepare for the storm had to be revisited to prepare for service.”

Not perfect, but not bad

When you ride The Rail early in the morning the last thing you want to hear is that your train got canceled. But that's what happened this morning when SunRail's first southbound run was canceled for "mechanical" issues.

That's really frustrating, but when you're dealing with machines, sometimes things are going to break and sometimes those problems are unavoidable. Considering that people count on the train to get to work SunRail deserves the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't cancel a train for trivial reasons.

But here's the good news. As soon as SunRail realized the problem this morning, they tweeted the information, and we even saw the early morning news shows reporting the cancellation. This was a fantastically better showing than the nightmare SunFail a month ago.

And here's the second good piece of news, SunRail did not allow one problem to ruin the entire morning. We were on hand at the Sand Lake Road station to see the second train of the morning arrive on time. Everything was back on schedule.

Way to go SunRail!