New rules aim to prevent repeat of rail shutdown Options

[KevinKorell]

From Asbury Park, NJ Press, 6/4/07:

NEWARK — A year after a power disruption shut down the nation's busiest rail line between Washington and New York, Amtrak officials said they've changed equipment settings, and commuter lines, such as NJ Transit, have new rules to prevent passengers from being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

The story continues here.

[ICGsteve]

As I recall the original fault was a converter going off line, but the failure of the system was caused by the fact that operators did not have real time information of the status of the system thus never operated the system as if it was on the brink of melt-down-as it was. They kept running all of the normal trains blissfully unaware that the power system could not handle the load they were putting on it. This report indicates that Amtrak has done nothing to correct that cause of the system going down. Changing the trip settings a bit is for the most part a meaningless gesture.