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| Re: LIRR needs to improve ROW maintenance; new dieseld (497995) | |||
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Re: LIRR needs to improve ROW maintenance; new dieseld |
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Posted by Qveensboro_Plaza on Wed Oct 3 10:51:59 2007, in response to Re: LIRR needs to improve ROW maintenance; new dieseld, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Wed Oct 3 10:19:45 2007. <Where do you get that information from? - the few times you have ridden them?>> I have been riding the Montauk line weekly for 20 years, from the East End to NYC, so I can tell you this is absolutely true. The C3's have a many operational problems. Yes, the automated announcements are often out of service. And conductors do not always walk through the bi-level cars to announce the next stop, so if you are miss the PA announcement at the previous station, you are out of luck. I have seen people who were reading or dozing miss their stations because no one came through to call the stop. The toilets are in terrible shape. I spoke to a conductor about it a few years back, and he said the LIRR planners insisted on an automated flush system that frequently shuts down, causing backed up toilets. Maintenance empties the septic tanks only every few days, which can lead to some pretty disgusting conditions. I believe the new M7s have similar problems, since I often find out-of-service locked bathrooms on board. And the C3's air conditioning has always been a joke. I have learned to carry a sweat shirt all year round just to wear on board, even if it is 95 degrees outside, because the thermostats have never worked properly and it is usually freezing inside the cars. Not that I am complaining - the old diesel coaches were so broken down in their last years that many of them had no working a/c. I am not saying any of is Kawasaki's fault - they built what the LIRR hired them to build. But as a regular LIRR rider, it amazes me that this railroad screws up again and again, wasting millions of dollars and no one seems to be held accountable. Other railroads seem to have far fewer problems acquiring new equipment and making capital improvements. Where to begin? There was the long-delayed and way over-budget Hillside facility; the concrete ties for the Main line that were supposed to last decades without replacement, but the concrete specs were wrong and will they all have to be replaced; the DE/DM fiasco; the M7s; the on-time performance that is a joke. MNRR and NJT, in comparison, are models of good commuter railroads. Replacing the LIRR's president does nothing to change the bureaucracy and culture of incompetence that characterizes the LIRR and victimizes its patrons on a daily basis. But it is a political football, and Albany has thus far chosen to ignore the underlying problems. |
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