I haven't seen the news yet, but I do believe the Air Train derailed today on it's VERY first test run! It "should" have gone from JFK Airport to the LIRR connection in Jamaica. I have no comments. I thought it was a total waste of money to begin with. This was on everyone's mind I'm sure when it took off today and derailed.
Damn, I didn't know until the 11 PM news last night that the engineer/motormen died in the accident. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/58169.htm [ 28. September 2002, 12:48: Message edited by: Johnny Trains ]
I too knew that this was a flop from the get-go. LAX airport uses an identical Bombardier made trainset which has been flunking all it's test runs. There was a signal failure on one run causing one trainset to smash into another, destroying the one trainset. I will have to look for the article on that one but it too was on the news. Russ
A friend had told me it was the first run, but I see from the article that they had already had an accident! Two trains creased each other. What kind of fools have designed this project?
Earlier today, I read an article about this in a major east coast newpaper. When I came to a part that described the simulation weights being unsecured, and shifting, I had a hard time believing the words on that page. IF true, then someone sadly lacking in brain cells was employed on the project. BoxcabE50
Here is the article that I mentioned above. The accident was at SFO (not LAX as I said) on August 4th of this year. The article states that "minor" damage occured but in a later article it was said that one set was severely damaged: NEW AIRTRAIN CARS GET INTO ACCIDENT AT SFO SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (BCN) An automated people mover undergoing testing at San Francisco International Airport suffered a setback today when two trains collided on the elevated track. No one was injured, as the driver-less AirTrain cars were not carrying any passengers. SFO launched a 30-day test of its new AirTrain system about a week ago, according to SFO Duty Manager Dennis Neves. The internal people mover will stop at nine stations, shuttling SFO passengers between airport terminals, parking garages and the rental car center. The airport has said the hydro electric-powered AirTrain will replace SFO's rental car shuttle buses, which make almost 600 round trips daily. Neves said that at about 11:45 a.m. today, two trains sustained minor damage when one train ran into the back of another. The track was also damaged, he said. The San Francisco Fire Department was called to the scene as a precaution, he said.
This is how the derailment was reported in today's Trains-dot-com Newswire .... Trains Newswire for Monday, 9/30/02
Hank, this project should never have been started in the first place. What fool thought of putting 1000 lb blocks in the train also? I would imagine that the floor was new and slippery on top of not having the darn things secured. I'm not an expert, but how many times would you find five two hundred pound people standing in one spot anyway??????? What a sad event. A billon dollar waste of life. How many people wil ride this train anyway. It's limited as to how many people have access to it. Terrible. Thanks for the post.
Johnny, remember the JFK Express ("The Train to the Plane")? That was a bomb as well. Most folk that come to NY via airport do not stay in Manhattan or vice versa so not many folk used it. Newark is much closer and easier to get to from Manhattan and has more flights anyway. Now , instead of building this billion dollar mess (which has inconvenienced motorists of Queens for 4 years now) thay could have redone the old Rockaway branch of the LIRR for a lot less money. Unfortunately the local politicians caved to the "NIMBY's" . I am glad that at least the Port Authority is not afraid to explore rail transit but there were many better ways proposed to do this. I have a feeling that this is just someone's "legacy" project. Russ [ 02. October 2002, 03:45: Message edited by: rush2ny ]
