Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Which protected account was it handed off to?
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
To be fair, her feed is mostly touchy feely BS anyways (I paraphrase - Sorry someone got hamburgered, thoughts and prayers). If I wanted to listen to someone emote to make me feel better about my relative lack of humanity after tragedy, I’d go see a shrink.
This - instead of we’re going to lock you up for your own good. And the sad thing is - this is hardly their first time.
AoD
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Allandale25
Senior Member
There's an unfollow option on twitter.
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Offpeak, (e.g. 1am) it is doable in a hair under 40mins according to Google Maps.
It's simply almost impossible at peak (even countercommute, fast pickup and dropoff) unless you creatively choose the day. And also get lucky.
raptor
Senior Member
The issue is that she does provide some useful info via Twitter, among much of what AoD mentioned.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Perhaps it is too much to ask for the Comms person identifying themselves as such to use the medium for something more useful and separate the wheat from chaff eh? Also, if only the more “official” social media outlets are actually useful, one wouldn’t have to follow her in the first place.
AoD
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crs1026
Superstar
In general I find the ML spokespeople as good at issuing sweet apologies afterwards - but play by play information (which is what was missing here) doesn’t come from them, it comes from the Operations desk. I have no idea how GO disseminates operational information, but I’m sure it doesn’t come from the spokesperson at Corporate.
In this particular scenario I have more than a little sympathy for the operations people. A lightning strike is a pretty extraordinary event which could mean anything from spending the next 24 hours rewiring the signal bungalow from the ground up, to swapping out a component or two, to resetting a few breakers and rebooting the electronics. In fact, this event was closer to the latter than the former. As @smallspy alluded, there were operational complications. A key constraint was that the delay early in the rush hour put equipment out of place for later evening runs, so even when you have track again, you don’t have trains and crews in the right place. Also, your operations people are waiting for someone to get to the bungalow (rush hour traffic in a serious rainstorm), do a sizeup, and report in, before they have any idea what the game plan might be. Until then, all you can say is “we are working on it”.
Recall that there was a derailment at this exact spot in what - 2007? There were lessons learned, but may not have been applied. The Canpa Sub was used in that event. I am surprised that the whole area isn’t much more hardened than it appears to be - it’s a key point in the system.
BTW, in a past life I had responsibilities in an emergency communications capacity in a certain well known utility. You have no idea just how much the arrival of Twitter changed that job. Once upon a time, you could spend an hour getting a media release drafted, edited, blessed by legal and senior management, and still be seen as pumping out useful and timely information about a breaking event. When you have 10,000 customers standing at Union, each with a smartphone, reporting real-time from the scene, it’s a race to get a straight answer that addresses the issue and doesn’t conflict with some other bit of information that has gone out.
- Paul
In this particular scenario I have more than a little sympathy for the operations people. A lightning strike is a pretty extraordinary event which could mean anything from spending the next 24 hours rewiring the signal bungalow from the ground up, to swapping out a component or two, to resetting a few breakers and rebooting the electronics. In fact, this event was closer to the latter than the former. As @smallspy alluded, there were operational complications. A key constraint was that the delay early in the rush hour put equipment out of place for later evening runs, so even when you have track again, you don’t have trains and crews in the right place. Also, your operations people are waiting for someone to get to the bungalow (rush hour traffic in a serious rainstorm), do a sizeup, and report in, before they have any idea what the game plan might be. Until then, all you can say is “we are working on it”.
Recall that there was a derailment at this exact spot in what - 2007? There were lessons learned, but may not have been applied. The Canpa Sub was used in that event. I am surprised that the whole area isn’t much more hardened than it appears to be - it’s a key point in the system.
BTW, in a past life I had responsibilities in an emergency communications capacity in a certain well known utility. You have no idea just how much the arrival of Twitter changed that job. Once upon a time, you could spend an hour getting a media release drafted, edited, blessed by legal and senior management, and still be seen as pumping out useful and timely information about a breaking event. When you have 10,000 customers standing at Union, each with a smartphone, reporting real-time from the scene, it’s a race to get a straight answer that addresses the issue and doesn’t conflict with some other bit of information that has gone out.
- Paul
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Allandale25
Senior Member
Sticking to twitter for the moment, is the concern that the various GO accounts for each line weren't communicating fast enough in your view on what was happening? Wouldn't following the account specific to the line you're using make you avoid following other accounts that give you a burden feeling of, in your view, of "emote" "relative lack of humanity after tragedy" and possibility needing to see a "shrink"?
I think Paul provided some helpful context here.
BTW, in a past life I had responsibilities in an emergency communications capacity in a certain well known utility. You have no idea just how much the arrival of Twitter changed that job. Once upon a time, you could spend an hour getting a media release drafted, edited, blessed by legal and senior management, and still be seen as pumping out useful and timely information about a breaking event. When you have 10,000 customers standing at Union, each with a smartphone, reporting real-time from the scene, it’s a race to get a straight answer that addresses the issue and doesn’t conflict with some other bit of information that has gone out.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
The line specific accounts are borderline useless - I follow it, but the announcements are not timely - and it provided no global overview of what's going on. If one had known about the severity of the issue - which was NOT communicated clearly yesterday by GO - one can make alternate plans not to jump onto the train only to get stuck where it is even more inconvenient to continue the journey via other means. A simple - at the moment no service is passing through x - kind of message will change the calculus completely instead of using the term "delay" - 5 minute is a delay; 2 hours is also a delay. What kind of a problem are we dealing with here - GO was silent. So lightining hit a shack - what are the implications to riders?
Also, Union Station is the chokepoint - there was nary an announcement other than the generic delay message even after an hour (at 5 or so). Is it any wonder everyone crammed up the trains only to get stranded?
AoD
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steveintoronto
Superstar
The dated but still relevant term is a "heads-up".
Even if the depth of the problem isn't known or even the permutations fully assessed, the public can be told that, and allow *them* the choice to proceed or not based on what information is available.
There might be other options, slower, but a known quantity to arrive later but indeed arrive at their intended destination, or if not, decide to stay a few hours somewhere comfortable and/or productive, or even overnight.
That so many are kept in the dark on the excuse of "we didn't know the complete picture at the time" is not only illogical, it's insulting and needless.
The term "chattel" comes to mind...
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
As much as I dislike the TTC - the no service between x and y is a model to follow here. It is a clear "avoid" signal - not a come get on and find out yourself one.
AoD
steveintoronto
Superstar
Agreed. The blunt truth is almost always the less painful. The decision then as to what to do rests with the individual affected, and often that's the best one to make it. Given the facts of the situation, some can even be picked up by a lift with a friend or family, or passengers can form ad-hoc groups to grab a cab or Uber.
Anything is better than being left in the lurch.
crs1026
Superstar
^It’s a two edged sword. The number of times on TTC subway that you hear “there is no service between....” and head to the street, only to hear that service is resuming.... finding an alternate way to get to say Burloak, only to find that the trains started running again, would be just as poor service in customers’ eyes. Wait and see works sometimes.
In some ways, a more serious event like a derailment or trespasser struck is easier to handle because you know service is down for the day, and can commit with confidence.
I do think GO needs to do better with loaded trains held en route - similar to loaded aircraft held on tarmac, that can be both highly stressful and downright unsafe.
FWIW I have been in a northeast US commuter road’s Ops Center (not GO’s) when something similar happened. Five people sitting shoulder to shoulder in front of more computer screens than you ever saw, all talking at once into headsets and at each other, nonstop. Impossible to follow, like a hundred games of chess all played at once on fast forward. Denzel Washington would be impressed.
- Paul
In some ways, a more serious event like a derailment or trespasser struck is easier to handle because you know service is down for the day, and can commit with confidence.
I do think GO needs to do better with loaded trains held en route - similar to loaded aircraft held on tarmac, that can be both highly stressful and downright unsafe.
FWIW I have been in a northeast US commuter road’s Ops Center (not GO’s) when something similar happened. Five people sitting shoulder to shoulder in front of more computer screens than you ever saw, all talking at once into headsets and at each other, nonstop. Impossible to follow, like a hundred games of chess all played at once on fast forward. Denzel Washington would be impressed.
- Paul
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Except that the service was out for about an hour when it hit rush at 5 - the most critical time - there are no reasons not to call it and compound the problem by having these overstuffed combined local and express trains out of Union only to get stuck - and it is actually more useful to follow the Twitter accounts of other riders at different points on the line and triangulate how f**ked the situation was than to follow the GO accounts, which is pretty damning in my books.
The question is - just what can be done after the fact? You can't unload them on the spot; you can't even move the trains much to the next station down the line because those are far fewer potential stops than subways. It isn't like they haven't been in this stuck trains situation before - what had been learned from a customer service perspective?
AoD
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Northern Light
Superstar
Are all the trains not GPS tracked at this point? Assuming that is the case, and their locations are known, could they not be approved by dispatch to move to the next station without signals?
As long as you know where all the trains are, I don't understand why you can't manage that? (I'm open to the fact there's an entirely logical explanation I'm unaware of).
I get where running anything like full service with a huge chunk of territory in the dark would difficult and dangerous. But could not more limited service still be run. If you used, say 4 train sets to track from Exhibition to Aldershot, could that not be managed?
Can the track ladders and crossovers be operated manually or do they require the signal plant to be up?
As long as you know where all the trains are, I don't understand why you can't manage that? (I'm open to the fact there's an entirely logical explanation I'm unaware of).
I get where running anything like full service with a huge chunk of territory in the dark would difficult and dangerous. But could not more limited service still be run. If you used, say 4 train sets to track from Exhibition to Aldershot, could that not be managed?
Can the track ladders and crossovers be operated manually or do they require the signal plant to be up?